Slurs
A slur is a curved line above or below two or more different notes. It tells you to play the notes smoothly. Playing smoothly (called legato). To play legato, only tongue the first note of the group and keep blowing while you change your finger positions for the other notes.
Here are some more examples to help you become more familiar with slurs. Remember to tongue only the first note of each group of notes connected by the slur.
Staccato
A dot above or below a note indicates that the note is to be played staccato, which means short and separate from other notes. This is the opposite of legato. To play a note staccato, make a short 't' action with your tongue, and cut off your breath as soon as you tongue the note.
To gain control of the way you play notes, it is a good idea to practice alternating between ordinaty tonguing and staccato tonguing as shown in this example.
