The Vibrato Story Deepens

After the newsletter on vibrato of last week I received a few comments and questions. They’ve prompted me to experiment with my hands in some new ways the past few days.

Here’s what I found.

Well, hang on a sec. The other day I failed to mention another kind of vibrato that is known to the general playing population; the finger vibrato. It’s produced through the controlled flexing of the first knuckle.

As you can imagine it will tend to be narrower than the wrist or arm vibrato and is most effective in the upper positions.

One of the folks who wrote in mentioned that he must rely on this form of vibrato almost exclusively now due to an arthritic condition that’s developed in his wrist.

Another person wondered if I knew anything about a ‘bow vibrato’, something allegedly employed by the famous French violinist, Jacque Thibaud.

Now if Thibaud did use such a technique I rather think it would have been on long notes at the ends of phrases in slow music. The use of it my have evolved out of a bow control exercise some pedagogues teach, where you roll pressure on and off the bow as you draw it down and up the string.

I don’t practice this much myself but I have heard a colleague use it during warm-up. And I could see how one might be tempted to use it in certain musical situations. Yet to me it the calling for it would be very rare indeed, unless one really can’t produce a vibrato on the left side.

But getting back to what I’ve gotten into the past couple of days.

I have found an additional way to vibrato; something I’d call a ‘hand’ vibrato.

The hand vibrato comes about by gently applying and releasing pressure on the string with your left hand fingers. Now, I don’t do this with just the finger so much as with a squeeze of the hand; that is, I’m gently squeezing up from under the violin with my hand as I gently squeeze down from the top with the finger. In effect it’s a relaxed clenching and un-clenching of the hand.

I must say, I started making some nice sounds by using it. Again, it’s not a very wide vibrato, yet it can be very rapid, if one wants it to be.

The thing to remember, if you give a try, is not to release the string so much that you loose control of the note. I guess that goes without saying.

So while the bow vibrato and the hand vibrato are interesting things to fool around with as you warm up, they’re not going to revolutionize the way the violin is played. Just some fun and games and a new way to stretch yourself in a practice.

All the best,

Clayton Haslop

P.S. In case you missed yesterday’s newsletter, here’s the link to the grand-daddy of violin master classes; a place where you can spend 3 days transforming your violin playing in awesomely beautiful surroundings.