Klarinet Archive - Posting 000666.txt from 1998/01

From: Jonathan Cohler <cohler@-----.net>
Subj: RE: vibrato
Date: Wed, 14 Jan 1998 16:24:42 -0500

>I want to be sure to say accurately what my beliefs are.
>I still do not believe that vibrato was part of a core sound on classical
>instruments and as yet there has been little evidence that it was vocally
>either.

I don't know what you mean by part of a "core sound". Vibrato is a
wavering of the pitch and/or amplitude of the sound and can be used in
varying degrees of speed and amplitude and shape (or not at all). I am
sure that some people used more and others used less, because that is the
nature of people. It is also natural to deduce that vibrato would tend to
be used on longer notes (because there is no time to produce the vibrato on
the shorter notes).

As for evidence of vocal use, what about the 18th century Italian vocal
tutors that Dan points to?

>Maybe when you have had time to look up your sources I will be
>persuaded otherwise.
>

I'll try to find the reference I mentioned.

>This is not to say that vibrato was NEVER used. Indeed I agree it was used
>to colour the sound in many instruments.

Well, then perhaps we agree. :-)

>
>I think you need to check the mouthpiece on your boxwood clarinet.

Unfortunately, it was not my clarinet. It was an instrument in a person's
private collection in Japan. He plays principal flute in the Osaka
Philharmonic and owns several different old original instruments (horns,
flutes, clarinets, etc.). He told me that the entire instrument and
mouthpiece were original.
(It may have been a 5-key instrument, by the way, I don't remember for sure.)

>
>Personally speaking I prefer discrete use of vibrato. It's application as a
>colouring device is very useful but I don't like it to form part of the core
>sound.

When you say "coloring device", I assume you mean to emphasize parts of a
phrase, and especially on long notes. Also, one can color a long note by
starting with a faster vibrato and then letting it get slower and gradually
taper down to no vibrato. This creates a sense of ritardando or morendo
even on a whole note, for example.

Or one can start a note with no vibrato and add it after the beat to obtain
an egogic emphasis. And, of course, the vibrato can be very wide or very
narrow depending on the gravity of the passage. These are all things that
I consider as coloring.

I don't know whether they fall into your definition of "core sound". How
would one define this? By the percentage of notes played using vibrato?
Or by the sameness of the vibrato used throughout (which I find just as
offensive as no vibrato)?

>I cannot agree with you that there are natural
>forces at work that lead man to use vibrato as the primary musically
>expressive device( if that is what you believe).
>

My reasoning goes as follows.

If there is not some underlying phsical reason for it, then why has every
society in the world (that I am aware of) independently, and under widely
varying circumstances, developed some form of vibrato as a central element
of their music? In fact, I would love to know if anyone knows of a music
somewhere in the world that does not use vibrato (leaving out the obvious
percussive instruments).

There is an interesting argument in the world of physics that parallels the
above logic. One question that arises is "Why are the laws of physics the
way they are?" (i.e. F@-----.) One answer that is
proposed by people such as Stephen Hawking is that, because if they were
not so, then we and everything we know would not exist, and therefore our
existence is to some degree proof of these laws. In other words, even
small changes in basic laws of physics would result in huge differences in
the nature of everything.

-------------------
Jonathan Cohler
cohler@-----.net

   
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