Klarinet Archive - Posting 000012.txt from 2009/04

From: Joseph Wakeling <joseph.wakeling@-----.net>
Subj: [kl] Glissando vs. portamento and music dictionaries
Date: Fri, 03 Apr 2009 11:02:55 -0400

I wrote:
> Sean Osborn wrote:
>> The easy way to remember:
>> A Piano can play a glissando, but cannot play a portamento.
>>
>> A portamento is a slide, and a glissando is notes.
>
> Yes, this is what dictionaries and orchestration books almost always
> tell you, in their brook-no-dissent, take-no-prisoners way. :-)

One of the things I noticed is that the only reference I've ever seen
cited for the slide/scale distinction between portamento and glissando
is the Harvard Dictionary of Music.

Other dictionaries, though, don't necessarily give the same definition.
For example, here are the Dolmetsch Music Dictionary Online definitions:

------------------------------------------------------------------------
glissando (English, German n.) also glissato, glissicando or glissicato.

-- a continuous slide in pitch. On the violin, the left hand finger is
placed on the string and then, as the note is played, the finger slides
up or down the finger board. The beginning and end note of the glissando
are written and connected by either a straight or a wavy line. Usually
the word gliss. or glissando will be written above. This is what some
writers call 'a true glissando'.

-- on the piano, to run the nail or a finger or the back of the thumb
along the keyboard over many notes, see glissant, glisser. This is what
some writers call 'an effective glissando', in that the change in pitch
is by discrete steps rather than through a continuous and steady shift.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------------
portamento (Spanish m., German n., French m., Italian m., literally
'carrying')

-- very legato, carrying a vocal or instrumental line without gaps

-- on stringed instruments, an expressive device, a slide from one
pitch to another, usually stopping for moment either above or below the
destination pitch, which was very popular in the 19th- and early
20th-centuries, but has more recently fallen into disuse

-- a smooth glide between the two notes, including all the pitches in
between. For some instruments, like violin and trombone, this includes
even the pitches in between the written notes. For other instruments,
such as guitar, it means sliding through all of the possible notes
between the two written pitches. Although unusual in traditional common
notation, a type of portamento that includes only one written pitch can
be found in some styles of music, notably jazz, blues, and rock. The
proper performance of scoops and fall-offs (the latter also called drops
or spills) requires that the portamento begins (in scoops) or ends (in
fall-offs, drops or spills) with the slide itself, rather than with a
specific note
------------------------------------------------------------------------

... which raises some interesting questions about the (sometimes undue)
influence of some individual famous reference works.

Since 'gliss.' notation was well-established in the literature by the
time of the first edition of the Harvard Dictionary of Music (1944), it
makes me wonder if the dictionary (which I don't own or have access to)
was attempting to propose a desirable distinction, rather than describe
the actual distinction found in music of the time.

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