Vibrato to accentuate dynamics: How?

July 20, 2012 at 12:48 AM · when dealing with dynamics, before even thinking about vibrato, you must become very fluid with the bow. You must control diminuendos and crescendos with the bow essentially. When you practice scales, add dynamics into them. You can make all kinds of patterns, with long slow notes, fast notes, fast notes slurred in a long bow, etc. After you create a pattern with the dynamics, literally plan out how much bow you will use. If you have a long note from pp --> ff play at least half of it with only 1/4 of the bow, then accelerate the bow to create the dynamic changes. That is just 1 example, there are a million different logical patterns you can think of. All the while, you must control the sounding point, and the amount of force you exert. Everything is connected, so see which sounding point helps you create a better crescendo, or diminuendo. There are many combinations.

After you can think about vibrato, for without great bow control, any dynamic-related subtleties in vibrato will not show. On a basic level you should learn to develop flexibility in your vibrato, such as being able to play with a fat juicy vibrato, or with a fast and narrow vibrato. I think it's a misconception to think vibrato will control dynamics so much. That is all in the right hand. Vibrato can COMPLIMENT what you do in the right hand, but i would think of it more as a color, or as your passion, your expression. Power to play loud and soft and everything in between comes from bow control.

So create these exercises for yourself, you might not find it in most method books. The best and most EFFICIENT exercises are often the ones you create yourself.

to answer your engineering flavored question, there is no one answer. But generally, for a crescendo, if you start with narrower vibrato and as you get louder, increase the amplitude and speed of the vibrato, you will get a more "intense" sound, which makes it same like a dynamic effect. Likewise, in a diminuendo, one can maintain the amplitude but lower the frequency of the vibrato, or one may lower both. It really depends on the context, this part of music is NOT a science (in terms of deciding what to do with the vibrato). It really comes from the heart....

With long notes in ave maria, one must not forget that they are usually part of a phrase, so distribute your bow, create a dynamic effect, and maybe start with less intense vibrato leading to more intense as the note flourishes and the phrase develops. That is a good basic starting point...

hope it helps,

daniel

July 20, 2012 at 01:36 AM · Daniel - very helpful! Thank you very much for responding.

When you are doing a long diminuendo like at the end of a piece or major section, which do you stop first: vibrato or bow?

July 20, 2012 at 01:44 AM · well, you can go either way. it's a matter of taste. If it's just a steady diminuendo to nothing, then it's always a safe bet to just decrease the intensity of the vibrato at the same rate as your diminuendo (coordinate left-right hands). As for what stops first, its often standard practice to finish the end of the phrase/piece by lifting the bow a very small amount while the left hand still vibrates a little. This creates a generally smooth ending of your piece. This can work in intense loud endings or soft ones actually. Of course it's a matter of taste. Sometimes one might decide that ending has little or no vibrato, so then the vibrato would be gone completely by the time you finish the bow stroke. But i would say this much rarer. When you have a singing line, it's good to vibrate a little into the ending, freeze the bow when its finished, and then just lift the bow gracefully.

hope it's not confusing ;)

July 20, 2012 at 06:05 AM · I have pretty much concluded from my own playing and listening to thousands of recordings that the only things that really matter in vibrato are the amplitude and consistency...arm wrist whatever source is irrelevant. That part can be put into exercises. But I do not know how to turn it on or turn it off effectively in real music. It seems like kind of a black art.

July 20, 2012 at 03:25 PM · you over simplify...

how about the amount of surface area of the finger tip touching during the vibrato, and how that area changes size during the vibrato swing, and at what rate. and how about how hard the finger is pressing, if it presses more at certain parts of the swing? and how about which direction the swing goes? many players only vibrate below the actual note, but some go a bit in the other direction.

all very important minute things that allowed great violinists to have their individual sound...

July 20, 2012 at 05:21 PM · Daniel,

I agree with you and thank you for putting the bow into proper perspective when it comes to sound. I think it is first important to be able to find and produce the normal sound of the violin you are playing. In other words, what is the normal sound the violin will put out when applying moderate or normal weight, speed, and finding the sounding point which would be somewhere in the middle or towards the bridge that will accomodate this weight and speed. From there you can either decrease the sound or increase it as the music will demand. (You know it's a lot harder to put advice into words that make sense) You still need to have a central core to your sound even when playing pianissimo and this means bow control. I also agree that vibrato should not be a switch that you turn on like a machine and it just goes. The subtleties of a great sound involve a masterful bow arm and a vibrato that can enhance the sound that you produce with the bow. As Daniel has already stated the combinations of bow and vibrato are vast. I'm glad that you mentioned vibrato that goes above the note as well. Mishca Elman was famous for that. He would vibrate forward on top of the nail which would give his sound a special edge. He used this when he wanted to goose a particular note in a phrase. My teacher, who played with Elman often as friends and colleagues told me that Elman showed him this technique which he showed to me. To get back to the subject, you have to hear the sound inside of you and then try to produce what you hear using your natural tools (your right hand & your left hand).

This is where technique and practice become very important. You can't build a house without the proper tools.

July 20, 2012 at 11:21 PM · While I agree with all the responses to the initial question, I think it is further helpful to understand the physical acoustics of string-instrument vibrato as applied to the question.

I think the analysis presented a decade or so ago in an article by Joseph Curtin in the The STRAD Magazine provides significant additional information.

According to the analysis, which is clearly true, the the pitch changes of the fundamental caused by the motion of the vibrating finger also creates a spread of audible overtones associated with the pitch changes. The amplitude (volume) of any overtone pitch varies with the specific instrument being played (not all Strads are the same, etc.); so the peaks and valleys of overtone amplitude plots like a mountain range in a volume vs, frequency graph. By varying the amplitude (pitch range) of vibrato, the player changes the range of overtones that sound and can engage the loudest overtones within a reasonable range of the fundamental's harmonics.

So, I think to enhance the "loudness" and projection of a musical passage one needs to vibrate in a manner that takes in the strongest overtones in the frequency neighborhood. These overtones are what allow one little violin to be heard "over" a symphony orchestra in live performance. The way you vibrate should not be the same on all violins, because the peaks and valleys of the spectrum are not the same.

I was taught to eliminate vibrato on the very soft (pp and ppp) passages. But if you want to use vibrato for tonal consistency you DO NOT want to include the amplitude peaks.

Andy

July 20, 2012 at 11:30 PM · joe always has great insight into these matters. It's difficult to break down the art of playing or more in his case the art of instrument making. he definitely shows us the possibilities.

concerning pianissimo, again there can be different approaches. compare heifetz to szeryng for example. both have less then obviously placed z's in their name. but otherwise they are very different.

when szeryng plays very quiet notes, he often will not use vibrato, and his magical use of the bow and complete control of intonation help create the effect we hear. heifetz on the other hand will often INTENSIFY the vibrato, and with the help of his very different but equally magical bow control, what we here is the most delicate pianissimo that at the same time has passion and a beating heart.

whenever i teach people that are not so advanced yet, i always advice them to treat these topics logically. similarly to what was said, i agree that one must find the CORE of the sound with the bow arm on a basic legato stroke in mf-forte. That is where it all starts. And similarly with vibrato, i advice logically intensifying it in forte and relaxing it in piano. this is generally a good foundation

July 21, 2012 at 04:30 AM · Thank you everyone for your very helpful comments. I did figure out a way to niceluy end a phrase with vibrato without getting that unwanted crescendo at the end. Just lift the left hand finger. Maybe not the way someone with a Z in his name did it but it seems to work.