Talk:Glissando

message: What this article calles "true glissandi" should actually be referred to as portamenti. Portamento is defined as a continuous change in pitch. Unfortunately, portamenti are often wrongly called glissandi, which leads to the confusion between the two terms. Among trombonists, they are always refered to as glissandi or "glisses" even though what is played is a portamento. In this article the term "true glissando" should be replaced with portamento and "effective glissando" with just glissando.--Hrothgar137
*Confusion about the origin of the "portamento" term leads to confusing definitions. I tried to help a bit. Uniseek
I think it's better to say the term glissando is simply a more general term than portamento, rather than to say portamenti are "often wrongly called glissandi." The term glissando has a well established usage in referring to both stepped and continuous glides. It's literally just the Italian word for "gliding." So it isn't "wrong" to refer to a continuous glide as a glissando. A quick look at the musical term dictionaries I have handy confirms that. 172.91.107.147 (talk) 23:56, 21 June 2023 (UTC)
thread_title: True glissandi

message: It would be nice if someone could revise the article to indicate the difference (if any) between glissando and portamento. They appear to be similar concepts, but as a non-musician it would be nice if the article explained to me the exact relationship between the two terms.  Psychonaut 17:23, 7 Mar 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I echo this request. I still worry that "true glissando" is a misnomer; portamento seems more appropriate here (especially without any citations present to declare otherise). Otherwise a clear distinction between true glissandi and portamenti seems necessary. --Adzze 03:16, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not sure what Veggieburgerfish is getting at, but the narrower usage of "glissando"- "...the filling in of discrete intermediate pitches on instruments like the piano, harp and fretted strings..."-  would describe a slide, while "continuous glissando or portamento" covers bends.  Btw, you can sign your name by typing four tildas thus: Sparafucil (talk) 21:28, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: A request: [[portamento]]

message: From the article: "On some instruments, a bending of the tone or continuous sliding is not possible (e.g., piano, harp)" It is possible, if you're willing to damage your instrument a little (and most avant-garde composers are). Volunteer Sibelius Salesman 19:39, 13 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Piano tone bending 

message: *I removed the reference to fretted unstruments reaching a maximum of three semitones by bending; as any beginning guitarist who has played "Sunshine of Your Love" can tell you, bends of at least four semitones (i.e. two steps) are possible. Deltabeignet 03:10, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Fretted string instrument glissando

message: The technique of dragging your finger down a guitar's fretboard is called "a slide" and results in what this article calls "effective glissando".  The cylindrical object you can use as an alternative to fretting is also called "a slide" and, when moved, results in what this article calls "true glissando" (what I would exclusively call portamento).  I don't know if including that info in this article would simply increase the already high levels of confusion (given that, as has been pointed out, the "true glissando" usage recommended by this article isn't universally accepted). Boris B 08:42, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Guitar terms further muddying the water? 

message: what is the most painless way to play an effective glissando on a piano? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 67.169.187.230 (talk) 04:42, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Effective glissando on piano 

message: This article seems really quite confused at the moment.  I came trying to find out what the term was and found conflicting information.  A visit to grove music online has cleared it up, and now I don't see why for example 'piano' should be under the 'portamento' heading when you can't normally do portamento on a piano.  I'd suggest a rewrite...  Yaxu 19:57, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed.  Things like this with multiple conflicting definitions need references to clear up the confusion. — Omegatron 18:53, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Confusion 

message: The definition for glissando in the Virginia Tech Multimedia Music Dictionary describes the different techniques and results from each without using the term portamento. The definition for portamento does a better job of distinguishing between the two. The dictionary includes pronunciation, apparently recorded by someone with a discernable accent (Italian?); nevertheless, the pronunciation is correct and helpful (in my opinion, anyway).
Both portamento and glissando describe a slide between two notes or pitches. The slide is called a portamento when every tone between two notes is produced. When the slide is limited to sounding individual notes between the two pitches, it is a glissando.
A human voice is capable of producing a portamento. String instruments such as the violin are capable of producing a portamento when the player slides their finger from one pitch to another while drawing the bow across the string. The piano and harp are string instruments that are limited to glissandi. With the exception of a trombone, wind instruments are only capable of glissandi (and that requires mighty fast fingering).
For the sake of clarity, think of a slide between the notes B natural and C natural (mighty short slide); there are tones between the two notes. Instruments that can sound every tone between—voice, string instruments, etc.—create a portamento; instruments limited to playing the two notes themselves and none of the intervening tones—such as a piano—create a glissando.
I see no reason for there to be separate articles for Portamento and Glissando; in order to be informative, each article has to define both terms. Since I'm a "newbie" to this article, I don't feel comfortable placing the Mergefrom and Mergeto templates on the respective pages, Be bold  notwithstanding.
Hopefully this was helpful and clarified the differences rather than further confuse the issue.75.58.45.66 17:19, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually, judging from the comments later on in this discussion as well as the Portamento article, the portamento is a distinctly vocal technique developed for opera singing, that instruments only use when explicitly attempting to emulate vocal technique. E.g. a trombone glissando is not always a portamento simply because it encounters all intermediate pitches, it must also emulate opera style. I think it belongs in its own article for this reason, since there is an "Opera terms" template at the bottom of it. A merge is probably not a good idea. I do agree with the inclusion of clarifying information in the Glissando article, since the distinction is more applicable to instrumentalists (who, in aggregate, are capable of both techniques) than vocalists (who find glissandos very difficult and unusual). Publicly Visible (talk) 21:00, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

text: I just wanted to add an example of what I think is a glissando on piano. Glissando is used repeatedly throughout the song Finally by CeCe Peniston. The first occurrence is around the 0:30 mark. Universal Basic Outcome (talk) 22:11, 2 January 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  References, condensed definitions and examples, and a proposal to merge

message: To make a distinction between "glissando" and "portamento" it simply isn't enough just to go and look the words up in a dictionary, because the two terms are highly disputed even amongst the authors of dictionaries.
I find it useful to go back to the origin of the word "portamento". It was formerly applied only to singing and indicates "the carrying of the voice" from one tone to an other which was meant as a special form of legato-technique.
When a singer changes from one tone to an other (change of frequencies) without stopping the flow of the breath he or she has no choice but to slide through all the frequencies between the first and the second tone. Singers try normally to make this slide inaudible and thus give the impression of two tones being linked very closely (legato).
This is no problem as long as they don't change the register of their voice. But if they have to, then the whole thing gets much more complex and they run the risk of losing sound quality as well as volume (I am sorry of my description being not more detailed but singing is such a complex function of the human body that it can certainly not be fully described in an article like this.).
The solution of this problem is the "carrying of the voice" ("portamento") which basically means that the progress of changing between two tones is slowed down to give the singer more control of all the parameters she or he has to change together with the change of frequency. If the "portamento" is done correctly you will hear at the end of a tone a short slide to the frequency of the next one (mostly upwards, but also downwards). The portamento will be applied before the next syllable is to be pronounced and normally also reaches the target tone before the pronunciation of this syllable (because that is an other thing to help maintaining sound quality and volume).
So the idea of a portamento is to give two tones in legato the maximum beauty (as it is understood in belcanto-style).
If one tries to apply this idea to other instruments than the human voice, it would mean:
1. Hold a tone as long as possible
2. Shortly before the change to the next tone use the tones in between whilst maintaining sound quality and volume
3. "Touch down" on the target tone before the beat by marking it a little bit on the beat
If a portamento effect is wanted on the piano it would be best to play a marked apoggiatura consisting of the tone you are about to leave before the target tone rather than to break your fingers in an attempt to make a glissando.
"Glissando" means to glide from one tone to an other by using all the available tones in between. The kind of glissando you are able to produce is determined by the limitations of your instrument. The reason the term is often mixed up with the "portamento" is that one uses indeed a little "glissando" when executing a portamento but only as a part of a much more complex procedure.
The term "glissando" sets the focus on the movement between two tones and there are many ways of executing a "glissando" including the possibility that the tones at the beginning and the end are of no musical importance at all, which is absolutely against the idea of the portamento. Of course singers can produce a "glissando" too.
--Uniseek 11:46, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Origin of the term "portamento" and its definition  

message: I am very confused by what the article says about harp glissandos involving an arpeggio. What confuses me is the notes given: B, C♭, D, E♯, F, G♯, A♭. Aren't B and C♭ the same note? What about E♯ and F, and G♯ and A♭? Someone the Person 23:18, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: This is a harp-specific spelling convention, different to most other instruments.  There are 7 strings per octave, all of which can be raised or lowered by pedals, allowing the diminished seventh chord B-D-F-Ab to be played without skipping over any strings. Sparafucil 07:45, 20 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Harp arpeggio

message: What, how, why, and where does this article need additional citations? Hyacinth (talk) 02:39, 3 April 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Apart from the one claim marked a needing a source, the entire section "'Continuous glissando' or portamento" lacks citations. This is also a major offender in the self-contradiction problem (see next section).—Jerome Kohl (talk) 03:52, 3 April 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Why does the "'Continuous glissando' or portamento" section need citations, or what in it does? Citations may simply help describe a contradiction, not eliminate it, though I guess that would take it out of our hands and put it in those of the sources cited. Hyacinth (talk) 09:16, 3 April 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Additional citations

message: Some work as described here, by moving the bridge; but others, like the Bigby and similar, operate by moving a roller to which the strings are attached. Wschart (talk) 13:53, 14 December 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Trem arm on guitar 

message: The word "slide" occurs about 4 times in this article, but none of these is a link to slide (music), and no explanation is given about their difference. I think that would be helpful. User:Haraldmmueller 16:39, 16 March 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Slide vs. glissando?