 Small nutation about a conical pendulum

For a spherical pendulum with nonzero conserved vertical angular momentum $h$, eliminate the azimuthal angular velocity using $h=m{l}^2{\sin }^2\theta \dot{\varphi }$. The polar effective potential is $V_{\mathrm{eff}}=h^2/(2m{l}^2{\sin }^2\theta )-mgl\cos \theta$. A conical pendulum at $0<{\theta }_0<\pi /2$ is a minimum satisfying $h^2=m^{2}g{l}^3{\sin }^4{\theta }_0/\cos {\theta }_0$. Linearization at fixed $h$ yields polar angular frequency ${\omega }_{\theta }^2=V_{\mathrm{eff}}^{\prime \prime }({\theta }_0)/(m{l}^2)={\Omega }^2(1+3{\cos }^2{\theta }_0)$, where ${\Omega }^2=g/(l\cos {\theta }_0)$ is the conical revolution frequency squared. Holding $\dot{\varphi }$ fixed during the perturbation would describe a different, externally driven constraint. The polar perturbation is a nutation; the exactly planar $h=0$ limit requires separate treatment.