Thing

Ok - not big on my knowledge of instrumentation but there is one thing that I've heard in pieces of music that I'd like to know how to notate.

In Mussorgsky's Night on bare mountain there is this really big, hmm sweep sound on the violins, and it sounds more than a glissando, it's sort of the same in Wagner's flight of the Valkyries at the beginning, is it just glissando?

Are you sure the 'thing' is not just chromatic scales? The youth orchestra I am in just played Night on Bald Mountain, and there are no glissandos.

No it's not gliss. It's a "mordent" of sorts, or a trill of some sort (can't rmember the score by heart). But it stays onthe same note more or less so it's not a gliss.

No it's not gliss. It's a "mordent" of sorts, or a trill of some sort (can't rmember the score by heart). But it stays onthe same note more or less so it's not a gliss.

I think you are talking about what the violins have on the first page, it is basically a mordent that is repeated.

That might be what Alex Murphy is talking about, but I think that the various chromatic passages with the right dynamics are a better bet.

Though, I am definitly not an expert.:P