Vibrato on octaves

January 6, 2023, 10:23 AM · Hi,

this is a technical question that I have always wondered about:

Currently, I have a very little passage in octaves in a chamber music piece (Dvorak Dumky piano trio, 1st movement).

I can principally manage the octaves, but this very small motive should have an extrovert kind of expression, so I would like to use a generous vibrato. My problem is that my first finger never vibrates as largely as the third or fourth finger within an octave. One reason is obviously that it is on a lower point of the string than the higher note and thus needs a bigger vibrato motion for the same result. The second reason might be that I have a very narrow and flat tip of my first finger, with the nail reaching way up to the edge of the finger tip. I usually compensate this by putting it on the string, less steep, but in octaves, it gets forced in a certain position that is not vibrato-friendly.
The result is, that these octaves never seem quite in tune, at least, they don’t vibrate in tune.
This drives me crazy.

Any solutions or helpful ideas?

Thanks I’m advance!

Replies (6)

Adrian Heath

Edited: January 6, 2023, 10:53 AM · As a stubby-fingered violist, I have the same problem!
I have two "semi-solutions", depending on the relative importance of the two notes:
- allow the first finger to slide back an forth on the string; or
- exaggerate the distance from the base joints to the fingerboard, to adopt a more cello-like "open fan" hand shape.

Emily F

January 6, 2023, 11:36 AM · I’ll try these out, thanks, so far, Adrian!

joel quivey

January 6, 2023, 12:04 PM · Our best vibrato will be with the 2nd or 3rd fingers. The 4th finger is narrow. The first finger is in that awkward "square" form. So the vibrato on an octave already is at a disadvantage.
For all double-stops try to vibrate slower. I don't know why that works.
For the 1-4 octave I have an opposite attitude. Octaves have to be perfectly in tune, which seems impossible. If I am lucky enough to get the octave in tune I deliberately turn off the vibrato so that the audience can hear how wonderful my intonation can be. If it is slightly off add the vibrato to help coverup the error.
Vibrato sounds louder than straight tone for single notes. I am not sure if the same is true for double-stops. And it is probably also true that double stops in general are not louder than single notes. That is a common mistake made by concerto composers. A string orchestra playing dense chords will sound louder (and better!) playing divisi instead of everyone trying to play all the notes.

Alex Cheng

January 8, 2023, 5:51 PM · I think it is largely dependent on how you practice vibrato. I rarely practice double stop vibrato but I don’t think I have an issue with performing vibrato on double stops. What’s really helped me with vibrato is practicing on one string (e.g. sul G, sul D, etc). I typically practice with rhythms such as one, two, three, four, six, eight, and as fast as possible on the each string and, because I’m lazy, I only do it with on an A major scale, every day. You could try doing this method to see if it improves your vibrato. I think it took me 3-6 months before I saw results. I personally found that the G string was the most difficult to vibrate with E string much easier to vibrate. YMMV.

Albrecht Zumbrunn

January 8, 2023, 6:54 PM · I would not spend too much energy on vibrato in this passage. If you can get it clean reliably, if you play nicely phrased with some temperament and if you make sure you get the best tone you can from your bow you are already good enough. Better to play the passage with no (or very little) vibrato than messing up the intonation trying to vibrate. I have heard more than one chamber music coach advise not to spend too much energy on vibrato and instead to work primarily with the bow to achieve the tone you want.

Susanna Klein

January 26, 2023, 5:03 PM · I use poco vib only for octaves and all double stops - just enough to open the sound. Any more than necessary produces the wobbly effect. Put the extra energy in the bow instead.

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Vibrato on octaves

Replies (6)

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