Tremolo
Tue, 11/19/2024 - 10:04
Hello,Am I doing tremolo? Im opening and closing my vocal cords as David Barrett teaches. But if vibrato is about a pitch. Does it mean that tremolo shouldn't have a change in pitch? I link video of 1 blow tremolo, on an app that shows pitch of a sound.https://www.youtube.com/shorts/JMlaGiOPYCA
Thanks
Krzysztof
Mon, 11/25/2024 - 14:58
#2
Thank you for your answer. I
Thank you for your answer. I was not aware that theres so much more into it. Thank you for your deep explanation.
There are three things that can put an unduiating pulsation in a musical note:
Harmonica players use all three, but definitions vary. Rather than focus on the labels, think about those three ways of coloring your sound, and how you can achieve them.
Your diaphragm at the bottom of your lungs, can pulsate the speed of air movement, which translates into variations in volume. Your throat muscles (actually, your vocal cords) can also do this, and are generally easier to deploy. Some players call these pulsations tremolo. I include them in the larger definition of vibrato, which historically includes all three of the variations I mentioned above.
Pulsations that vary pitch can be enacted with the deeper part of tongue working with the throat to combine volume and pitch variations into one package, which is usually what is meant by throat vibrato.
The part of your tongue that is in your oral cavity (where the teeth are) can also vary pitch AND it can vary tone color. It can do them separately or together. Changes in tone color can also be heard as changes in vowel sounds varying from eee to ooo.
Your hands can vary tone color (which, again, can be heard as changes in vowel sound), but also volume, though not in the way you might expect. Players who insist that the definition of vibrato is restricted to pitch don't seem to have a name for hand pulsation, but old-time chromatic players call it hand vibrato, and talk about hw you can use throat vibrato lower down in the harmonica's range but, hand vibrato takes over above a certain point.
The volume part of hand vibrato is not a matter of open being louder and closed being softer. What you actually hear is the difference in brightness (higher pitched overtones) when the hands are open and a less bright sound when the hands are closed. HOWEVER, by shaping the opening in your hands, you can find a very narrow range of shaping that will actually make the note louder. Very few players are even aware of this, though, and even fewer can exploit it.