Talk:Glissando

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What this article calles "true glissandi" should actually be refered to as portamenti. Portamento is defined as a continuous change in pitch. Unfortunately, portamenti are often wrongly called glissandi, which leads to the confusion between the two terms. Among trombonists, they are always refered to as glissandi or "glisses" even though what is played is a portamento. In this article the term "true glissando" should be replaced with portamento and "effective glissando" with just glissando.--Hrothgar137

  • Confusion about the origin of the "portamento" term leads to confusing definitions. I tried to help a bit. Uniseek

all the chromatic tones Maybe this is true on a piano, but on a harp it isn't always. When a harpist slides her finger down the strings, she plays the tones the strings are set to: not all the chromatic tones (theoretically she could but that would mean a ton of quick pedal movements). She plays all the "diatonic" tones to the "key" the harp is in. The tones are not always diatonic in the usual sense because the pedals allow the creation of "keys" with any number of sharps and flats. One commonly used gliss has a B# and an E#: not a real key, but it sounds pretty :) dreamyshade

  • Good that you brought this up - it's something I thought about when I wrote the text but later forgot. It's true: neither pianists or harpists play all the chromatic tones. Have to think of a way of reformulating it. Any ideas? --tbackstr

I had a go and ended up completely rewriting it - hope that's OK. I kept all of the good points hopefully, apologies if I over edited anything. - MB

  • Yes, it's definitely better this way, thanks. --tbackstr

I agree it's a lot better, but what's a "melodic note"?

A note that constitutes part of the melody, as opposed to an "incidental note"... we probably need a link to an article on melody here. - MB

I thought of one more thing: a very limited true glissando can be played on the harp. It is a pedal slide, and is sometimes used in jazz music, and accidentally other times :). If you play one of the lower strings and immediately move its corresponding pedal, you can sort of get a slide from the original tone up or down a half-step. I know it's a stretch, and doesn't need to be in the article, but it's an interesting thought. dreamyshade

How about what guitar players call a "slide"? The finger holding the string to the fretboard slides up or down the neck, shifting so rapidly to the different tones as to resemble a true glissando. Ed Poor

Quoted from the article - "On a harp, the player slide his finger up or down the strings, quickly playing the separate notes. Wind, brass and fretted stringed instrument players can effect an extremely rapid chromatic scale, giving the same effect." - MMGB

Contents

[edit] A request: portamento

It would be nice if someone could revise the article to indicate the difference (if any) between glissando and portamento. They appear to be similar concepts, but as a non-musician it would be nice if the article explained to me the exact relationship between the two terms. Psychonaut 17:23, 7 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I echo this request. I still worry that "true glissando" is a misnomer; portamento seems more appropriate here (especially without any citations present to declare otherise). Otherwise a clear distinction between true glissandi and portamenti seems necessary. --Adzze 03:16, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Piano tone bending

From the article: "On some instruments, a bending of the tone or continuous sliding is not possible (e.g., piano, harp)" It is possible, if you're willing to damage your instrument a little (and most avant-garde composers are). Volunteer Sibelius Salesman 19:39, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Fretted string instrument glissando

  • I removed the reference to fretted unstruments reaching a maximum of three semitones by bending; as any beginning guitarist who has played "Sunshine of Your Love" can tell you, bends of at least four semitones (i.e. two steps) are possible. Deltabeignet 03:10, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Harmonica

Maybe there should be a reference to glissando in harmonica since it is an essential part of blues harp and most methods of playing harmonica.

[edit] Guitar terms further muddying the water?

The technique of dragging your finger down a guitar's fretboard is called "a slide" and results in what this article calls "effective glissando". The cylindrical object you can use as an alternative to fretting is also called "a slide" and, when moved, results in what this article calls "true glissando" (what I would exclusively call portamento). I don't know if including that info in this article would simply increase the already high levels of confusion (given that, as has been pointed out, the "true glissando" usage recommended by this article isn't universally accepted). Boris B 08:42, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Effective glissando on piano

what is the most painless way to play an effective glissando on a piano? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 67.169.187.230 (talk) 04:42, 14 March 2007 (UTC).

Use the back of your thumb (The thumbnail). Just press down on the note and slide your hand up or down the keyboard. Make sure to use your thumbnail (or any other fingernail). Any other way will hurt. The Luizer 18:05, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Confusion

This article seems really quite confused at the moment. I came trying to find out what the term was and found conflicting information. A visit to grove music online has cleared it up, and now I don't see why for example 'piano' should be under the 'portamento' heading when you can't normally do portamento on a piano. I'd suggest a rewrite... Yaxu 19:57, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. Things like this with multiple conflicting definitions need references to clear up the confusion. — Omegatron 18:53, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] References, condensed definitions and examples, and a proposal to merge

The definition for glissando in the Virginia Tech Multimedia Music Dictionary describes the different techniques and results from each without using the term portamento. The definition for portamento does a better job of distinguishing between the two. The dictionary includes pronunciation, apparently recorded by someone with a discernable accent (Italian?); nevertheless, the pronunciation is correct and helpful (in my opinion, anyway).

Both portamento and glissando describe a slide between two notes or pitches. The slide is called a portamento when every tone between two notes is produced. When the slide is limited to sounding individual notes between the two pitches, it is a glissando.

A human voice is capable of producing a portamento. String instruments such as the violin are capable of producing a portamento when the player slides their finger from one pitch to another while drawing the bow across the string. The piano and harp are string instruments that are limited to glissandi. With the exception of a trombone, wind instruments are only capable of glissandi (and that requires mighty fast fingering).

For the sake of clarity, think of a slide between the notes B natural and C natural (mighty short slide); there are tones between the two notes. Instruments that can sound every tone between—voice, string instruments, etc.—create a portamento; instruments limited to playing the two notes themselves and none of the intervening tones—such as a piano—create a glissando.

I see no reason for there to be separate articles for Portamento and Glissando; in order to be informative, each article has to define both terms. Since I'm a "newbie" to this article, I don't feel comfortable placing the Mergefrom and Mergeto templates on the respective pages, Be bold notwithstanding.

Hopefully this was helpful and clarified the differences rather than further confuse the issue.75.58.45.66 17:19, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm not up to merging either, though it seems right to have the main article here. I had a go at a para. == Glissando vs. Portamento == Sparafucil 04:47, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Origin of the term "portamento" and its definition

To make a distinction between "glissando" and "portamento" it simply isn't enough just to go and look the words up in a dictionary, because the two terms are highly disputed even amongst the authors of dictionaries.

I find it useful to go back to the origin of the word "portamento". It was formerly applied only to singing and indicates "the carrying of the voice" from one tone to an other which was meant as a special form of legato-technique.
When a singer changes from one tone to an other (change of frequencies) without stopping the flow of the breath he or she has no choice but to slide through all the frequencies between the first and the second tone. Singers try normally to make this slide inaudible and thus give the impression of two tones being linked very closely (legato).
This is no problem as long as they don't change the register of their voice. But if they have to the whole thing gets much more complex and they run the risk of losing sound quality as well as volume (I am sorry of my description being not more detailed but singing is such a complex function of the human body that it can certainly not be fully described in an article like this.).
The solution of this problem is the "carrying of the voice" ("portamento") which basically means that the progress of changing between two tones is slowed down to give the singer more control of all the parameters she or he has to change together with the change of frequency. If the "portamento" is done correctly you will hear at the end of a tone a short slide to the frequency of the next one (mostly upwards, but also downwards). The portamento will be applied before the next syllable is to be pronounced and normally also reaches the target tone before the pronunciation of this syllable (because that is an other thing to help maintaining sound quality and volume).
So the idea of a portamento is to give two tones in legato the maximum beauty (as it is understood in belcanto-style).
If one tries to apply this idea to other instruments than the human voice, it would mean:
1. Hold a tone as long as possible
2. Shortly before the change to the next tone use the tones in between whilst maintaining sound quality and volume
3. "Touch down" on the target tone before the beat by marking it a little bit on the beat

If a portamento effect is wanted on the piano it would be best to play a marked apoggiatura consisting of the tone you are about to leave before the target tone rather than to break your fingers in an attempt to make a glissando.

"Glissando" means to glide from one tone to an other by using all the available tones in between. The kind of glissando you are able to produce is determined by the limitations of your instrument. The reason the term is often mixed up with the "portamento" is that one uses indeed a little "glissando" when executing a portamento but only as a part of a much more complex procedure. The term "glissando" sets the focus on the movement between two tones and there are many ways of executing a "glissando" including the possibility that the tones at the beginning and the end are of no musical importance at all, which is absolutely against the idea of the portamento. Of course singers can produce a "glissando" too. --Uniseek 11:46, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Harp arpeggio

I am very confused by what the article says about harp glissandos involving an arpeggio. What confuses me is the notes given: B, C♭, D, E♯, F, G♯, A♭. Aren't B and C♭ the same note? What about E♯ and F, and G♯ and A♭? Someone the Person 23:18, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Technically, no. Although they do sound the same, and in the western civilization's system of mean temperment, (e.g. how we tune our instruments) the notes have the same wavelength, the notes B and Cb are given because it is more correct to write this way. In musical notation in the written work, it is preferred that when giving a list of pitches, as above, that it is written diatonically, or in order. Otherwise, the list would look like this: B B D F F Ab Ab. These notes make up the B°7 chord, and an arpeggio is a broken up chord. The notes are different because a Cb is just that, a C lowered 1/2 of a step. It just happens to be the same note because of our tuning. In this instance, we have to think about the note Cb in relation to c, from whence the tone is derived. The person is just following conventional musical theory rules when writing notes out for printing. I will agree however that the section needs clean-up, I'll see waht I can do. Thenextstephensondheim1 20:29, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

This is a harp-specific spelling convention, different to most other instruments. There are 7 strings per octave, all of which can be raised or lowered by pedals, allowing the diminished seventh chord B-D-F-Ab to be played without skipping over any strings. Sparafucil 07:45, 20 September 2007 (UTC)