Schleifer

Schleifer is German for ‘slider’ or ‘slide’ (also called coulé in French, slide in English). It is a Baroque ornament consisting of two or three grace notes ascending (or descending) into the principal note, creating a melodic slide into the principal pitch.

The ornament is most common in Baroque keyboard music. The notation is typically two or three small grace notes attached to a principal note, with the grace notes leading by stepwise motion into the principal. The ornament serves to ‘slide into’ the principal note expressively.

Unlike the appoggiatura (which is a single dissonant note resolving to the principal), the schleifer is a stepwise approach — typically a third or fourth above or below the principal, leading down (or up) to it through scalar grace notes.

German, ‘slider’, from schleifen (‘to slide, drag’).

Execute the grace notes lightly and stepwise. The slide should feel like a graceful approach to the principal note, not a heavy emphasis. Light, decorative, leading.