 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Morrigan
Date: 2009-03-05 09:25
Hi all,
For those of you who use it or have used it, how do you produce vibrato? Throat, tongue, stomach muscles?
I'm trying to achieve a quick, subtle vibrato at the end of a quiet note. Something like a singer might do perhaps.
Cheers
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Author: Marcuin
Date: 2009-03-05 10:00
Hi,
Perfect vibrato(for my teacher - clarinet and saxophone player)is when you do a liitle movements with your lower jaw - sixteens at 72-74. Works good for me.
Hope you understand everything what I wrote
Greetings
Marcuin
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Author: clarnibass
Date: 2009-03-05 11:26
I'm not sure if you are really asking how (we) do a vibrato, or actually how to do the type of vibrato you want to do.
For the former, I've always used a jaw vibrato which I taught myself. A while ago I wanted to try a stomach muscles vibrato more like what singers do, so I met a singer who taught me. I practiced this type of vibrato until I was able to use it, and since then I've never actually wanted to use it, so I've never used it, and only use the jaw vibrato.
For the latter, best is to meet someone who can teach you.
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Author: Tobin
Date: 2009-03-05 11:33
Hello Morrigan,
I think that the simplest expedient is the jaw, but I also use diaphragmatic vibrato as well. I don't think about which I'm going to use and where, I just do it.
Never thought about using the throat, and I'm not sure I want to!
I agree with Clarnibass in that what will work best for you is for you to determine, but I'd spend time with both until you reach that decision.
Good luck!
James
Gnothi Seauton
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Author: William
Date: 2009-03-05 14:50
Use the jaw for vibrato on the clarinet. Caution--don't overdo. Just use it for "effect" or tonal enhancement. IMHO, too many opera singers totally overdo the vibrato without regard for musical expression or taste. One advantage of developing a tasteful jaw vibrato is that the same action may be applied for adjusting the intonation of individual notes that may be--horror or all horrors--out of tune on your instrument. Find these pesky notes with a good tuner and then let your ear guide your jaw in correcting their deviation from the norm.
I ony use "stomach" vibrato when playing my flute. Never on the clarinet or sax.
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Author: graham
Date: 2009-03-06 13:14
Vibrato can be:
1. Pitch modulation
2. Tone modulation
3. Dynamic modulation
These are not particularly similar to each other even though they all come under the broad category of vibrato. You need to work out which you prefer, or in what circumstances each might be best. This will guide you to the technique needed for the effect.
For my own part, I am only interested in diaphragm vibrato, and this delivers type 3.
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Author: clarnibass
Date: 2009-03-06 13:31
>> Caution--don't overdo <<
When someone writes that, it's important (if not critical) to emphasize over doing this (or anything) is only in a specific context. Just so someone doesn't misunderstand this to mean using a lot of vibrato means over doing it, because it doesn't. The same as sometime very little vibrato is over doing it.
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Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2009-03-06 13:36
Gino Cioffi said that he occasionally used a light vibrato made with the lips alone. Remember, though, that he played double lip and learned to play with the reed on top, so he had a stronger and more balanced embouchure that most players. Perhaps Sherman Friedland or another Cioffi student can confirm this.
Stanley Drucker's vibrato has a strong pitch modulation, so it's pretty clear that he uses his jaw.
Harold Wright's vibrato had all three elements. Can a Wright student describe what he did and taught?
Ken Shaw
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Author: Ebclarinet1
Date: 2009-03-06 15:34
I was trained on oboe with a diaphram vibrato and when I picked up flute it sort of came naturally on it too as I was doing the same sort of thing on oboe. On clarinet my initial training was NOT to do it although over the years it has crept into my sound and I use it in my "bag of tricks" to make a sound prettier or emphatic. My vibrato speed is rather fast in general and I think that is perhaps better on Eefer than on bass. Only rarely do I use a jaw vibrato, but there it's for more of a raucous quality that I want to add. I play classical only though so a jazz player would definitely have a different view of this.
Some of my oboe colleagues use a vibrato throughout their playing. I find that sort of monotonous although others really think this is the prettiest oboe sound. I try to only use vibrato on notes 2 beats or more at 100 in 4/4. To me vibrato on running passages sort of fuzzes up the sound too much.
Interesting thread.
Eefer guy
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Author: William
Date: 2009-03-06 16:10
I only recognize two forms of vibrato: 1) jaw, which is "pitch" modualtion done by loosening the embouchure so the frequency changes high-low-high, etc; 2) diaphram vibrato, which is a modulation of dynamic intensities, loud-softer-louder, etc. Those who claim "tonal" vibrato are most likely mistaking it for the pitch or dynamic method.
I do agree that the term "overuse" of vibrato is only relevant with regard to context. But then, arn't we clarinetist's lucky to have an instrment whose tone is naturally beautiful on its own without having to constantly use vibrato to enhance the sound, such as with the oboe.............lol.
Q--what is the difference between a bari sax and a lawnmower??
A--vibrato [pa-dum, phsh]
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Author: kdk
Date: 2009-03-06 16:25
I was not a Wright student, but I took one lesson with him when he was still playing in the National Symphony, and the subject of vibrato came up (I'm sure I must have initiated it). He actually denied using one - called it instead an "intensity" he added to the sound. From his description of it and his use of the word "intensity" I remember feeling pretty clear that he was talking about a diaphragm-based pulsation.
FWIW,
Karl
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Author: Sylvain
Date: 2009-03-06 18:03
Tony,
Thank you for posting the link.
I am quoting you here:
"On the other hand, I'm impressed by Cohler's description of the details
of how to do vibrato. Probably that should be more available."
I agree with you and really think that the teaching of different techniques of vibrato should be better advertise. And frankly, I wish I had the skills to do that and circular breathing and double-triple tonguing and all sorts of things I was never exposed to in my early musical life.
The rest of yours and his discourse on if/when/how/why it is appropriate to use vibrato is informative as well.
All of these techniques are, in my opinion, tools to best communicate musical ideas. As you pointed out in your article, using the wrong tool can be detrimental to the music and vibrato is no exception. My personal view is that I would rather know how to vibrate at the risk of not using it appropriately, than know nothing about vibrato and have my interpretation choices limited.
--
Sylvain Bouix <sbouix@gmail.com>
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Author: William
Date: 2009-03-06 20:03
"I wish I had the skills to do that and circular breathing and double-triple tonguing and all sorts of things I was never exposed to in my early musical life."
Rubbish--it's never too late to learn. I was in my mid 50's when I started to venture into multiple tonguing on the clarinet, although I was in high school when I learned to double tongue on the trumpet. Why it took so long for transfer, I'll never know, but I've become quite adept at double/triple stuff, but only use it when I can't single tongue something. And, now in my 60's, I'm darn well determined to learn to circular breath. Maybe I will never get really good at it--as if I had started in kindergarden like Bliss probably did--but I'll at least be able use it when I have to for long tones. At least, that's my goal. "Blight of the Fumblebee", non-stop tongued at warp speed, here I come.....................lol
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Author: Sylvain
Date: 2009-03-06 20:43
William:
I never said I am not willing to learn these techniques, I just wish I had been exposed to them earlier.
We may be able to teach our brains new tricks at any age, but it won't be as easy as when we were kids.
--
Sylvain Bouix <sbouix@gmail.com>
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Author: skygardener
Date: 2009-03-07 02:02
There is a kind of vibrato I call that"tongue" vibrato. The change is made in the mouth with the tongue going from a low position to a high position rapidly. The easiest way I can think to describe it (and this is not a great description of how I do this) is to think of different vowels.
If you play with the "O" sound, the tongue is low. If you play with the "E" sound, the tongue is higher. If you go back and forth between these, you will get the "tongue vibrato". You could use any two vowel ideas to get a vibrato. A and E. O and U. O and I. Etc.............
When I use vibrato, I generally do it this way.
Post Edited (2009-03-07 03:29)
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Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2009-03-09 00:01
Sylvain wrote:
>> My personal view is that I would rather know how to vibrate at the risk of not using it appropriately, than know nothing about vibrato and have my interpretation choices limited.>>
That may be true for you; but I wonder how it plays out in the student world.
I'd say that 'not having vibrato immediately available' may damage the execution of a very few pieces -- actually, I can't think of any very good examples -- but if those pieces exist, and if those pieces need vibrato, it's actually not very difficult to provide it.
Whereas, I'd say that 'having vibrato be an integral part of one's execution' may actually damage one's view of a whole style.
It's one of the reasons why conductors ask string players to play classical music without vibrato. The reason is not so much that vibrato is bad -- it's that DOING WITHOUT IT forces a player to find the sorts of phrase-shape that make the music viable IN GENERAL.
These phrase-shapes are mostly right-hand generated, and need to be practised.
There's an analogous situation in clarinet playing.
Tony
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Author: kdk
Date: 2009-03-09 02:11
I had never really thought of vibrato and phrase shapes, if I understand what you mean by them, as being mutually exclusive. When in performance I've (rarely) used vibrato in an expressivo context on a sustained note, I've also been conscious, or tried to be, of a sense of movement within the sound and even of emphasizing a sense of shape with a somewhat variable vibrato speed.
To hark back to a very old topic from the mailing list, one of the most idiosyncratic elements in Reginald Kell's playing, I've always thought, was not that he used vibrato so much, but that the envelope of the notes he used it for was nearly always a kind of bell-like shape - a louder or more emphatic attack and then immediately softer as the note was sustained. It generally gave passages that seemed to want to be truly legato a rather different sense of texture.
I don't think you've explicitly said that phrase shape and vibrato are either-or, but I've almost gotten that idea from what you've said here. You do seem to allow that they can work together in "What you *can* say about vibrato." Can you elaborate a little more?
Karl
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Author: clarnibass
Date: 2009-03-09 07:24
>> My personal view is that I would rather know how to vibrate
>> at the risk of not using it appropriately, than know nothing
>> about vibrato and have my interpretation choices limited.
The problem is that this is kind of a random choice. It doesn't have to be one of these options. Even for you (who gave this example) I doubt that it really comes down to one of those.
>> actually, I can't think of any very good examples -- but if
>> those pieces exist, and if those pieces need vibrato, it's
>> actually not very difficult to provide it.
I can think of one example right now In this example the composer, a clarinetist who also play the piece, writes "a lot of vibrato" and he is right because it's critical to the music and espcially how it is played. In that piece the vibrato is sort of part of the phrases shapes which would make less sense without it. Of course it's not a "classical" piece.
I'm not sure about "not very difficult to provide it", it might not be for everyone. But I guess if someone doesn't want to or can't use vibrato, they won't choose to play this (or a similar) piece....
>> I don't think you've explicitly said that
>> phrase shape and vibrato are either-or
Re them being "mutually exclusive" and "either-or", it is very easy to prove they are not by just finding at least one example where they are not (which there is).
If I misunderstood Tony he can correct me but I think you are confusing it. I think you are sort of comparing two things on different "levels". The shape is a general description of what the phrase has (or can have) while the vibrato is something specific you can add. In that way vibrato is similar to e.g. crescendo (but of course in other ways they are different). A phrase can have it or not, as part of the shape it has. Maybe it's more that vibrato can affect the phrase shape.
However just consider the effects that vibrato have, and you can see that it can very easily make many other options impossible to do.
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Author: Liquorice
Date: 2009-03-09 07:55
Tony wrote: "I'd say that 'not having vibrato immediately available' may damage the execution of a very few pieces -- actually, I can't think of any very good examples -- "
How about Glinka's Trio Pathetique? He asks for vibrato from the clarinetist a few times in the score.
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Author: graham
Date: 2009-03-09 08:40
Thinking about it a bit more I was wrong to say that I am only interested in a dynamic varying vibrato, but that is the case 95% of time (that I would use vibrato at all, which is rare). The tone related vibrato could be useful. Some may not recognise it as a form of vibrato though. I was shown a kind of such vibrato effect by a teacher I saw in around 1980. This involved keeping the posture still while rotating the clarinet through movements in which the bell described a circle in the air. This was done fairly quickly. The only impact on the sound it could have made is that it changed the position of the embouchure vis a vis the mouthpiece by small amounts, thus also of course changing the mouthpiece's position in the oral cavity. It also changed the trajectory of the bell, though whehter that interacted in a big way with the room acoustic is a tricky point. My guess however is that this had very little impact on pitch or dynamic, and much more on tone.
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Author: mrn
Date: 2009-03-09 17:10
Karl wrote:
<<I had never really thought of vibrato and phrase shapes, if I understand what you mean by them, as being mutually exclusive.>>
I don't think they're exactly mutually exclusive, and I don't read Tony's remarks as meaning that either. But there is a kind of "tension" between one's ability to shape phrases and the use of continuous vibrato. Vibrato obscures the shapes of phrases under the vibrations. It's harder to make subtle dynamic changes with all the "shaking" on top.
On top of that, vibrato can sometimes overly muddy up harmonies. That why jazz singers apply it sparingly (usually only at the ends of sustained notes after a delay).
Here's an interesting audio clip I found on YouTube of Joseph Joachim (Brahms's violinist friend), which proves that even on a violin, vibrato is not a sine qua non.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-p8YeIQkxs&feature=related
(I had written a bunch of other stuff, but decided upon re-reading it that I didn't quite like what I had written--I think the simpler explanation above suffices for my purposes.)
Post Edited (2009-03-10 03:01)
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