mouth bending tremolo vibrato

Simply put... use it. It, and dynamics, are the most powerful tools in regards to conveying emotion to the listener.

In my 12-hour teaching block yesterday I found myself reminding students an awful lot to use vibrato. Long notes are a no-brainer, but also use them on shorter notes, commonly a quarter note in length (one beat), or sometimes downbeat eighth notes (the eight note on the downbeat, worth 2/3 of a beat in a shuffle or swing). Vibrato is so important that I have special notation for it to remind students commonly in the first three levels of study on the site. continue reading...

At 2:33 he tries to play a vibrato, but he's going about it the wrong way. You see that he's moving his tongue backwards and forwards in the mouth, moving the tongue in and out of the bending range. The result is a bending and releasing of pitch, which is what a vibrato is, but the result is not pleasing... the tone is thin and whinny.

At 2:25 he plays a tremolo. Note the slight sympathetic movement of the tongue (see how it's moving because of the opening and closing of the vocal folds/chords... not because he's moving the tongue with the normal muscles associated with movement). continue reading...

At 2:25 he plays a tremolo. Note that his tremolo skill is not that great... he's working hard to get it started and sustain it. Our focus is the slight sympathetic movement of the tongue (see how it's moving because of the opening and closing of the vocal folds/chords... not because he's moving the tongue with the normal muscles associated with movement). At 2:33 he tries to perform the vibrato and he is doing it incorrectly. Take a look at this and we'll dig into this deeper tomorrow.

Video Referenced
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTEXSb6duVs&feature=player_embedded