In music notation, a tie is a curved line connecting the heads of two notes of the same pitch and name, indicating that they are to be played as a single note with a duration equal to the sum of the individual notes' values. A tie is similar in appearance to a slur, however slurs join notes of different pitches which need to be played independently, but seamlessly.
The tie shown at right (in blue) connects a quarter note (crotchet) to a sixteenth note (semiquaver), creating a note 5⁄4 as long as a quarter note, or five times as long as a sixteenth note—there is no single note value to express this duration. However, in some cases one might tie two notes that could be written with a single note value, such as a quarter note tied to an eighth note (the same length as a dotted quarter). This might be because:
8 measure with three equal notes would have a quarter note on each side but two tied eighth notes in the middle; a 3
4 measure with three equal notes would have all quarter notes.
Several notes in succession can be tied together. Such a succession can also be part of a larger, slurred phrase, in which case, ties and slurs must be used simultaneously and distinguishably.