vibrato: finger control or breath control?

[McHaffie]

I have to say both "schools" are useful for different things. I use both a lot. I think that using air to carry long notes in some places during slow aires sounds right where fingering doesn't at times and then again fingering sounds right where using air vibrato wouldn't

I think both fit in fine in their respective places once you get used to them, but that's just me. I just kind of naturally out of no where fell into my own way of playing and it works for me and sounds pretty good and I mix them together often.

If you listen to some of the more well known players, you'll hear the same thing.

[ctladies]

Hi there,

Yes, the vibrato in Irish music is taken from the piping style and we use the fingers to add vibrato. Basically, if you are trying to place vibrato on a b note, you leave off your A finger and add your G finger and fluctuate it up and down..... if it was your A, you use the F skipping the G and so on. When it comes to the bottom D, I use my diaphram.

Hope this helps! Good luck!
Joanie Madden

[Tres]

Has anyone tried doing finger vibrato and diaphram vibrato at the same time? Would it be like mixing matter and anti-matter? Would your whistle explode?

Tres

[s1m0n]

I use finger vibtrato, but only as a "grace note" before a lower note--I drop my finger on the hole with a fluttering or trembling action, and that makes a lovely complex sound before the note.

I suppose I do the same in reverse--lift a finger with a fluttering motion, but I don't combine the actions and play vibrato on an open hole.

[Danner]

Then I experimented some more and found it didn't matter much what I wiggled. It didn't seem that the effect was created by the closeness of the wiggling finger to any particular open tonehole, but rather, by the simple effect of wiggling, no matter where the wiggling was. And yes, I did find that you can create a vibrato effect by wiggling your foot.

Maybe its me, but it would seem that when you wiggled something, especially the whole whistle, that you would alter your breath pressure very slightly without meaning to. In that case, wouldn't you still be doing breath vibrato? Or perhaps it there is something that makes it work?!

[Jerry Freeman]

It's entirely possible there's a placebo effect and my experiment actually produced a "false positive" because I subconsciously expected to get vibrato or thought it would be cool to get vibrato and that affected my breath without my realizing it. Or it may be that wiggling something like a leg or foot does affect the breath and produces a breath vibrato indirectly.

This may be the last great frontier of scientific investigation. To infinity, and BEYOND!

Best wishes,
Jerry

[izzarina]

Has anyone tried doing finger vibrato and diaphram vibrato at the same time? Would it be like mixing matter and anti-matter? Would your whistle explode?

Hmmm...I'm not sure Tres. Why don't YOU try it out...if you don't bother ever telling us, we'll have our answer
On another note, this is all very fascinating to me. As someone who was vocally trained, vibrato from the diaphragm seems to come more naturally. But I find the "flutter" concept intriguing. I think I may have to try it.

[Tres]

Has anyone tried doing finger vibrato and diaphram vibrato at the same time? Would it be like mixing matter and anti-matter? Would your whistle explode?

Hmmm...I'm not sure Tres. Why don't YOU try it out...if you don't bother ever telling us, we'll have our answer
On another note, this is all very fascinating to me. As someone who was vocally trained, vibrato from the diaphragm seems to come more naturally. But I find the "flutter" concept intriguing. I think I may have to try it.

Unfortunately, I am a diaphram vibratoist (is that even a word?). My finger vibrato is so lame that I doubt I could get an effective experiment going. Anyone else out there want to volunteer?

Tres

[BrassBlower]

I use "whistle-shaking" vibrato on high whistles, but breath vibrato on low whistles. I also like to use vocal rolls ("diddly"), since my traditional rolls don't sound anything like a bow triplet yet (but I'm trying).