I'm learning piano and recently encountered slurs and phrases. I'd like clarification on the following that relate to these two ideas.
The book[1] I'm using introduces the idea of phrases, then later introduces slurs:
In vocal music, singing more than one note on one syllable is shown by a slur...
The accompanying example shows pairs of slurred notes within existing phrases, along with lyrics. The phrase, including these slurred notes, are all played with the same hand.
Am I correct in taking these particular slurs to be for vocalist only? So, a pianist would play all these as a single phrase, ignoring these slurs?
Slur is defined much later as:
a curved line over or under a group of two or three notes. Think of it as a very short phrase...
So, do slurs only really have relevance for piano outside of phrases, as a way of indicating connectedness of notes, e.g. playing notes legato?
The definition in 2 doesn't explicitly mention it, but I've seen it mentioned that slurs connect different notes together, not the same repeated note.[2]
If you have repeated notes connected by a curved line across more than one bar, will this always represent a tied note, never slurred notes? (Or maybe a slurred repeated note is still potentially meaningful for piano if you're using the sustain pedal?)
It seems you can distinguish tie lines from slurs/phrases. Tie lines go between the notes, whereas slur and phrase markers tend to go "closer", and more over/under the affected notes. Is there any clear way of telling a slur apart from a phrase by the curved line's appearance alone, or do you always have to look at the number of notes and musical context?
[1]: The Classic Piano Course, Book 1 by Carol Barratt.
[2]: For piano, maybe, at least. You can have meaningful slurs on the same note for some instruments.