Vibrato in fast passages/pieces
My teacher has told me that I need to vibrate every note in the Bach Partita in D minor - Giga. She had me do it under tempo and then told me I needed to practice it like that at all times and get it up to speed. My problem is that I am at a loss as to what to do when I play the Giga at tempo! The sixteenth notes seem impossible to vibrate on every note! I can manage a bit on the first note of each beat but I am curious as to what people think of this. Is it conventional or is there a reason behind why she would want me to play the piece this way? Does anyone have any tips or exercises that might help me in getting vibrato on every note? My teacher used to be a violin teacher at the Royal Academy of Music in London so she has some credibility. Before this, I had been practicing the Giga with vibrato only on the eighth notes and on the sixteenth notes towards the end of the piece. I thought I was going too fast for vibrato on every note! How am I supposed to do this?!
Replies (12)
Greetings,
not sure I would do it myself.
However, the way to do this form a technicla perspective is not trying to vibrate on every finger all the time. Obviously in this work you are going to be keeping certain fingers down for quite long periods of time. Those notes are in effetc sustained notes. You can vibrate on those without having to worry so much about what the more rapidly movng fingers are doing.
Anotehr wya of thining about it might be to vizualize the left hand as a spider. The finger sare simply legs that are plonked down with precision. (If you have 8 legs you have to be precise about your plonking....) and the hand is the body. It is the hand itslef that is gently and continuosly vibrating.
Cheers,
Buri
Your teacher's background may be attached to technique & interpretation as commonly understood in the late 1800's/earlier 1900's, when vibrato was used quite persistently, and lush, romantic sorts of vibrato & dynamics changes were applied to various centuries' compositions. Things fall in & out of fashion, and currently many folks now play their baroque pieces with more subtle & less-persistent vibrato, somewhat narrower dynamic range, in an effort to approach, though not necessarily reproduce, how the pieces sounded with baroque instruments, strings & bows. Those who have reverted to baroque equipment take this concept the farthest. I'd ask my teacher why. Sue
Perhaps the teacher is after a specific finger action which is related to vibrato. The particular finger action you hear for instrance from Fritz Kreisler is very articulated and clear. This is because the fingers fall on to the strings with a springy impulse. This impulse can be left to die out through relaxation, or it can be turned into a vibrato. I often ask students to practice fast passages slowly with a vibrato impulse on every note. As the tempo gets faster the vibrato goes away because there is not time for it to develop, but the ringing sound of finger articulation remains.
THere are some wonderful masterclasses given by the cellist Bernard Greenhouse on YouTube. They are worth watching in entirety, but he addresses this specific issue in this video (at around 7:20):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0YuCAVUGt_g&feature=related
Even Monica Huggett (the baroque violinist who teaches at Julliard) was advocating a type of continuous vibrato in order to keep the hand relaxed. That video is available in Laurie Niles coverage of the Starling Delay stuff in NY.
Good luck!
David
My advice is to always do what your teacher says from a technical and musical standpoint. You have much to learn from other people and I have never resented learning something in various styles from various teachers. Be able to play it every way you're asked to.
As a student I was always asked to play with vibrato on every note regardless of how fast the notes fly by. I did it well. But after all that I now choose not to use vibrato in that movement. You get to decide later on how YOU want to do it.
I have played the same Gigue and finished it. I only used vibrato on the long notes and then veyr little vibrato. I´d ask your teacher why he wants you to do vibrato because doing vibrato on every note doesn´t fit the baroque style.
I think that the violinist in this video does vibrato in a tasteful way. It might give you some ideas
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s3zr1KZEJow
I think that vibrato is overused in general with violin technique, especially in Baroque music. There are so many other ways to play expressively which allow the tone to emerge from the instrument. Sometimes vibrato gets in the way of the clear sound waves produced by drawing the bow across the strings.
Vibrate on every note of the gigue? But that is the fastest dance in the baroque era!
Sorry to be blunt, but I haven't heard such an anti musical demand (from an ex-Royal Academy teacher no less!) since I was in the 5th grade and my teacher asked me to vibrate every note in a Tartini sonata. Later in life I learned that trying to vibrate on every possible note is rather silly - like trying to put cream and cherries on everything you eat.
You don't need vibrato on every note, especialy in fast passages, where you don't have the time to even think about it, let alone do it. Vibrato is too precious a thing to squander on every measly 16th note.
So you either ask her for an explanation or you find yourself another teacher. There maybe a reason for why she WAS (and is no longer) a teacher at the Royal Academy.
That seems a little harsh to me. There are many teachers of the golden era that expect vibrato on every note and many of us were lucky enough to have studied with some of these teachers. It is a kind of violin playing that isn't heard much anymore but remains an important recognized style of playing. From a technical aspect it's important to be able to do. Later on under your own tutalage you can choose not to vibrato on every note.
Since this movement often results in excess left hand tension and gripping of the neck, perhaps your teacher's suggestion was intended to help keep your left hand loose and relaxed. Definitely ask her!
If you have tension in fast passages more than you have to, then something is wrong with either the articulation of the fingers (how fast or how strongly they fall onto the string), or the fixed/tensed position of the thumb (which is decisive in a flexible left hand technique). Ordering a student to vibrate on fast notes (on each and every blasted note) is like pushing him off a cliff. Not to mention that it is against elementary musical grammar. So the solution to a relaxed hand would be checking the accuracy of the technical aspects in articulation and shifting, not more vibrato, more vibrato, more vibrato.
Cheers! Oli.
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January 18, 2010 at 11:00 PM ·
Strange, but there must be an explanation to this. Is it that your teacher is wanting you to use this particular piece as an exercise in speeding up your vibrato? Is your vibrato too slow? It could be just an exercise to develop a fast vibrato, nothing more, nothing less. I would question the use of vibrato in fast passages like the one you mentioned only from an interpretational point of view. I can't name one top violinist who applies vibrato on EVERY note in the D minor gigue, especially at the correct tempo. I'm sure others on here would agree.
I suggest you ask your teacher why vibrato is to be applied to every note just to satisfy your curious mind.
Cheers
Alan