Klarinet Archive - Posting 000209.txt from 1994/02

From: Cary Karp <nrm-karp@-----.SE>
Subj: Re: Vibrato
Date: Wed, 16 Feb 1994 17:52:09 -0500

On Tue, 15 Feb 1994, Dan Leeson wrote:

> Cary, I am not sure that I am prepared to accept an oboeists view on
> how he or she achieves the vibrato. While I have no facts on this
> specific matter, my experience tells me that these folk tales
> get passed from one to the other until they take on a patina of
> fact. That might not be the case at all with oboe vibrato but
> I don't consider them (or us for that matter) to be objective
> observers. We tend to repeat stories that we heard from our
> teachers and we are far too uncritical of the ones given to us.

I don't think that it is sound reasoning to dismiss as a folk tale
something about which you don't have any facts. I am pretty sure that I
can spot a folk tale as well as the next guy can, but don't think that the
oboist's description of their diaphragm vibrato is even a vague candidate
for this distinction. Have you taken the trouble to discuss the subject
with an oboist who claims to know how to do it and asked to have the
technique demonstrated?

> And also, if your remember my original note on this matter, the
> entire question about the diaphragm may be moot. I was asking
> about pitch vibrato and, as you have said, diaphragm motion
> produces only pulse vibrato.

You've failed to notice that I thrown down a glove here. I suggested
that what you think is pitch vibrato quite easily could be loudness
vibrato. The only pitch vibrato that is commonly used on reed instruments is
lip vibrato (which, in response to someone else's remarks is produced by
moving the jaw and could as easily be called jaw vibrato). Do you know for a
fact that this is the only vibrato technique used by clarinetists? The
reason I brought diaphragm and throat vibrato into the discussion is that
since these techniques are applied as a matter of course on other
woodwinds, I am not prepared to dismiss the possibility of their being
applied on the clarinet as well -- in precisely those contexts that you
have labeled as pitch vibrato.