Throat Tremolo
New the site/program and starting at level 1 tongue blocking and the song "walk with me" immediately uses throat tremolo...are there any exercises that work directly with throat tremolo? I've been trying for sometime now with no success~thanks
The glottal stop - closing your vocal cords - is the beginning of throat pulsation.
OK, so how do you close your vocal cords? (cords, and not chords, by the way).
I'm going to use the exclamation mark: ! to indicate a glottal stop.
Try whispering !Uh-!uh-!uh-!uh-!uh-!uh-!uh - with as many repetitions as you like.
Do it all in one breath, in a continuous stream, and not too fast.
The glottal stop does not stop the breath flow. You keep breathing and let the glottal stop momentarily interrupt a moving flow of air.
It's a little like saying "Uh-uh!" as in, no way, not gonna do it.
But there's an important difference. When you say "Uh-uh," the first "Uh" both starts and ends with a glottal stop that interrupts the breath flow.
When you do the continuous stream, you interrupt the breath flow only at the *beginning* of each "Uh."
Start with maybe once per second.Then, when you're comfortable with it, twice per second, After awhile, you can speed up from there, but ALWAYS MAINTAIN A CONSISTENT RATE.
Now, if you pick up the harmonica and try this, you will get a series of short notes instead of a single long, pulsated note.
To convert the repeated notes into pulsations, do this.
Concentrate on the area where you feel the glottal stops.
Feel the contact between the vocal folds as they close to form the glottal stop.
Try to ease up on this motion so that the vocal folds just contour the moving air flow, instead of stopping it. You won’t feel the vocal folds touching, and the whispered sound will be more like:
Ah,ah,ah,ah,
without the distinct interruption.
Try doing this once per second, then twice per second, then may be three times per second (dividing the beat into three parts this way can be a very effective pulsation when playing shuffles).
Again, maintain a constant rate as you speed this up.
NOTE: At first you'll have to consciously initiate each individual pulsation.But as you get used to doing it one, then twice, then three times pet beat, you'll find you can just turn it on and let it run, without having to initiate each individual pulsation.
I hope this helps.
Winslow has explained in much more detail what David demonstrated on the videos and so very well. The fact that going from uh uh to ah ah is a very good description of how I was saying I needed to modify the muscle movement to soften it after I got my speed up.
When Winslow says to start at one per second, that's exactly what I did! I set the metronome to 60 beats per minute. The only difference is that (as I have always with my musical metronome training) did a much slower transformation than doing twice as many for the first jump. That would be like going from 60 to 120 in one shot. In order to get the muscle training, muscle memory and repetitions in I just bump up the metronome one beat or 4 or 5 beats on a more traditional non-digital metronome (because that's how they are). Even if I could double the action, I find that the slow increments and practice actually help me to get a firmer foundation faster and go faster in the long run. That's like what I do with weight training. I just add in the next smallest amount of weight or just one more rep at a time so that I don't possibly do damage to the muscle or get too sore or too frustrated... but that's definitely a style I have learned over decades for myself and might not be what would be best for others. If you are frustrated though, it's definitely worth a try. I personally couldn't do the jump from 60 to 120 right off the bat like in the videos or like what might work for Winslow and his students. Tremolo was really hard for me on the recorder and then just as hard on the harmonica so I had to take it in baby steps.
Anyway, hope that helps!
Interesting timing. I was wondering why the tremolo can't be done with the abdominal contractions since I've used that technique with the flute and recorder and find that using the abdomen is easy and sounds good on them AND the harmonica, so why not, what's the big deal, why train so hard the vocal chords when I can already do a tremolo so easily from the abdomen and have to work so hard to keep it all in just the throat? Then I just came to this lesson where David explains why and a little more on how the tremolo will fit into the longer term studies of vibrato and bending. This really helped me to get an overview understanding and the extra instructions in general I also found to be helpful:
Thanks for help...I've been trying all the suggested teqnigues and I'm sure after time and practice I'll find it works for me aswell. The part about starting slow and working the tempo upgradually is what I hear from all sources. Now I'm under the impression throat tremble is done on the draw and not the blow....am I wrong does it work both ways? Because I've been trying lessons from YouTube begore joining this program and I thought the videos I watched were all tremolo on the draw ....i did not see the video from david barrett on throat tremolo....thank you Winslow for going in depth on the technique and dorothy for the link on all the videos.....i appreciate it
Tremolo is done both on draw and blow. It's just easier on the blow, so probably why they have videos on youtube on the draw to help people more with that since it's harder?
I don't know where David's first class on tremolo is but he says why draw is harder and he also demonstrates the sound to make that will create the stopping and starting effect.
I found that the videos I found on youtube on tremolo were way inferior to David's instructions by the way. I think it would be worth searching here for you. The link I gave you is the more advanced instruction but David has an instruction video on it early on and also teaches Hob and his wife (both beginners) how to do it in his videos on teaching them, so all those would be worth finding I think.
Thank you Dorothy
Werfrat: Great tips from Winslow and Dorothy, I've been playing for about six years, but only recently started seriously thinking about my own tremolo abilities, in part as I've started playing more chormatic harmonica and working on tone and dynamics for it. If you haven't already watched it and worked with it, David's lesson "Tremolo and Vibrato - Level 4" is the next to last lesson when you click the "View Alphabetically" prompt at the top of the lesson grid. There are good reasons for using the throat rather than the abdomen, and at David's suggestion I've watched myself playing, shirtless, in the bathroom mirror, to make sure there's no diaphram or other abdominal movement. (Of course, Jason Ricci can do some amazing stuff with his diaphram and abdominal muscles, and I've seen videos of some of the things he can pull off. But I can guarantee you that at 71 years of age, shirtless, whether playing harmonica or not, I do NOT look at all like Jason!)
Looks like no one is answering your question Werfrat, so even as a beginner I'm going to give it a whirl and others can correct me if I am not steering you in the right direction.
It seems like David just explains what the tremolo is and demonstrates it on the videos and that's about it. All you need is any held note, so no particular exercises for it.
I personally found what David said about the sounds and how fast it was done a little unnerving so what I did was take my metronome and put it on a slow setting and did one of the sounds/movements he described in the video for one beat of the metronome and then sped up the metronome by only one beat per minute until I was fast, but I have to say, making the sounds as he did in the video just as he did them made for one awful sounding tremolo! It did work the muscles though. When I was fast enough then I was able to just work on getting it subtle and sounding good, but I couldn't do that before working with a metronome and taking it really slow.
And... I already know how to do a tremolo on a recorder! So, it's not easy and unlike it looks in the video, it will take some time and practice.
I'm really good with tempos and rhythm already so I was able to play my metronome and practice that boring things while listening to other things at the same time, but if you are new to musical instruments in general, I wouldn't try that. I would just do up to 5 minutes at a time a bunch of times during the day with the metronome. More than 5 is usually counter-productive for most people who aren't trained with it.
When I work with the metronome I speed up just one notch at a time and when I get to the point where I start to stumble, I go back to a point where I am solid and play that way for a bit to end on a positive and give up til the next time and then set the metronome back a step or two again when I pick it up again.
This might seem unbearably boring and slow, but I find that it's actually the fastest way to master just about anything on an instrument.
I hope my strange way of going about it isn't too weird and is helpful to you. Hopefully an advanced student or teacher will chime in too.