Best type of vibrato??

[peeplj]

and when they used vibrato, did/do so narrowly and swiftly fluctuating around an identifiably in tune main note, not just a constant broad, slow, wobble somewhere in the supposed region of the intended pitch!

You'll like this quote:

"For three hundred years flutists tried to play in tune. Then they gave up and invented vibrato."

(attributed to Bernard Goldberg, Pittsburgh Symphony)

--James

[jemtheflute]

I think finger vibrato can add a lot when used judiciously in slow tunes. Well worth mastering IMHO.

"Mastering" makes it sound difficult! Actually doing it is of course incredibly easy - no problem at all - if you can move your fingers to play the notes, you can finger-vib. It is certainly a great deal easier than a proper, controlled breath vibrato, whether diaphragm or throat engendered. The harder part is knowing when (or when NOT) to do it to good effect!

Donald, do you mean you use a constant diaphragm vibrato on oboe, a bit like modern classical string players use their finger vibrato, as (supposedly - it is debatable) a tone "improver", or just that, when you use vibrato, that is the technique you apply?

[jemtheflute]

You'll like this quote:

"For three hundred years flutists tried to play in tune. Then they gave up and invented vibrato."

(attributed to Bernard Goldberg, Pittsburgh Symphony)

--James

Nice one, James, I do indeed like it. However, one could actually say pretty much the same for the entire orchestra - the constant use of vibrato in tone production as opposed to as an effect or ornament only really developed in the late C19th and didn't become an accepted norm until between the two World Wars. Listen to early gramophone recordings of orchestral music and there is little vibrato (but lots of string portamento - which has gone right out of fashion [thankfully]). The period instrument movement had a huge battle during the 1960s-80s (in just about all they were doing/advocating) to get playing with little vibrato accepted once more by mainstream classical taste - a battle they have largely won by becoming accepted back within a broader "new mainstream" range of interpretative styles. They succeeded chiefly because it became apparent to listeners that Bach and Mozart etc. sounded so much better played cleanly and with rhythm rather than slushily and flat-smooth.

I think the Baroque approach - that tools/techniques like vibrato and portamento do indeed offer ways of bringing emotion into interpretation and should be used as such, but sparingly to preserve contrast and to observe the Golden Rule in matters of taste, is a good one. The late Romantic approach of maximum emotion at all times at all costs is just hyperbolic and eventually becomes risible.

A good player of any instrument (including voice) should be able to produce a full, rich, sonorous, strongly projecting tone without vibrato. Using vibrato as part of basic tone production gives an illusion of greater richness and projection, which can cover up for relatively poor basic technique or for a poor instrument, but ultimately just muddies the sound. (IMO!!!!! )

[sbfluter]

I haven't learned how to do finger vibrato yet. I think it's good practice to learn to play without vibrato. Sometimes I think there's a tendency to hide behind it, like you're afraid to just play the note full and complete. When you hear a really good whistle player just belt out the note pure and plain it's an amazing demonstration of musicality and confidence.

[peeplj]

I haven't learned how to do finger vibrato yet. I think it's good practice to learn to play without vibrato. Sometimes I think there's a tendency to hide behind it, like you're afraid to just play the note full and complete. When you hear a really good whistle player just belt out the note pure and plain it's an amazing demonstration of musicality and confidence.

Yep. Absolutely.

When you get the ability to control the note without vibrato, when you have the ability to play and hold just a single note and make it musical but keep dead on pitch with no waver...

That is the mark of someone who's gone further than just learning how to finger and blow, and it's harder than it sounds.

--James

[jemtheflute]

Just as a by-the-by demonstration, here's a clip (of me looking like an old git!) on piccolo playing a slowish tune with some held notes. I use little or no breath vibrato, and just one small bit of finger vibrato at the very end. There are places earlier in the tune where perhaps some finger-vib could have been added to good effect, but I wasn't thinking about that at the time and played pretty much as I normally would, save that I was concentrating on playing an unfamiliar instrument in tune and hitting the keys and finger holes accurately - there is one very obvious slip on that front! (I can only just get my fingers on a simple system D piccolo without them banging together or catching keys inadvertently - I can't play a Boehm piccolo or an Eb/HP simple system for that reason!)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVu9hBFYSZ4

(I posted this on the Flute Forum Youtube thread recently..... the piccolo belongs to my pupil Tom Scott who is selling it on eBay currently, hence he asked me to record a demo of it for him. I have no commercial interest in that matter.)

[sbfluter]

That piccolo is so tiny and cute. You make it look very tiny. Sounds nice, too.

[intrepidduckling]

Or...if you reeeallly want to have fun, use constant diaphragm vibrato while playing a slowish song, and pretend it's a soundtrack to a really really old film.

...not that I do this when I'm bored or anything.

[Donald]

Donald, do you mean you use a constant diaphragm vibrato on oboe, a bit like modern classical string players use their finger vibrato, as (supposedly - it is debatable) a tone "improver", or just that, when you use vibrato, that is the technique you apply?[/quote]

Definately when i used vibrato that is the technique I used and only very rarely in orchestral pieces where it has been written in by the composer. - or when i was just mucking around in practiced.

On whistle again only rarely on some slow, (usually) low notes (I tend to play a low D more than anything). Im also not very fond on continuous vibrato, but Im also not into continuous ornamentation.

PS how do I quote other people properly with the little box thingy

[pipersgrip]

I use both, there is no rule on it. I like finger, because you can control the vibrato easier. My breath is a little quicker than I would like.

[WyoBadger]

Wow, I think I know some stuff about music, and there is always so much more to learn. Fascinating stuff, especially the history (thanks James).

I completely agree with Jem about opera. I think out of control vibrato is one of the greatest reasons people don't like opera.

I use jaw vibrato on the brass instruments (a completely different technique), breath vibrato on boehm flute and whistle. I use vibrato quite a bit on slow tunes, hardly at all on fast tunes, although it can add a great deal of intensity (or maybe that's just solemnety and terror ) to throw in just a bit of vibrato on long notes. I need to learn finger vibrato. It has a whole different sound.

Thanks for the interesting stuff, everybody. It's why I keep comin' back!

Tom

[pancelticpiper]

About flute vibrato, Nancy Toff writes in The Flute Book:
"It began as an ornament usually produced by the fingers, only occasionally by the breath. The more continuous form did not emerge until the late nineteenth century...
Agricola (1528) lists "trembling of the breath" as a "special grace"...
Hotteterre (1707) discusses finger vibrato...
Quantz (1752) defines a messa di voce, a swelling and diminishing of volume within a single note, porduced by a finger...on the nearest open hole...
Tromlitz (1791) discusses the Bebung, a finger vibrato..."

Toff then lists several English 19th century flutists who discuss breath vibrato. One states:
"if too frequently used, this effect becomes vulgarised and unpleasant...some players produce the effect by a tremulous motion of the breath, which is inadvisable, as by its frequent use it endangers the production of a steady tone, which is far more desirable than any artificial effect."

Paul Taffanel wrote in his method:
"There should be no vibrato or any form of quaver, an artifice used by inferior instrumentalists and musicians...Vibrato distorts the natural character of the instrument and spoils interpretation...It is a serious error and shows an unpardonable lack of taste to use these vulgar methods to interpret the great composers."

These 18th and 19th century flutists would be horrified to hear the omnipresent, broad vibrato used on the flute today.

[MusicalADD]

This topic provides a very interesting glimpse into centuries-old attitudes about vibrato. But, still, trying to keep things in perspective....
I suspect there are many, many things about me that would offend 19th century flutists:

my vibrato
my hairstyle
my bathing suit
my liberal use of 4-letter words
my bad Elvis impersonations

Actually, my vibrato might not make the Top 10 list of things 19th-century flutists might find offensive about me.

If there's one thing my Communication degree taught me, it's that "Context is everything." This isn't the 19th century, and this ain't my great-grandfather's whistle. Personally, I like me some vibrato, either in the slow tunes, or at the very end of lots of tunes.

Wouldn't it be fascinating to use a time machine to visit an 18th-century session? I suspect it would be quite a culture shock, to those of us who think of the music that we're playing as "trad".

[MTGuru]

Wouldn't it be fascinating to use a time machine to visit an 18th-century session? I suspect it would be quite a culture shock, to those of us who think of the music that we're playing as "trad".

Well, yes and no. If you're saying that "trad" is synonymous with "old", then you're confusing the nature of the folk process or folk consensus with a kind of antiquarianism, which it's not. And since sessions are a relatively recent phenomenon, an 18th-century session would be anachronistic anyway.

I read the references to historical playing styles as helping to understand the roots and parallels of contemporary ITM styles in an earlier art music aesthetic, not advocating a return to the past.

Of course, if your context is "do your own thang", then I'm sure any kind of vibrato (or not) is fine. As is standing on one leg and humming into your whistle. Ian, and maybe Elvis, would be proud.

[peeplj]

If you play by yourself, you can always just play how you wish.

If you play in sessions, though, and you're the only one using breath vibrato on a slower tune, and everyone else is playing without it, it's not going to make your playing sound better than theirs: it's going to make you sound out of tune.

--James