Editing Glissando

{{Short description|Glide between pitches}}
{{for|the 1982 Romanian film|Glissando (film)}}
{{redirect|Gliss|the band|Gliss (band)}}
{{Image frame|content=<score lang="lilypond"> {
\override Score.TimeSignature #'stencil = ##f
    \relative c' {
        \override Glissando.style = #'trill
        e2\glissando e'
    }
}
</score>|width=120|caption=Notated glissando from E<sub>4</sub> to E<sub>5</sub>}}In [[music]], a '''glissando''' ({{IPA|it|ɡlisˈsando|lang}}; plural: ''glissandi'', abbreviated ''gliss.'') is a [[wikt:glide|glide]] from one [[pitch (music)|pitch]] to another ({{audio|Glissando upwards an octave from C.mid|Play}}). It is an Italianized [[Musical terminology|musical term]] derived from the French ''glisser'', "to glide". In some contexts, it is equivalent to [[portamento]], which is a continuous, seamless glide between notes. In other contexts, it refers to discrete, stepped glides across notes, such as on a piano. Some terms that are similar or equivalent in some contexts are '''slide''', '''sweep''' '''bend''', '''smear''', '''rip''' (for a loud, violent glissando to the beginning of a note),<ref>{{Cite Grove |author=Anon. |title=Rip|date=2003}} (Though the editor is Deane Root, not L. Deane Root).</ref> '''lip''' (in [[jazz]] terminology, when executed by changing one's [[embouchure]] on a [[wind instrument]]),<ref>{{Cite Grove |last=Witmer |first=Robert |title=Lip}}, from ''The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz'', second edition, edited by Barry Dean Kernfeld (New York: Grove Dictionaries, 2002).</ref> '''plop''', or '''falling hail''' (a glissando on a harp using the back of the fingernails).<ref>{{cite web |url = http://www.harpspectrum.org/glossary/glossary.shtml |title = Harp Spectrum - Glossary A - M |website = harpspectrum.org |publisher = Harp Spectrum |access-date = May 8, 2015 |quote = falling hail: gliding in the center of the strings with the back of the fingernails. (C. Salzedo) |archive-date = October 21, 2006 |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20061021175221/http://www.harpspectrum.org/glossary/glossary.shtml |url-status = live }}</ref> On wind instruments, a '''scoop''' is a glissando ascending to the onset of a note achieved entirely with the [[embouchure]], except on instruments that have a slide (such as a [[trombone]]).<ref>{{Cite encyclopedia |date=2001 |title=Scoop|encyclopedia=[[The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians|Grove Music Online]] |series=Oxford Music Online |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |doi=10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.J400300}}</ref>

==Notation==
[[File:Glissando.JPG|795px|thumb|center|Several examples of the musical notation of glissando]]
The glissando is indicated by following the initial note with a line, sometimes wavy, in the desired direction, often accompanied by the abbreviation ''gliss.''. Occasionally, the desired notes are notated in the standard method (i.e. semiquavers) accompanied by the word 'glissando'.

==Discrete glissando==
On some instruments (e.g., [[piano]], [[harp]], [[xylophone]]), discrete tones are clearly audible when sliding. For example, on a [[Keyboard instrument|keyboard]], a player's fingernails can be made to slide across the white keys or over the black keys, producing either a [[C major]] scale or an [[F-sharp major|F{{music|#}} major]] [[pentatonic scale]], or their [[minor scale|relative]] [[Mode (music)|modes]]; by performing both at once, it is possible to produce a full [[chromatic scale]]. [[Maurice Ravel]] used glissandi in many of his piano compositions, and "[[Miroirs|Alborada del Gracioso]]" contains notable piano glissando passages in thirds executed by the right hand. [[Rachmaninoff]], [[Prokofiev]], [[Liszt]] and [[Gershwin]] have all used glissandi for piano in notable compositions.

[[Organ (music)|Organ]] players—particularly in contemporary music—sometimes employ an effect known as the palm glissando, where over the course of the glissando the flat of the hand is used to depress a wide area of keys simultaneously, resulting in a dramatic [[Atonality|atonal]] sweep.{{Citation needed|date=February 2020}} 

A similar device on the piano is cluster-glissandos, used extensively by [[Karlheinz Stockhausen]] in ''[[Klavierstücke (Stockhausen)#Klavierstück X|Klavierstück X]]'', and which "more than anything else, lend the work its unique aural flavour".<ref>[[Joscelyn Godwin|Godwin, Joscelyn]]. "Karlheinz Stockhausen: Nr. 4, ''Klavierstück X''" (review). ''[[Notes (journal)|Notes]]'', second series, 25, no. 2 (December): 332–33. Citation on 333.</ref> On a harp, the player can slide their finger across the strings, quickly playing the scale (or on pedal harp even [[arpeggio]]s such as C{{music|flat}}-D-E{{music|sharp}}-F-G{{music|sharp}}-A{{music|flat}}-B). [[Wind instrument|Wind]], [[Brass instrument|brass]], and fretted-stringed-instrument players can perform an extremely rapid chromatic scale (e.g., sliding up or down a string quickly on a fretted instrument).

Arpeggio effects (likewise named glissando) are also obtained by bowed strings (playing [[Harmonic#Harmonics on stringed instruments|harmonics]]) and brass, especially the [[French horn|horn]].<ref>Del Mar, Norman: ''Anatomy of the Orchestra'' (University of California Press 1981). String harmonic glissandi are discussed pp. 132-33; horn glissandi pp. 252-254</ref>

==Continuous glissando ==

[[File:Posaune Glissando Wiki Loves Music 2017.webm|thumb|A trombone playing a glissando]]
[[Musical instrument]]s with [[:Category:Continuous pitch instruments|continuously variable pitch]] are capable of continuous glissando, sometimes called [[portamento]], over a substantial range. These include unfretted [[chordophones]] (such as the [[violin]], [[viola]], [[cello]] and [[double bass]], and [[fretless guitar]]s), stringed instruments with a way of stretching the strings (such as the [[guitar]], [[veena]], [[sitar]] or [[pipa]]), a fretted guitar or [[lap steel guitar]] when accompanied with the use of a slide, wind instruments without valves or stops (such as the [[trombone]] or [[slide whistle]]), [[timpani]] (kettledrums), electronic instruments (such as the [[theremin]], the [[ondes Martenot]], [[synthesizer]]s and [[keytar]]s), the [[water organ]], and the [[human voice]].

Wind instruments can effect a similar limited slide by altering the lip pressure (on [[trumpet]], for example) or a combination of [[embouchure]] and rolling the head joint (as on the flute), while others such as the [[clarinet]] can achieve this by slowly dragging fingers off tone holes or changing the oral cavity's resonance by manipulating tongue position, [[embouchure]], and throat shaping.<ref name=Chen>{{cite web|last=Chen|first=Jer Ming|title=How to play the first bar of Rhapsody in Blue|url=http://www.acoustics.org/press/155th/chen.htm|publisher=Music Acoustics, School of Physics, UNSW|access-date=28 April 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130425041259/http://www.acoustics.org/press/155th/chen.htm|archive-date=25 April 2013|url-status=dead}}</ref>

Many [[Electric guitar|electric guitars]] are fitted with a [[tremolo arm]] which can produce either a portamento, a [[vibrato]], or a combination of both (but not a true [[tremolo]] despite the name).

Prescriptive attempts to distinguish the glissando from the [[portamento]] by limiting the former to discrete, stepped glides conflict with established usage of the term for instruments like the [[trombone]] and [[timpani]].<ref>''Harvard Dictionary of Music'', edited by Willi Apel (Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press, 1944): 298 or 595{{Contradict-inline|date=January 2016}}</ref> The clarinet gesture that opens ''[[Rhapsody in Blue]]'' was originally notated as a stepped glissando (Gershwin's score labels each individual note) but is in practice played as a portamento.<ref>{{cite book |author=Greenberg, Rodney| year=1998| title=George Gershwin| publisher=Phaidon Press| isbn=0-7148-3504-8| pages=70}}</ref>

==Bent note==
<!--[[Bent note]] and [[bent notes]] redirect directly here.-->
{{more citations needed section|auto=yes|date=December 2009}}
A '''bent note''' is a [[musical note]] that is varied in [[Pitch (music)|pitch]]. With [[Fret|unfretted]] strings or other continuous-pitch instruments such as the [[trombone]], or with the human [[Vocal music|voice]], such variation is more properly described in terms of [[Intonation (music)|intonation]]. A note is commonly bent to a higher pitch on fretted instruments literally by bending the string with excess finger pressure, and to a lower pitch on [[harmonica]] (a [[Free reed aerophone|free-reed aerophone]]) by altering the vocal tract to shift the resonance of the reed.<ref>Bahnson, Henry T., James F. Antaki, and Quinter C. Beery. "Acoustical and physical dynamics of the diatonic harmonica." The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 103.4 (1998): 2134-2144.</ref> On brass instruments such as the trumpet, the note is bent by using the lip. "[[indefinite pitch|Indeterminately pitched instruments]] [such as [[unpitched percussion instrument]]s and friction [[drum roll]]s]...produce a pitch or pitch spectrum that becomes higher with an increase of [[dynamics (music)|dynamic]] and lower with a decrease of dynamic."<ref>Solomon, Samuel Z. (2016). ''How to Write for Percussion: A Comprehensive Guide to Percussion Composition'', p.246. Oxford University. {{ISBN|9780199920358}}.</ref>

The bent note is commonly found in various forms of [[jazz]], [[blues]], and [[rock music|rock]].

==See also==
*[[String bending]]
*[[Bend (guitar)]]
*[[Blue note]]
*[[Fretless guitar]]
*[[Fretless bass]]
*[[Hexatonic scale|Blues scale]]
*[[List of ornaments]]
*[[Meend]]
*[[Octave glissando]]
*[[Portamento]]
*[[Shepard tone]] (cf. ''Shepard-Risset glissando'')
*[[Staccato]]
*[[Vibrato]]

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==Further reading==
* Boyden, David D., and Robin Stowell. 2001. "Glissando". ''The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'', second edition, edited by [[Stanley Sadie]] and [[John Tyrrell (professor of music)|John Tyrrell]]. London: Macmillan Publishers.
* Harris, Ellen T. 2001. "Portamento". ''The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'', second edition, edited by [[Stanley Sadie]] and [[John Tyrrell (professor of music)|John Tyrrell]]. London: Macmillan Publishers.
* Hoppe, Ulrich, Frank Rosanowski, Michael Döllinger, Jörg Lohscheller, Maria Schuster, and Ulrich Eysholdt. 2003. "Glissando: Laryngeal Motorics and Acoustics". ''Journal of Voice'' 17, no. 3 (September): 370–76.
* Piston, Walter. 1955. ''Orchestration''. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.

{{Wiktionary|glissando}}
{{Extended techniques}}
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