Klarinet Archive - Posting 000249.txt from 1994/02

From: "Dan Leeson: LEESON@-----.EDU>
Subj: Sprenkle on oboe vibrato
Date: Fri, 18 Feb 1994 10:39:12 -0500

Like most things that Bob Sprenkle did, the description
of vibrato (not oboe vibrato, just vibrato) was superb!!
It makes a lot of things clear, most of which (for me)
deal in his description of the diaphragm vibrato being
caused my abdominal motions.

In fact, it should not be called a diaphragm vibrato at all.
The way Bob described it (in unusally clear prose, too)
the diaphragm was just one of the tools used to create
the effect. It could just as well be called lung vibrato
since that is where the pulses of air come from.

Bob used the word "abdomen" on several occasions in his
text. I think that he suggests that to be the source
or controlling action of the entire process. The
pumping motions of the abdomen push against the diaphragm
which in turn push against the lungs which in turn create
air pulsations.

If I finally understand the phenomenon, then I am right and
wrong at one and the same time: right because the diaphragm
is not the source of the vibrato as I have asserted all
along, and wrong because there is a mechanism below the
throat that is involved in the process, a mechanism that I
have never used in my playing.

So why is it not called the abdominal vibrato or the belly
vibrato? Except for the lungs, the abdomen is one of the
few areas of the body between the groin and the throat over
which one has some conscious, external control.

====================================
Dan Leeson, Los Altos, California
(leeson@-----.edu)
====================================