Klarinet Archive - Posting 000060.txt from 2004/06

From: ormondtoby@-----.net (Ormondtoby Montoya)
Subj: Re: [kl] glissando help
Date: Fri, 4 Jun 2004 16:22:43 -0400

Malapropisms and verbal flubs aside, this detour of the original thread
revolves around the original statement that a piano can't play a
glissando --- which is a statement that I accepted at first; but now
that I've read a few dictionaries, it appears that the reverse is true!

Apparently the word began with piano and harp, and later it was adapted
to violin on the basis of the physical sliding motion, not on the basis
of its sound.

Apparently clarinetists also have adapted the word to their own
instruments. Now we routinely substitute our perception of sliding
pitch for the original meaning --- which was "sliding a finger".

It's an interesting demonstration of how each instrument can become so
wrapped up in itself that it sees some other instrument as misusing
'their' word, when in fact the word originated with the other instrument
and *we* are the ones who have borrowed (and attempted to redefine) it.

===========

"You're weird," the kid at rehearsal told me, "actually, everybody is
weird.... because if you're normal, that's just plain weird."

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