# A Dictionary of Music and Musicians/Slide (ornament)

​SLIDE (Ger. Schleifer; Fr. Coulé), an ornament frequently met with in both vocal and instrumental music, although its English name ​has fallen into disuse. It consists of a rapid diatonic progression of three notes, either ascending or descending, of which the principal note, or note to be ornamented, is the third, and the other two are grace-notes, and are either written of small size (Ex. 1), or, in old music, indicated by an oblique line drawn towards the principal note from the note preceding (Ex. 2).
Chopin, Andante Spianato. Op. 22.
2.
Another method of indicating it is by means of a direct ((Music characters)) placed upon the degree of the stave on which the slide is to commence, and having its right extremity prolonged so as to extend to the position of the principal note (Ex. 3). The short notes of the slide are always executed within the value of the principal note, and not before it, and any note which may accompany it must fall together with the first note, as in Ex. 3. The accent is on the principal note.
When a note followed by another, one degree above or below it, is ornamented by a Nachschlag of two notes [vol. ii. p. 441, Ex. 8], the small notes present exactly the appearance of a slide to the second large note, and thus a misapprehension as to the proper rendering might arise. For according to the invariable rule of all grace-notes, the small notes of the Nachschlag would be executed during the latter portion of the value of the first large note (Ex. 4), but those of the slide not until the commencement of the second (Ex. 5). Properly, a slur should be introduced to connect the grace-notes with their own principal note, as in the examples; this prevents the possibility of mistake, but in the absence of the slur—and it is frequently omitted—the performer must be guided by his own judgment.
Sometimes the first note of a slide is sustained for the duration of the whole. In old music this was indicated by writing the extreme notes of the slide on a single stem, and drawing an oblique line between them, either upwards or downwards, according to the direction of the slide (Ex. 6). In modern music the same thing is expressed (though not very accurately) by means of a tie (Ex. 7).
Slides of greater extent than three notes are not unfrequent; groups of three notes leading to a principal note are often met with (Ex. 8), arid slides of four and even more notes occasionally (Ex. 9). This extended slide is sometimes called Tirade or Tirata (from tirare to draw, or to shoot). E. W. Wolf, in his 'Musikalische Unterricht' (Dresden, 1788), calls such passages 'sky-rockets.'
​Besides the above, a more complicated kind of slide is mentioned by Emanuel Bach and others, called the dotted slide, in which the first grace-note received the addition of a dot. Its execution however varies so considerably—as is proved by the two examples by Emanuel Bach, selected from a variety of others (Ex. 10)—that the sign has never met with general acceptance, although the ornament itself, written out in notes of ordinary size, is of constant occurrence in the works of the great masters (Ex. 11).
Beethoven, 'Sonata Pathétique.'
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