Portamento?

So this is something I should probably already know, but can someone please tell me the difference between portamento and glissando? And which (if either) is present in the music for these end credits: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HqBUAsino6w

I've heard and read a lot of explanations but they're never totally clear to me. I'd also like to know if there is a way to indicate that a piece should be played that way (as in whichever way the example above is called) besides putting a bunch of portamento/glissando marks between every note. Is there a marking or direction that is in common use that would suffice? Would I just write 'portamento' above the music and leave it to the player? Do I actually have to put little squiggles and/or lines all over the place?

Yeah, they are pretty similar. I always think of glissando as something between a wide range of notes. Portamento is the small slide one might apply between notes in a similar range....most of the time it's use is up to the performer, but sometimes it's written out. I've seen music where the composer just writes "portamento" at a specific passage, and I've seen scores where portamento slides are written out (mostly in string parts) . I also apply portamento (not every note though) to a passage marked "expressivo" (or a variation of it). 

Not an expert on erhu (i think its an erhu), but I think portamento is applied.

I'd agree with that assessment.  The two are pretty interchangeable, but if you want to get really pedantic, I think technically glissando refers to a slide between pitches where you can clearly hear all the intervening pitches (like you'd get on a piano, but you could do it vocally, or on a slide trombone too, if you wanted that effect).  Portamento refers to a slide where it's all one fluid mush between notes, no discrete steps are identifiable along the way.  An effect you can't get on a piano, but you can get on something fretted like a guitar by bending a string.  And can easily get vocally, or by sliding your finger along the fingerboard of a violin in a smooth, continuous manner.  (I think).  When someone doesn't like your use of vocal portamento, they tend to refer to it as "scooping."  No scooping!  (Sounds tacky and melodramatic if overdone, and may just be terribly inappropriate to the style of music you're performing.  For choral singers it means you sound out of tune with your neighbor for a split second if you are scooping and they aren't, so it's generally only something soloists can play with.)

Hope that helps!

Thanks guys! I guess I'm not willing to trust the performer to know that they should do it (is that bad?) so I'll write it out. Oh and thanks pate! I always get annoyed by that 'scooping' that I hear when some people sing, I just never knew what to call it. Now I can harass my sister by hanging banners in her room that say "No Scooping!" :P

I'd agree with that assessment.  The two are pretty interchangeable, but if you want to get really pedantic, I think technically glissando refers to a slide between pitches where you can clearly hear all the intervening pitches (like you'd get on a piano, but you could do it vocally, or on a slide trombone too, if you wanted that effect).  Portamento refers to a slide where it's all one fluid mush between notes, no discrete steps are identifiable along the way.  An effect you can't get on a piano, but you can get on something fretted like a guitar by bending a string.  And can easily get vocally, or by sliding your finger along the fingerboard of a violin in a smooth, continuous manner.  (I think).  When someone doesn't like your use of vocal portamento, they tend to refer to it as "scooping."  No scooping!  (Sounds tacky and melodramatic if overdone, and may just be terribly inappropriate to the style of music you're performing.  For choral singers it means you sound out of tune with your neighbor for a split second if you are scooping and they aren't, so it's generally only something soloists can play with.)

 

Hope that helps!

I... believe is in the other way, glissando is a linear sound of increasing/decreasing pitch, it can be doable in bowed strings, trombone, and in other woodwinds depending of the range, some are possible in clarinet.

Portamento is the playing of all notes between the written range, it can be possible in all instruments.

There for, the word "gliss" shouldn't be used in piano, harp and instruments can't play a linear glissando, but this has been done so many times for so much time that now will be quite hard to fix, even so, a word "port" would be consider wrong in a piano gliss, but what can we do ? :dunno:

Oh for Pete's sake!  Really SYS65?  Sorry about that.  I need to get myself the big official Dictionary of Musical Terms sometime.  (:

Well.... I'm a bit confused again but in any case I guess I just mark the part as espressivo and be done with it. Anyway, it's unlikely it will be performed unless by someone I know, in which case I can tell them myself or show them the link... So yeah...   ;-;