Slide Vibrato Technique

[PaulTdot]

Those of you who have experience with learning, teaching, or playing upper register ballads with slide vibrato...

How do you approach slide vibrato? How do you teach it?

There are different schools of thought - not just speed and width, but also when to start the vibrato (and in which direction!), and how to release it.

Some players combine some slide and lip vibrato for an extra "fluffy" sound.

Some players play their positions "off the bumpers", to allow slide vibrato in first position (e.g. Bill Watrous, Jiggs Whigham, Urbie Green). Some players, instead, just avoid first position, using alternates. Others still play the slide vibrato entirely at and below the note.

There are many variations, and they are rarely discussed. However, the art of upper register ballad playing may well be lost someday, so it's very much worth talking about.

What do you think, TromboneChat?

[BGuttman]

I was taught that you don't want to create the impression that the vibrato is a coverup for bad intonation, so you start the note and add the vibrato later. Too small a vibrato doesn't read and too wide sounds corny (think Guy Lombardo and his Royal Canadians). How much is just right? There's where the musician comes in.

[Doug Elliott]

Listen to Mark Nightingale on the current thread about Porgy and Bess. He uses a very nice but very different style than most players. Maybe it's a British thing.

[harrisonreed]

I like to use a slide vibrato technique sometimes borrowed for singers. Their actual vibrato is usually not uniform, neither in frequency of waves nor in actual pitch drift. It's especially dynamic in pop singers -- within one note they can go from no vibrato to normal vibrato to modulating almost a whole tone, and even end on a different pitch just as the note fades out.

Someone who is really good at this and who has recordings that show it is Mike Lake.

It's deliberate, you blow straight in the middle of the pitch, and you've got set physical motions you go through with the slide depending on the effect you want -- like a dynamic pattern, not just a back and forth motion.

[baileyman]

Carl Fontana complained, "...but I can't personalize it." So he generally didn't use it. And he did play some nice ballads.

[Crazy4Tbone86]

Listen to Mark Nightingale on the current thread about Porgy and Bess. He uses a very nice but very different style than most players. Maybe it's a British thing.

The Mark Nightingale Porgy and Bess video is a wonderful arrangement that is performed very well. On many of the phrases that end with wide vibrato, Mark is also fading away or tapering the note off at the same time. The effect is very elegant and effective. It makes me think of trumpeter Maurice Andre who was known for putting a decrescendo taper on the release of almost every note.

[bigbandbone]

Listen to and watch Watrous.

[PaulTdot]

Listen to Mark Nightingale on the current thread about Porgy and Bess. He uses a very nice but very different style than most players. Maybe it's a British thing.

Indeed, I noticed that. An interesting, lighter approach.

I am hoping to draw some more specific advice, tips, and techniques here - particularly interesting is how to deal with the issues of intonation and first position (vibrato at the note, or below it, for example?).

A good tip I got from string players is to start the vibrato upwards, not downwards. While it's just a quick moment, beginning the vibrato in a downward direction can make the note sound flat, and that will stick with the listener.

Most trombonists either don't use enough slide vibrato (it needs to be heard "at the back of the hall", after all!), don't time it properly, or don't play with stylistic consistency (compare the speed and width of a Tommy Dorsey-era slide vibrato to a Dick Shearer-style vibrato!).

That said, some players with distinctive and personal slide vibrato styles include:

Tommy Dorsey
Sy Zentner
Urbie Green
Dave Steinmeyer
Bill Watrous
Jiggs Whigham
Al Kay

I'd love to hear about how you practice and teach slide vibrato; the nuances seem to be usually neglected or left to each student to "listen and figure out" - which, while a useful starting point, doesn't really require a teacher. Grip and wrist technique are also usually not discussed (I've met a few great players who use a different grip when playing with a lot of slide vibrato, to accommodate a different wrist movement).

[robcat2075]

My note is that your slide will need to be fabulous. OF course it should be anyway, duh?... but the little catches and slow spots we can live with in conventional playing will up-end attempts to do the small and nuanced oscillating motions that something less than "Guy Lombardo-style" will be.

A good tip I got from string players is to start the vibrato upwards, not downwards. While it's just a quick moment, beginning the vibrato in a downward direction can make the note sound flat, and that will stick with the listener.

I'm sure some will say that. I'm also sure some will say the opposite and have a cogent explanation for why it has to be their way.

Here is a write up of a study about string player vibrato, with some slo-mo video included. Some go up. some go down, some do an itsy-bitsy fake in one direction then go the other...

Vibrato in slow motion - on violin and cello

The big headline, however was...

As part of a series of studies on vibrato pitch centre... [researchers] asked 60 university string
players and a former concertmaster of the New York Philharmonic to
perform a semibreve (whole note) with two beats non-vibrated, followed
by two beats vibrated...
The frequencies of the non-vibrated and vibrated pitches were
analysed and compared. In each case it was found that players vibrated
both above and below the intended pitch fairly symmetrically – contrary
to the assertion of Ivan Galamian that the frequency of vibrato
oscillates from the in-tune pitch and below.

My own observation while cello playing is that I feel like I'm vibrating around a center that is slightly below pitch but... the sixty better than me players in that study were not doing that.

Hmmm.

[Vegasbound]

Always thought Bill Tole had great slide vib

[PaulTdot]

Here is a write up of a study about string player vibrato, with some slo-mo video included. Some go up. some go down, some do an itsy-bitsy fake in one direction then go the other...

Hey, some science! Very cool, thank you. Fascinating stuff!

It's a bit different on trombone, however, where there are variables for pitch (it's possible to move the slide in one direction while bending the pitch in the other, for instance). It would be fun to do a similar study somehow! (But finding skilled slide vibrato players isn't easy...)

[robcat2075]

Hey, some science! Very cool, thank you. Fascinating stuff!

That is a more enthusiastic response than it got on the cello forum.

It's a bit different on trombone, however, where there are variables for pitch (it's possible to move the slide in one direction while bending the pitch in the other, for instance).

There are variables for string instruments. It is possible to do a completely convincing "bow" vibrato without moving the finger. I've seen people do it on an open string.

And there is a strange phenomenon where if you play louder the pitch drops. Some strings do this more than others.

It would be fun to do a similar study somehow! (But finding skilled slide vibrato players isn't easy...)

I think you've found the topic for your doctoral thesis.

[Savio]

Vibrato is a bit personal isn’t it? And also depends some on what music we play. I would listen many players and singers and try to emulate some of them. For me personally I found out that slide vibrato is easier in the high register. In the low register I use more jaw vibrato. Anyone tried out slide vibrato in the lower area?

Leif

[Basbasun]

G.R- Did.

[imsevimse]

Vibrato is a bit personal isn’t it? And also depends some on what music we play. I would listen many players and singers and try to emulate some of them. For me personally I found out that slide vibrato is easier in the high register. In the low register I use more jaw vibrato. Anyone tried out slide vibrato in the lower area?

Leif

I have the same experience. To me it is easier to do that well in the high register. A lightweight slide helps too.

There are many different kinds of slidevibrato. I have listened a lot to Tommy Dorsey and tried to emulate that a lot but Si Zentner has another vibrato and Dick Nash, Bill Watrous, David Steinmeier, Buddy Morrow and Urbie Green all do it differently. All needs to be listened to.

/Tom