Portamento

In music, portamento (plural: portamenti, from Italian: portamento, meaning "carriage" or "carrying") is a pitch sliding from one note to another. The term originated from the Italian expression "portamento della voce" (carriage of the voice), denoting from the beginning of the 17th century its use in vocal performances and its emulation by members of the violin family and certain wind instruments, and is sometimes used interchangeably with anticipation. It is also applied to one type of glissando as well as to the "glide" function of synthesizers.

Vocal portamento

In the first example, Rodolfo's first aria in La Sonnambula (1831), the portamento is indicated by the slur between the third and fourth notes. The second example, Judit's first line in Duke Bluebeard's Castle (1912), employs a short, straight line between the fourth and fifth notes to indicate a steady rise in pitch. If the composer desired the pitches to be, variously, raised and lowered between those two notes, the wavy line would additionally be curvy, conveying an approximation of the pitches intended. Portamento may, of course, also be used for descending intervals.

Portamento (album)

Portamento is the second studio album by American indie pop band The Drums. The album was released in the United Kingdom on September 2, 2011 through Moshi Moshi and Island Records and was preceded by the release of lead single "Money" on August 19.

Reception

Portamento received generally favorable reviews, with review aggregator Metacritic assigning an average critic score of 64 out of 100, based on 22 reviews. Helen Clarke of musicOMH gave the album four out of five stars, saying, "With their second album The Drums are more absorbing than ever, and have created a record that will last far longer than their first." Mike Williams of NME wrote, "With a little more self-censorship and less browbeating we'd be looking at one of the albums of the year," awarding the record 7/10.

Singles

"Money" is the lead single taken from Portamento. The single was released as a digital download in the United Kingdom on September 4, 2011. "How It Ended" was the second single released in the UK on 3 October 2011. "Days" was the third single from the album released in the UK on February 27, 2012.