Horn vibrato

@ Enigmus: lol, that's what we call brass band vibrato over here. Yuck!

Originally Posted by Gardener

If you write tr they will play a trill and not vibrato. Just write "vibrato"/"poco vibrato"/"molto vibrato"/whatever above the notes (respectively "non vibrato" or "senza vibrato" if you specifically don't want one). (Of course, traditionally vibrato was almost never indicated in the notes.)

Sometimes, in newer music you'll find wavey lines that indicate visually how fast and how wide a vibrato should be.

Ok, thank you

Another question, is it possible to create a vibrato in Finale or with GPO?

Originally Posted by EnigmusJ4

This tremolo vibrato, as you describe it... I hate it. I hear it mostly in singers and flautists...

You know, I still haven't found out why so many people here think singers constantly use too much vibrato. I am a singer and I find that it is easier to have vibrato then not to. Not going to say that you should ALWAYS have vibrato, but what I mean to say is that vibrato with a singer is (IMHO) more heavenly than any instrument. I have hardly ever heard anyone use "too much" vibrato- I find that, as I believe I heard someone here say, it should be used in the context of the style you're singing/playing in. I think that is my only real limitation to vibrato... until it gets out of hand.

Also, I think tremolo vibrato has its uses- I admit to using it in musical theater to get a certain effect. Go ahead- call me what you want, but I think everything has a place.

[/rant]

Originally Posted by Alan

I have hardly ever heard anyone use "too much" vibrato- I find that, as I believe I heard someone here say, it should be used in the context of the style you're singing/playing in.

Of course. Any remark about anything musical is true only in the context of the style at hand. I've heard plenty of singers with too much vibrato for my taste (in the context in which I heard them, obviously), but a pure, Kirkby-esque sound would be just as wrong in the contexts of late Romantic opera or early musical as it is right in other contexts.

In fact, ironically, the only kind of occasion I can recall I've heard people claim some sort of musical "absolute", which is true across different contexts, is when voice pedagogues talk about a "healthy" vibrato, timbre or whatever. Which, as you may guess, I think is BS.

Alan, I shall provide a few examples, one of the main ones being that I took hardly any care in trying to FIND examples, because they are just so plentiful, at least in how I view amount of vibrato.

The following I feel the vibrato is somewhat justified, but there is so much I can hardly tell what pitches she is singing, too wide, too often:

YouTube Video

Denes Striny and Carolyn James, soprano

(Original Source)

Same piece, different singer, same problem:

YouTube Video

Anja Silja Final Scene Salome by Strauss 1/2

(Original Source)

Some of that "tremolo" vibrato as I think of it. Too much. Sorry, but the soprano here hits some very high notes, and it might hurt your ears, so keep your finger on the volume for your speakers just in case. I had to take my headphones almost completely off... but I'm not concerned with the glass shattering highness, just the trembling vibrato, which I don't like much. The tenor has the same problem, I think, but as per the opera he is off-stage and hard to hear...

YouTube Video

Angela Gheorghiu - Sempre Libera - La Traviata - Verdi

(Original Source)

Here is my idea of just enough vibrato and not too much, the soprano has very very little, which I find perfect, and the alto is pushing it, a bit on the 'much' side, but still not at all to the point where it begins to sound bad:

YouTube Video

Pergolesi's Quando Corpus- Sebastian Hennig and Rene Jacobs

(Original Source)

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The three negative examples I don't think are too horrible, but still, my opinion says the vibrato is too much. What do the rest of you think?

Enigmus- I guess our tastes just differ.

I actually don't mind the vibrato of the sopranos in the first two examples... though perhaps the second one could make it tighter. The third one won't load.

The one you liked was relatively uninteresting to me. The soprano was too piercing- no real depth to her sound (IMHO, of course). The Alto was just right.

Edit- Not that I got the third video loaded, I can say that she has a great voice- not to think, very expressive, very subtle (it doesn't cover the note) but quick vibrato.

If I had known you guys were talking about Opera, I would've kept my mouth shut. I've hardly ever heard a musical theater singer with too much vibrato. I can agree that plenty of opera singers do too much, but I can also agree that it's the style of opera to be showy, and if you can do that, it's showy. What the worst thing is- try listening to the first woman singing Gershwin. I sat through a whole concert of that once, it was a nightmare! That's where I start saying that it's too much.

That René Jacobs recording reminds me how glad I am that he gave up singing and became a conductor instead. (I love him as a conductor!)

Stuff like Pergolesi's Stabat Mater should be sung completely without vibrato anyways, in my opinion. There are pieces that sound so much better totally simple and without vibrato. We just had a performance of the Brahms Requiem a few days ago and the soprano solist had so much vibrato that it killed the whole piece. Yes, it's Brahms. Yes, it's late 19th century and everything. It still would have sounded -awesome- without any vibrato.