Staccato

[4] In 20th-century music, a dot placed above or below a note indicates that it should be played staccato, and a wedge is used for the more emphatic staccatissimo.

A number of signs came to be used in the late 19th and early 20th centuries to discriminate more subtle nuances of staccato.

[5] The example below illustrates the scope of the staccato dot: In the first measure, the pairs of notes are in the same musical part (or voice) since they are on a common stem.

The opposite musical articulation of staccato is legato, signifying long and continuous notes.

This can be notated with little pikes over or under the notes, depending on stem direction, as in this example from Bruckner's Symphony No.