Talk:Vibrato
From Academic Kids
Someone removed:
- It is sometimes known as tremolo, but that word is less frequently used because it can also mean a rapid repetition of one note, or between several different notes.
I've put it back - "tremolo" is used very frequently in non-classical contexts to refer to vibrato (think "tremolo guitar effect", "tremolo organ") and it's important to mention this, I think. --Camembert
- Actually, since writing that last night, I've realised that in fact when "tremolo" is used in this way, it often isn't referring to a rapid change in pitch, but rather a rapid change in intensity, which isn't vibrato at all. Still, I'm convinced the word "tremolo" is used to mean "vibrato" sometimes - when I look in an oldish (1946) music dictionary I have, I see it says that it was once used as a synonym for vibrato. So maybe the sentence needs rewriting, but it does need to be in. --Camembert
- The tremolo bar on an electric guitar does to pitch variation, so it should really be a vibrato bar. The use of the tremolo bar, is often called tremolo. -- User:GWO
After 5 minutes of Google research, I'm convinced that the terms tremolo and vibrato are often used interchangeably. As a player of the electric bass guitar, I must report that a knob marked "vibrato" on an amplifier is almost certainly going to change the VOLUME of the output, rather than its pitch.
Much as I would love to be able to have a decisive definition -- such as pitch (or frequency) modulation is vibrato and amplitude modulation is tremolo -- I fear we must bow to general usage. I suggest therefore that we emphasize the two kinds of modulations, and duck out of any controversy over what FM or AM should be called.
We cannot create a standard where none exists. Let's just describe the two concepts, and repont the terms that people use when referring to those concepts. Anyone who comes across confusion when actually using these concepts when describing a performance can always fall back on a quick definition, like, "it keeps the pitch the same but alternates the volume rapidly" when asked what a certain knob does. Or, "I want you to bend the note up and down in pitch a little bit, as fast as you can."
My 2 cents. --Ed Poor 12:40 Sep 27, 2002 (UTC)
Also, I just noticed that both vibrato and tremolo refer to pitch modulation. Where is the Wikipedia article describing the effect which "keeps the pitch the same but alternates the volume rapidly"? --Ed Poor 12:46 Sep 27, 2002 (UTC)
- That is probably due to "volume-altering" being a recent concept -- I don't think any "classical" instruments can do it. Hmm.. *thinks*. Pipe organs should be able to. what do organists call it? -- Tarquin
- My big dictionary of music says the ussie is very confused. it says the terms V and T are used in reverse meaning in conection with the voice & strigned instruments . the plot thickens :( -- Tarquin
- I agree about the ussie being confused! ;-) I'd hate to have to give up spell-checking, NPOV refereeing and copy-editing to *shudder* actually contribute to an article!! But it looks like I may have to write this one myself... --Ed Poor
Well my formal music training is classical (though my vocation is modern electronic music), and I've never heard vibrato refer to anything other than a rapid variation in pitch. Tremolo on the other hand, seems to be a bit of a catch-all word, sometimes meaning vibrato (especially in a derogatary way when talking about a singer doing it too much), sometimes rapidly repeating one note (especially on a mandolin or piano, with string instruments often having the word tremolando used instead), and sometimes rapidly changing volume (as in certain organs and groovy psychadelic guitar effects).
I don't know, but my feeling is that the vibrato article isn't too bad as it stands (of course I would say that as I wrote it), but if people know of other common uses of the word, of course they should be included. I have to say though, that in a classical context at least, vibrato is completely unambiguous, or else composers like Bartok wouldn't be able to write instructions like senza vibrato in their scores.
Tremolo is more troublesome than vibrato, I admit, but to my eyes, the article over there right now is about it being a fluctuation in intensity, not a fluctuation in pitch, which seems basically right. I know it says that tremolo sometimes happens between two or more notes, but that's really secondary to the fact that these notes are switching on and off very rapidly, if you see what I mean - I guess this needs to be made clearer. It also needs expanding to include fluctuations smaller than stopping and starting.
Enough of this, I'm supposed to be having a break from the wikipedia... :) --Camembert
Could some of you well informed folks take a look at the wah-wah article? Ortolan88
I happened to hear on Radio 3 this morning that vibrato didn't become common in orchestral performance till the 1930s: it was used for expression occasionally in solos largely. Schoenberg apparently described it as the "unpleasant sound of a billy goat". Anyne have any more on this? -- Tarquin 08:56 Mar 1, 2003 (UTC)
- Funny you should mention that - in today's Grauniad there's a piece by the conductor Roger Norrington on this very thing. He goes into some detail - for instance, he says that the Berlin Philharmonic didn't record with "serious vibrato" until 1935, and the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra not until 1940. I'll see if I can stick some of this in the article later today (if nobody else gets there before me), and try to put it into a wider context. Interesting subject. --Camembert
- Cool! I just jotted down the above as I heard it; they said the same dates. -- Tarquin
- Made a quick start on expanding this, but I've not got time to go into specifics right now - I'll try to get this done tomorrow (Sunday). --Camembert
Wack statement on jazz: Where does this come from?
- In jazz it tends to be used selectively , with many jazz musicians not using vibrato except where they want to create a specific effect.
What is this about? Who are they talking about? I can't think of any jazz sax player who doesn't play with vibrato. The closest were Bud Freeman and Chu Berry, but they were in the 1920s and 1930s. I'm pretty sure the same goes for trumpet and trombone in jazz. No musicologist, but I don't buy it. Ortolan88
- I concur. I thought it was a staple of the jazz style. -- Goatasaur
- [deleting my previous rambling, which wasn't particularly interesting]
I've changed that bit to something that seems closer to the truth. It's not something I've thought about too much though, and I daresay others know much more than me, so if it needs tweaking (or, indeed, a complete rewrite), feel free to change it. --Camembert
- Much improved, Camembert. I added a note that Miles used a mute a lot, which to my untutored, but not inexperienced, ear adds a buzz that might well be replacing normal vibrato. (One of the articles on brass, maybe, could have something on the mute. Discussed a little under wah-wah, but that's only one kind.)
- Coleman Hawkins once worked on a "jazz for kids" tutorial album. The producer asked him to play a passage with and without vibrato to demonstrate the difference. Hawkins, certainly otherwise a master of his instrument, simply could not play without vibrato.
- Personal note, other people know so much more than I do, not having studied music or played any instrument seriously, so I am loath to change these technical articles, which is why I came in on the talk page. Sorry about that "wack", but it really did throw me for a loop. Ortolan88
- Thanks, Ortolan, and apologies for my earlier rambling - I wrote it this morning when I was feeling a bit irritable. I promise not to look at talk pages again before I've had my morning coffee :)
- Hawkins not being able to play without vibrato is interesting - a lot of classical musicians (at least string players) and (especially) singers, are the same. I'll see if I can add something about that. As for Miles' mute - it won't have added vibrato (inasmuch as it won't have made the pitch of the note rapidly rise and fall), but, as you say, it did change the sound, and meant that it wasn't that completely "bare" trumpet sound. Whether it acts as a sort of surrogate vibrato, I don't know. That's probably one for the musical psychologists.
- The place to write about mutes, incidentally, might be in a dedicated mute article. There we can cover all the brass mutes (which come in several forms, and have several different sounds), woodwind mutes (which tend to take the form of a hankerchief stuffed up the end of the instrument) and string mutes (which come in various forms, including clothes pegs, but which all have the same effect). I'll see if I can get some notes together on that. --Camembert
- Ortolan, same here. I always feel like I'm talking out of my hat when I discuss music because I've had little formal education with it. :) -- Goatasaur
spelling correction and a bigger issue
spelling: bottom of page one symphony has an extra "o" between m and p
The bigger issue concerns the citation by Martin Agricola Musica instrumentalis deudch which is dated 1529? How could he have made generalizations about music up to the baroque in 1529, with 70 years still to go before the official "Baroque". If this is indeed the correct date isn't it stretching things a bit far to assume that a comment made in 1529 would still be applicable to music of the 19th century?
Thanks, carollowe@bellsouth.net
