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Vibrato

5K views 33 replies 16 participants last post by  CrystallineVisions 
#1 ·
Hi,

I'm a professional clarinet player, but picked up the sax fairly recently. My question is the about the use of vibrato. Are there any classical saxophonists who use very little vibrato? Many of the recordings I hear seem to just blanket everything with it and it simply doesn't sound good to my clarinet ears.

Also, how do most people do vibrato on saxophone? Is it embouchure, diaphragm, jaw?

Thanks.
 
#2 ·
Done correctly it's embouchure, like vibrato when whistling. You're right, it has to be used properly. As a pro clarinetist, I'm amazed that you would venture into the 'dark side' where vibrato lurks around every half-note. I mean, the legit clarinet is never to use vibrato, right? You would be ostracized if you slipped up and started using it in the symphony.
Listen to really good sax 'greats' from the golden age of jazz for examples of proper vibrato usage, like Stan Getz. Legit sax players get to use all the vibrato they want, so you could listen to some of them. Rascher, Rousseau, Mule, etc. But even in rock & roll, vibrato was used sparingly by the great players. It's impossible to give you a formula as to when and how much to use - you just have to listen to the greats and absorb it.
However, I work vibrato practice into my long tones practice, kind of the same strategy; varying amplitude and frequency as I modulate volume on the long tone. We also use a very deep and fast 'jaw' version to affect a 'lip trill' which is used in rock, blues, soul, etc. Typically you use it only on a few notes like Bb3 or A2 while fingering the 'false fingering' for that note, which allows the lip trill to jump rather than just oscillate, by physically bringing more of the length of the horn into play. Listen to Earl Bostic on alto who used deep vibrato in specific places both for lip trills and semi-lip trills. He also 'growled' all the time. I have always listened to his old records and most of the great sax players after him picked up many of his 'tricks'. Coltrane and others thought he was the greatest commercial jazz sax player of all time, certainly the greatest master of the alto sax.
You never know, you might get so caught up in the sax that you forget all about that old stick:).
 
#3 ·
Done correctly it's embouchure, like vibrato when whistling
Funny you say that. I learned sax from an old timer French classical clarinet and sax player 25 years ago (he's in his 80's now). He taugh me to absolutely not move the embouchure for vibrato. He says the pure vibrato comes from the diaphragm. I like it better this way as well. No change to pitch, only a modulation of volume.
 
#5 ·
I suppose my problem is that players tend to use vibrato without thinking of the purpose of it. I hear a lot of good classical saxophonists who seem to use it in substitute of a convincing phrase. I've also encountered people who think that faster is better which sounds ridiculous in my mind. On clarinet, most people think of vibrato in a Harold Wright kind of way, more a shade than then main focus.
 
#8 ·
Exactly my view. I think the Classical Sax vibrato was or is taught as a necessary part of the Classical Sax sound, and is practiced using a metronome to achieve the correct amount of vibrato on each note. As a Clarinetists who has studied in the German tradition I approach vibrato on the Sax from a musical perspective. More like a vocalist would.
 
#7 ·
I once played with a tenor player who put vibrato on everything, and I mean EVERYTHING. When he was warming up he put vibrato on his notes while he tuned.
 
#10 ·
Larry Teal offers good commentary on vibrato use in The Art Of Saxophone Playing, the TL;DR of that chapter is that it's jaw vibrato, but use taste to add it. It's usually a constant in speed for classical stuff. Also I'm not quite sure of the difference between jaw and embouchure, because jaw motion increases the volume inside the oral cavity and therefore changes the embouchure. Is the difference if you do the Joe Allard type embouchure without teeth support vs the more traditional single lip over teeth embouchure? Don't mean to hijack the thread.
 
#11 ·
I always thought of embouchure vibrato as starting from the chin and influencing the pressure on the lip while jaw vibrato is exactly that. It doesn't change the embouchure at all. Embouchure is like you are bunching your chin, jaw is like you are chewing.

Does anyone know of a reason why vibrato seems to be taught to be necessary on saxophone? I'm not saying you shouldn't use it at all but from what I understand, it's a part of fundamental technique.
 
#12 · (Edited)
Ok, in that case jaw vibrato seems to be the convention because you have the greatest control over speed and intensity.

I think that vibrato is taught on sax because it just became a convention and a way of adding expression. It seems like it's taught because it sounds professional and creates a typical sax sound. On clarinet it's not common (at least not in the classical world) because it's not conventional.
 
#19 ·
I rarely use immediate vibrato....I prefer delayed vibrato. And the speed depends on song tempo.
 
#21 ·
I once heard an apparently well-known classical clarinetist who used (in the classical context) a vibrato and tone that I thought would cut concrete. I found it jarring. (Full disclosure: I started on clarinet and was taught NO vibrato.) More recently, I heard a concert band play "Victory at Sea" with a "jazzer" tenor player who swooped into every phrase and had a vibrato you could lose your car keys in. It really marred an otherwise solid performance. In other words, it's about using good taste and judgement for the context.
 
#28 ·
Vibrato is like slurring or tonguing notes, bending notes or any of the other sound effects that can be made on a sax - at the right place in a song, usually in a ballad, vibrato makes a simple long note sound with more feeling. You can start the note as a straight note, add vibrato part way through, and vary the frequency and pitch as well, and finish with a straight note, so it doesn't have an undo warbling effect.
Similarly, if you tongue every note it will lose its effectiveness and sound like a staccato series of chopped notes, and if you slur every note, the phrase will lack punch.
Its a matter of judging the place in the music for using any of these techniques. That judgement comes from listening to the particular genre of music until the player has absorbed it as a second nature feeling and understanding.
 
#29 ·
Talking about where to use articulation and slurring in a tune, especially the standards. I think the lyricist and composer were very clever in the matching a lyric with a musical phrase. A lot of the time if you follow the lyrics while playing the notes it tells you how to articulate. Who was that well known player who when asked why he stopped playing in the middle of a tune, said. I forgot the words.
 
#30 ·
There are different "schools" of classical playing that have their own ideal vibrato...

Mule used a wide, fast, consistent vibrato for most everything.
Rascher had a much less pronounced one.
The American school tended to have a wide vibrato, but would alter the speed depending on context.

Nowadays...there's everything. Very little vibrato to wide vibrato...imo, older styles had wider vibrato. Contemporary styles have shallower, slower vibrato usually used in context with what is happening. Musical taste it where it's at. Don't get sucked int older recordings for vibrato usage unless you're trying to mimic is exactly.
 
#34 ·
Hi,

I'm a professional clarinet player, but picked up the sax fairly recently. My question is the about the use of vibrato. Are there any classical saxophonists who use very little vibrato? Many of the recordings I hear seem to just blanket everything with it and it simply doesn't sound good to my clarinet ears.

Also, how do most people do vibrato on saxophone? Is it embouchure, diaphragm, jaw?

Thanks.
I would be curious as to which recordings you're referring to. Perhaps you could give some examples?

The modern French players (Claude Delangle, Jean-Yves Fourmeau, Vincent David, Quatuor Habanera, XASAX, etc.) use very subtle vibrato, though the vibrato itself is still fairly aggressive. Other styles of playing (American, Dutch, Japanese) usually use more vibrato than the French, but the vibrato itself is often smoother. This isn't me leveraging one style over another, just an observation.

John Harle (British) uses almost NO vibrato when he plays, which works well when he plays more modern, jazz-inspired repertoire like Harrison Birtwistle's "Panic." When it comes to standard rep like Debussy and Glazunov, however, it's pretty inappropriate.

Vibrato on saxophone is usually initiated by the jaw, with subtle undulations of four beats per quarter note. Once you've developed proper jaw and embouchure control, you can begin altering the speed and width of the vibrato to better suit the music.
 
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