I was playing some of the songs I had memorized and playing of the other not memorized songs for my flute leader. It was one on one and I have to admit I was kind of nervous. I was playing fine until I got to this high D and it almost the end of the song.
When I hit that high D I heard this strong, fast vibrating sound. I wasn't sure if I had achieved vibrato or if it was my upper lip quivering from the nerves. So I couldn't tell if it was my air vibrating (which is vibrato, right?) or my lip. It happened for the next long note (high C) but that was about it.
So have I achieved vibrato? Or was it my nerves? I have bolded the key parts of the story.
Sorry to have to say it, but unless you can control it, you have not achieved vibrato. It may sound similar to vibrato, but even were your air to be what was vibrating (which I'm doubting from your story and personal experience), unless you can control speed and depth, as well as choose whether or not to use it, it's not a good vibrato. Keep working, and if you need tips on how to get there, we can certainly help.
Don't sweat vibrato - it is just the natural thing the sound does when you get it right. Work at making a good sound, then at being able to colour the good sound so you have several. Vibrato will come naturally as your breathing gets better.
yes, let it come naturally, and then work on controling it. After you have vibrato, work on the speed of it (eights, triplets, sixteenths etc) so you have a wide variety of styles to use to make your music more interesting.
there are exercises you can do with the diaphragm, but I wouldn't bother with them until you can flutter tongue all the way down to low C (a sure way to see if you are supporting properly. To do it your throat has to be fully relaxed and your breath right).
Just so you know, FluttiTutti, there are people that say vibrato should be allowed to come naturally and then controlled, but it can also be learned, and there are many different methods for it. As someone else said, I wouldn't suggest trying it until you know you are supporting well, but when that time comes, if you have not naturally developed a vibrato, come back and ask, and I (and probably others) can suggest ways to go about learning it.
you can learn to make an artificial wobbling in your sound (he says, giving away his postition on whether you should consciously learn vibrato or not). If you have an open throat and solid support then the vibrato comes out of your colouring of the sound, and the intensity of your playing... or it always did for me.
Have you tried flutter tonguing the whole range of the flute? It shows you where you are fugding the sound, but it always took ages for my pupils a long time to do it in the low register (when they could there was a marked upgrade in the sound. Start in the middle register - G2 is a good place, and work down. Working up will also help you control the third octave). I miss teaching....
Sleeping Turtle wrote:you can learn to make an artificial wobbling in your sound (he says, giving away his postition on whether you should consciously learn vibrato or not). If you have an open throat and solid support then the vibrato comes out of your colouring of the sound, and the intensity of your playing... or it always did for me.
That's interesting (and Sleeping Turtle, I'm just using your post as an example of someone supporting the natural vibrato thing, so this really isn't directed at you alone), that you guys seem so heavily in favor of the natural vibrato. No one that I play with claims to have a natural vibrato, and those few that I know who do generally end up sounding like a billy goat. I learned my vibrato, and I can tell you that there is nothing artificial about it, though from experience those with natural vibrato do sound artificial. Perhaps it's a failure to control it, and I'm by no means trying to imply that y'all have poor vibrato. After all, vibrato is just a fluctuation in pitch, so if you can adjust for pitch, you can use this same technique to learn vibrato.
See, with me it was natural in the early stages ( I just changed my air to make it sound better in parts). Then, it was just a slow ripple in the sound that I would add/change to carry across feeling. Then when I realized what I was doing, I started to control it, and learned how to do it properly. I believe you should let the earliest basics be natural (using vib expression-wise w/o acknowledging it), and then control it, and consciously use it.
But yes, I believe there are very few all natural vibratos out there. I know mine isn't completely natural. I still work on it in warmups sometimes (but rarely). If I had to pick between an all natural vibrato, and a learned vibrato, I would pick the learned. This is because sometimes natural vibrato is detrimental to the persons sound rather than ornamental.
I don't like people putting a 'beat' in their sound, but yes, you do work on vibrato. It does not just pop out fully formed. Once someone's tone was strong and full enough then I'd get them to work on using diaphragm 'huffs' rhythmically (every crochet, every quaver, in triplets etc) in a very controlled and artificial way on long notes to work on the physical side of vibrato.
I'd also get them listening to string players and singers to see how they use it - singers do have natural vibrato, and string players have a totally concious vibrato. Oh, then listen to the old french players - Moyse of course, but also Gaubert, Rene le Roy and so on. Moyse is the prototype of the modern sound, and absolutely fantastic, but le Roy also had an amazing sound. Gaubert has this very pure sound, which is different from the way most people play now, but still very instructive.
I think that once you have support and a good sound, can flutter tongue through the flute's range and have good diaphragm control you have all you need physically for vibrato, and it will come from your intention and musical imagination.
Sleeping Turtle wrote:I don't like people putting a 'beat' in their sound, but yes, you do work on vibrato. It does not just pop out fully formed. Once someone's tone was strong and full enough then I'd get them to work on using diaphragm 'huffs' rhythmically (every crochet, every quaver, in triplets etc) in a very controlled and artificial way on long notes to work on the physical side of vibrato.
See, I would say that the very fact that you have worked with them on the very basics disqualifies the vibrato as natural and puts it squarely in the realm of a learned vibrato. They have been taught what it feels like, even at the most basic stages, and will try to return to that feeling when trying to reproduce what they hear from singers/string players, so the vibrato itself is learned (though the depth and speed variance needed for true expression may be natural). In my thinking, a (true) natural vibrato would require that the pupil never have any instruction of any sort in the production of vibrato, and yet still produce a recognizable vibrato (even if it is not fully formed at first).
I don't think I was ever 'taught' vibrato - I was told to add warmth or intensity to the sound, which meant vibrato. For me the issue is really students getting tied up in a 'I have to do vibrato on his note' thing. Also, as the sound improves, the throat relaxes and the breath is more connected to the sound then people just do it...
Sleeping Turtle wrote:I don't think I was ever 'taught' vibrato - I was told to add warmth or intensity to the sound, which meant vibrato. For me the issue is really students getting tied up in a 'I have to do vibrato on his note' thing. Also, as the sound improves, the throat relaxes and the breath is more connected to the sound then people just do it...
T
Yes, I've heard from quite a few players about this. It was not the norm for teachers with roots in the French school to ever expressly teach vibrato, but rather to discuss warmth or intensity, as you mentioned. They regarded vibrato as so much a part of the sound that it was not considered a separate technique. Today, however, many people's tastes have changed, and the playing and teaching style of the old French school is beginning to fall out of favor (even though I love the French school, and hate to see it go), and it is becoming more and more common for teachers to teach vibrato as a specific technique towards expression (rather than just regarding it as an inherent part of the flute tone), supplying exercises like those you mentioned, as well as many others, to arm their students with the widest possible range of vibrato, and the greatest sensitivity to its potential uses (and lack of use). At some point, most modern students will be involved in learning vibrato, though the stage that the instruction begins at (and progresses to) varies.
I had a similar experience when I was in middle school. My band director (no private teacher at the time) told me to "make that shakey sound" and I figured it out on my own. When I finally began private lessons, my teacher never said much about it. It was not until I was in college studying voice that I really understood what I was doing and how to control it. When I teach vibrato, I teach the student to sing first (using the stomach muscles not the throat as we sometimes do in singing). It allows the student to concentrate on one technique without worrying about everything to do with the flute. It is not always a pretty sound and instrumental students (especially older students) are sometimes reluctant, but it has worked every time and my students who use this technique have great control over both vibrato and breathing.
