Portamento

Portamento (Italian portamento di voce, also portar la voce " Wearing the voice ") is a phrasing technique or an ornament in music. Today, it refers to two successive notes are connected in a melody through a grinder or a short glissando together. The portamento singing serves as an aid to reach high notes, but also to highlight the rhetorical figures such as the Exclamatio.

The term has been around since the mid-18th century. After Johann Adam Hiller renames originally only the good use of the voice in the " concatenation of sounds " (1780 ) with the Italians. From a " contraction of the voice ", however, speaks Johann Friedrich Agricola (1757 ). Evidence for this singing technique, there are much earlier, so even at Domenico Mazzocchi ( 1638). In a time when the tines were the leading melody instruments, it stands to reason that the vocals had a similar tone.

In bel canto Portamento on certain points is essential. It is characterized by a slur of notes that are to be joined by Up - and pull-down vote.

A "sliding tonal movement " to replenish larger intervals is used in the so-called late-romantic music since the late 19th century and found in some violin schools around 1900 recording. In the symphonies and orchestral songs by Gustav Mahler portamento find frequent application. After 1900, the art of music turns away from the portamento or stylized it ( such as Arnold Schoenberg and Alban Berg ). Some genres of popular music like the Schrammelmusik maintain the extensive portamento as before. The Jazz has further developed it with a different tone.

In addition, the term portamento by Knud Jeppesen was also established for a typical phenomenon of vocal polyphony of the 16th century: an anticipatory quarter note, which usually leads to a Kadenzsynkope. This use of the word may be considered debatable, since the phenomenon is described (see above) clearly differs from the designated generally with portamento: The execution was most likely non-contact, but in exact scale degrees; and it always results in a slight half position while pulling above the voice usually leads to severe stroke positions and melodic target points.