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vibrato oscillates below the pitch above or both?

  • Below the pitch only

    Votes: 28 44.4%
  • Below and above the pitch

    Votes: 30 47.6%
  • Above the pitch

    Votes: 2 3.2%
  • Something else

    Votes: 3 4.8%

Jaw vibrato: where is the "average" pitch?

11K views 47 replies 29 participants last post by  Jazzaferri 
#1 · (Edited)
I was reading the Larry Teal book, and he appears to imply that vibrato oscillates down, back up above the pitch and down again, so that the "basic" or "average" pitch is in the middle of the waveform.

I suppose this would work well for a singer, but I'm sure most saxophone players oscillate down from the pitch then back up to it, rarely going above the starting pitch.

You would think that this would make the pitch of a vibrato note sound flat: if you play a note without vibrato, then add the vib halfway through, the average pitch of the oscilation would be lower, but I don't hear it as sounding flat, even p;ayers with a quite an exaggerated vibrato such as Earl Bostic.

This is with the oscillations below the pitch:



And with both below and above, so the "average pitch" is not flattened:

 
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#41 ·
He's trying to get you to "center" your embouchure. If you are a biter you can only go down. By tuning a tad sharp this forces you to "play flatter" (having to flatten your note to be actually in tune). The key to this is to listen for being in tune, and don't forget you are doing it, if you revert back to biting and don't listen to how sharp you are it will sound bad.
 
#43 ·
Very intersti g study Pete.

A minor correction on guitar technique. Classical vibrato is created by the finger on the fret oscillating parallel with the fret causing minor decreases and possibly slight increases above as well. In my case most of my energy is toward the bridge which drops the pitch and the speed varies some with the tempo of the song.
 
#44 ·
Diagnostic test: Play a note how you regularly play it. Then play it and hold it while lipping down in pitch. Most people can flatten the note significantly. Now hold the note and lip up. Most amatures can't significantly lip up. Why? Because they produce their tone too "bitey", meaning they are already on maximum squeeze on every note they play. Centering your tone production will give you a better tone, better intonation and more flexibility. A side benefit of this is that you will need to push in your mouthpiece a tad due to the fact you are playing flatter (embouchurally speaking - I made that word up) and many people see their intonation between registers (youngsters playing sharp up high for instance) improve dramatically because I believe (imho) most people's set-ups play better at an ideal length, and playing a shorter sax gets them there. Look for this when you see a bad sounding sax player with funky intonation: they have a ton of cork showing. Now some corks are wider than others ect ... but many biters play reeds that are way too stiff due to the fact that they bite the crap out of the reed to play it, often with too little mouthpiece in their mouths. So you see players with tiny facing lengths with really stiff reeds with very little mouthpiece in their mouths barely on the neck wondering why their tone sucks and intonation is out to lunch. Center it up folks.
 
#45 ·
Jaw vibrato is a confusing issue for me ... When I listen to a highly developed vibrato, like Dexter Gordon's for example, I don't hear any variation in pitch. My jaw vibrato, a work in progress, OTOH, is rough and wonky and sounds like it varies in pitch (at least down, maybe not up). Mine needs a lot of work, but I'm not sure if it's intended to be free of variation in pitch, when it's developed.

Here's some of what Henry Lindeman had to say about it (from his Method book):

"VIBRATO ... Vibrato is gotten by a loose movement of the teeth. The lower jaw is connected to the head not by any bone structure but by a tendon on either side of the face. Drop the lower jaw so that the jaw rests suspended from these tendons. Do not lift the teeth to meet the reed but allow the lower lip to come up over the teeth to form a bed for the reed to rest on. Care must be taken in using the vibrato that the motion of the teeth does not interfere with the steady ring in the bell of the instrument. This ring is the center of your vibration wave and should guide you as to how much motion of the teeth is to be used. Too wide a motion will lessen the speed of the vibrato and kill the ring in the instrument thus producing an ow ow ow sound which goes flat and sharp with each movement of the teeth and hinders any possibility of intonation."

And he's got some very detailed exercises to get it developed. When I work on vibrato in lessons, which isn't all that often, we work right out of the Lindeman book. Eventually, he says, "When this has been mastered, the mechanical aspect of the vibrato will be a thing of the past and the jaw will be able to fall into various tempos and changes in tempo naturally, and without any assistance from you." Sounds promising. I like his optimism.


Turtle
 
#46 ·
I'm certainly not an expert re. Vibrato, as I still have the no vibrato mind set from Clarinet, but I use a Flute Vibrato ( from the back of the throat), because I'm not conscience of using it and hope it's the music dictating when and how to use vibrato. Ie. At the tapering off of a note or other variation. I'm a firm believer that the best vibrato is when your not aware of any vibrato in the music. But saying that I can also enjoy Bechet.
 
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