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Re: pictures

Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2006-03-03 16:06

"Glissando" and "portamento" overlap.

A portamento is always a slide from one note to another, such as old-fashioned violin soloists make. Listen to Elman, for example. The interval is usually narrow. Vocalists use the word to describe a sliding connection between notes, almost always descending.

A glissando can be a sequence of notes. A piano or harp can play a glissando. I think of it as covering a wide interval.

A violin performance of Ravel's Piece en Forme Habanera has, at the end, a long, slow slide up an octave and then back down. This is done with a single finger. Some clarinetists leave it out, and some do a chromatic scale. I think of it as just a "slide."

The clarinet entrance in Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue was originally written as a fast chromatic scale, but the first performer played a slide beginning in the second register. It's usually called a glissando, and it certainly wouldn't be called a portamento.

There's no precision in the usage. A particular item could easily be called a portamento, a glissando, a slide, a smear or any number of other things.

Don't worry. Be happy.

Ken Shaw

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pictures new

jez

2006-03-02 08:50