Vibrato

[nickyboy]

What is vibrato? Well if I'm right it is an almost ringing of the sound that comes out. Kind of like that when your church chior sings. But my main question is: what is the right way to play it on trumpet? Do you move your lips, tounge, or the horn, and how exactly do you move whichever one it is?
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Nick P.

[trumpeterb]

Nick,
Vibrato is the slight variation in pitch that makes the held note appear to "bend" or "wave" up and down slightly. There are a few aspects to vibrato. First, vibrato speed is important. If you listen to some players, Harry James comes to mind, their vibrato is very fast. Others play with a much slower vibrato, and there are many points in between. Secondly, the width of the vibrato is important. A wide vibrato is one that moves the pitch further away up and down from the pitch center. A narrow vibrato does not move the pitch quite as far. I would suggest listening to several different recordings of great players and focus on these two aspects of their vibrato. You will hear that each player has a slightly different style. As far as producing vibrato goes, one of my greatest teachers taught me that there are several ways, but he only accepted two ways as correct. The first way he called "chop" vibrato. This is produced by a slight fluctuation of the lips and jaw. The second he called "hand" vibrato. This is produced by slightly "wiggling" your right hand back and forth on the horn, thus changing the mouthpiece pressure on your face. He did not recommend (nor do I) air vibrato, which is produced by fluctuating the air stream. You don't want to mess with the air stream...it should always be steady. Here are a couple of other hints when working on vibrato. 1. Think of moving the pitch up, then back to the original pitch center...not down and back and not up and then down below the pitch center. This will help you to hold your intonation and not go flat. 2. Practice vibrato on long tones at various dynamics and ranges. Record yourself, and listen to the recording. Critique your sound. 3. Always remember that the note you are playing is the hamburger, and vibrato is the pickles and mustard. Don't be so concerned with vibrato that the note is out of tune or has a bad tone quality. 4. Vibrato will become a natural thing if you practice it long enough. It should be as natural as producing a tone on the horn.
Keep working on it, and good luck.

Andy

[nickyboy]

Thankyou andy for your help. I kinda messed around with the vibrato befor i ahd posted the message and found that the hand movment comes to me esiest (sp?) so today when i practice i will work on the long pitches that you said.
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Nick P.

[DaveH]

Jaw vibrato - produced by the movement of the jaw up and down ever so slightly. and hand vibrato - produced by the movement of the right hand against the horn in a slight back and forth manner. If you have ever watched a trombone player "wiggling" the slide slightly back and forth while holding a pitch, you are seeing hand vibrato as used on the trombone.

Some people prefer hand vibrato because jaw vibrato can, for some prople, become such a habit that they virtually cannot play without vibrato, and vibrato should not be used all the time. Jaw vibrato, on the other hand, to me anyway, is more natural and easier to produce and control, and sounds a little better - although I am sure you can find some who will disagree.

The presence or absence of vibrato as well as the depth and speed thereof, is largely a matter of the nature and style of the music being played. It should not, however, be used all the itime on everything.

[ This Message was edited by: DaveH on 2002-12-31 10:20 ]

[David]

I've noticed that symphony string players use vibrato ALL of the time. As a brass player I was taught to use vibrato for solo lines - but not for unison work. Why the difference?

[_PhilPicc]

I do my vibrato by slight head movement. It is the same as moving the hands but more subtle. I have not seen anyone else use this technique but it works very well for me.

If a piece calls for a heavy vibrato then I incorporate the hands also. Most of my playing does not call for much vibrato. I tend to use very little. As the other posts said, experiment and see what works best for you. Just remember to much vibrato is just as bad, or in my opinion worse than none at all.

HTH,
Phil
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Philip Satterthwaite

We cannot expect you to be with us all the time, but perhaps you could be good enough to keep in touch now and again."
- Sir Thomas Beecham to a musician during a rehearsal

[musicmonkey]

My band director used the analogy of chewing for producing vibrato. Imagine you are chewing gum while you are playing -- that's jaw vibrato. Of course, it should be subtle chewing, not big smacking.

I don't know how helpful this analogy is, but it seems to be fairly accurate. Of course, if you find hand vibrato works better, chewing won't help you much at all

mm

[PC]

David,

String players wiggle around to liven up the sound produced. Incidentally, this is relatively new and was not accepted practice in up to the 19th century (the same applies to singers); before that, stringers would play flat tones like us, using vibrato only on a few sounds they wished to stress. I guess that the all vibrato playing gives better projection. Some 1st trumpeters use this also to attract more attention to the line they are playing, with a slight vibrato.

Pierre.

[OldBugleBoy]

One of the best (IMHO) examples of a good lead vibrato was the theme song for the Carol Burnett show. I never found out who that person was but he/she had a big, fat, wide vibrato that would just about melt anyone that heard it.