Term meaning "unintended overlaps between notes" in piano playing

Question

What is the proper or usual term that names the following problem in piano playing?

Problem: The finger, after striking a note, does not release the key on time but overstays (typically by about 50 to 100 milliseconds). As a result, the note sounds longer than it should and bleeds into the beginning portion of the next note.

The person in the video calls it "finger pedaling." But he is referring to it as a technique, something you do on purpose, for an effect:

I am talking about overlaps that happen unintentionally (because you are being sloppy), a problem.

(I am finding that my generic descriptions, e.g. "unintended overlaps," are no proper search terms and don't turn up anything useful. Once I know the term, I may come back here and ask substantive questions, e.g. how to solve.)

Add later: Just so I don't mislead, I should add that the unintended overlaps happen to me even when I am not being sloppy but on the contrary am trying my best not to have them, especially when going from finger 4 to 3.

Answer 1

Overlap between notes is simply an extreme form of articulation - the legatissimo. For obvious reasons, this is possible only on the piano and related instruments, but it's a valid stylistic choice.

Doing it unintended, by sloppiness rather than on purpose, is an error, but I wouldn't expect this specific playing error to have a specific name, any more than unintended staccato or unintended portato does.

Answer 2

You've answered your own question. When it's unintentional, it's just called sloppy playing. There's no "official" term for it. I've heard it called "lazy fingers", "delayed release", "blurry" playing, and no doubt there are a whole raft of other terms people have come up with.

Answer 3

I don't know if what you are explaining is necessarily a problem as much as it may be a style. I used to play organ in a church with a four second delay. No matter how crisp I tried to play, the sound of the organ would, you could actually hear it, roll down the length of the building, hit the wall and tumble backward over itself.

Some pianists will play a fast scale but instead of keeping it crisp will pedal it. I personally don't like it because as an organist we don't have sustain pedals but it is a style. It could be that instead of thinking that your playing is sloppy, maybe your brain desires a more reverberant sound and instructs your fingers to make it so.

Answer 4

Musical terms describe a kind of execution and there is really no difference between "described" and "prescribed". So you typically need to add a descriptor for the lack of consistency in execution.

You can add a qualifier to the intended articulation, most likely "leggiero" and call it "inconsistent leggiero" or use other attributes on "leggiero", like "unconvincing", "intermittent", "botched".

Another possibility is to intentionally use a non-formal term. Instead of "legato" you can try "slurred" or "slurry". This is reminiscent of the musical term of the notation element "slur" without suggesting its intentional implementation as "legato" phrasing.

"legato articulation" sounds deliberate, "slurred articulation" doesn't.