glissin'

Hey Jacky-

> I would like to inquire if there are any among us who have worked
>with controlled glissandi as a part of their compositional language?
>Particularly interesting to me would be some discussion from any who
>may have experimented with "crossing glissandi",

Glisses are near and dear to me. My piece Dance of the
Mermaids uses
harmonic glisses as an integral part of the chordal and
melodic structure. In
the opening sequence, two pitches start out 16/9 apart, the
upper drops 16/9
and the lower drops 10/9 in the same time, for example. I
have written another
piece with glissing harmonics that do cross. It's a nice
effect.
Of course, steel guitar players have made glissing into an
art form,
with both steel glisses and pedal and lever glisses. I used
to play with a
steel player who tuned his strings and pedal and lever stops
justly, and it
was a joy to listen to him gliss from one just chord to
another.

--
John Starrett
"We have nothing to fear but the scary stuff."
http://www-math.cudenver.edu/~jstarret/microtone.html