Klarinet Archive - Posting 000055.txt from 2004/06

From: ormondtoby@-----.net (Ormondtoby Montoya)
Subj: Re: [kl] glissando help
Date: Fri, 4 Jun 2004 10:33:12 -0400

I wrote:

> portobello

Karl and Lelia wrote:

> portamento

I didn't notice my error even after Karl corrected me. Sorry, Karl.
My mind was *really* on food last night. I was hungry for a decent
meal and I didn't get it. "Portamento.... portamento... portamento"
[Ormond repeats to himself many times]

All the dictionaries that I have begin their definitions with the
derivation from the French word "glisser" (to slide), but they reference
a physical motion --- the sliding of a FINGER on a piano --- not the
sound of a sliding pitch. Thus violin and harp and trombone qualify
for "glissando" (in all of the dictionaries that I have) because a
finger or metal tube can slide.

New College Encylcopedia says (after first discussing piano, then harp,
then violin, then trombone):

> In other wind instruments an IMITATION
> [emphasis mine] of a glissando can be
> produced by increased lip pressure which
> raises the pitch of each individual note until
> the next one is reached."

and in its separate definition for "portamento", the College
Encylcopedia talks about singing, not about wind instruments, and
finally concedes:

> A similar [to portamento] effect on the
> trombone is generally referred to as
> glissando.

without mentioning reed instruments.

There seems to be general agreement that "glissando" belongs more to
world of phsyically sliding a finger or tube, and we clarinetists ought
to be using some other word because we are truly doing something
different than "glissando".

(drats, I may need to try cooking some crab meat in a portabello
mushroom myself now. I just can't get the taste out of my mind)

YMMV

---------------------------------------------------------------------
Klarinet is a service of Woodwind.Org, Inc. http://www.woodwind.org