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Music symbols
- Abbreviation
- gliss.
How is glissando played?
Follow the glissando line from the notated start toward the destination using the instrument’s appropriate mechanism: slide a finger on an unfretted string, move a trombone slide, bend a sustained timpani pitch with its pedal, or sweep across discrete piano keys or harp strings. On harp, a finger crosses successive strings like a rapid scale, and the pedal setting must define which pitch collection sounds. Direction, range, rhythm, endpoints and any portamento-like nuance come from the local notation and instrument.
How does glissando sound?
A swooping, audible traversal of pitch — smooth and seamless on trombone, strings or voice; stepped and scalar on harp, piano or mallet instruments, where every intervening note sounds.
In context
Glissando means an audible traversal from one pitch or note to another. It can be a continuous pitch change on voice, trombone or unfretted strings, but a discrete scalar sweep on piano, harp or mallet instruments; this context corrects any assumption that every glissando is physically seamless. Harp Notation, Cambridge and an independent notation reference directly expand gliss. as glissando, so gliss. is accepted for this exact headword.