Pitch Bends, Ex. 1

James Romig, Sonnet 2 (m. 30-31)

Another extremely common technique in flute writing is the pitch bend, or glissando. There are two different kinds of glissandi, the fingered gliss, and the lip gliss. The lip gliss has a smaller pitch range than the fingered variety, but is more versatile because just about every note on the flute can be bent to a certain extent (though pitches in the first two octaves are much easier to bend than third-octave notes). Fingered glissandi are only possible on certain notes of a French model (open-hole) flute, so it is best for a composer to consult a performer before using them. A glissando is notated as a straight line from the note head, up or down depending on its direction. This example illustrates the lip gliss.