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| This discussion includes members-only video content 10 Responses Posted: January 26, 2018 Last Comment: January 31, 2018 |
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Posted: January 31, 2018 |
vibrato help needed Great advice from Beth. I have been working at the improvements she suggested. The movement to the right has greatly improved my tone as the bow is now more consistently perpendicular to the strings. Also whilst playing Lightly Row I was counting in my head so that a crotchet was receiving 4 vibrato movements of my finger. I have since tried playing it with out thinking about how many beats are in each note as Beth suggested. The improvement is noticeable. The vibrato sounds much better and less mechanical. Many thanks to Jamie for his kind words and to all the other contributors. Really feel that posting a video has helped to improve my playing. Will post another in the near future. |
Jaime - Orlando , Fl Posted: January 30, 2018 |
David, Welcome to VL! Excellent strong intonation and vibrato as well! Love the performance and hope to see and hear more! :0) |
Posted: January 29, 2018 |
Some great responses that I find very motivational. I have followed Ted's advice and have started again at 40bpm and am slowly building up again making sure that the finger is straightening more. Some great comments from Beth that persuade me to hope that I am not too far from the great vibrato sound that I seek. Many thanks to all who have responded. |
 Beth Blackerby Posted: January 28, 2018 |
This discussion includes members-only video content |
 Ted Adachi Posted: January 28, 2018 |
This might help. If you want to play that piece with exaggerated wobbly and slow vibrato like I suggested, you would also need to slow the piece down a lot. Playing slow is another challenge (at least it was for me) but I would start out playing that piece at something less than half your current tempo (around 45 -50 bpm). |
 Elke Meier Posted: January 28, 2018 |
David, I would deduct from the description of your problem that you just haven't done the exercises long enough for them to really become automatic. It is like this with every aspect of the violin: You practice shifting exercises and they work wonderfully well, then you get to a piece where you have to think about something else apart from the shift, and there goes your accuracy. Remember when you first struggled with straight bowing? It worked very well on open strings when you had your eyes glued to the bow. Then a piece came, you had to think about left hand and all sorts of things and all of a sudden the bow was crooked again or drifting to the fingerboard, etc. And then comes a time when you realize: oh, no matter what I do now with my left hand, my right hand just seems to stay in its place. Finally the movement has become automatic. It seems to me that your body and brain just haven't had enough time to really internalize the movement of the exercises to be able to do them without thinking. |
Posted: January 28, 2018 |
vibrato help needed Many thanks to Diane, Janice and Ted. Nice to hear from old friends and new. I am caught in a problem of speed regards vibrato. I can do the exercises that Beth demonstrates so well in her videos and the fingers straighten. However when I put these into a tune my vibrato quickens and the straightening of the fingers lessens. Also I feel that on many of the quicker notes the finger would not have time to straighten even by students who have mastered vibrato. I will post another video which shows how my finger can straighten when performing exercises but loses something when put into a tune. Will appreciate any further comments on this problem. I have found all the comments so far very useful and it has encouraged me to keep endeavouring. David |
Ted Adachi Posted: January 27, 2018 |
Hello David, I am glad to see you are sill actively playing. As you may remember, I have only been playing a little while longer than you so I am still very much a beginner. Any advice I give must be taken with a grain of salt and my vibrato is still very inconsistent. Quite a while back you posted some vibrato videos and in those you were getting the wrist vibrato movement quite well at slow speeds. However, rather than speed up gradually, you would suddenly jump from say, 36bpm to 60bpm. At this fast speed, it appeared that you tensed up and 'shook' your hand rather than let your wrist do the work. I really think you are still doing something like this now which results in a quick but very narrow and uncontrolled sound. I would suggest that you aim for a slow, 'wobbly' sound. Start very slow with the wrist vibrato action that you have demonstrated that you can do. Don't try to go fast but try to play a slow, really wide and wobbly vibrato. It won't sound that good but that is not the point at this stage. Wobbly also means a very loose and relaxed hand so you will need to watch your intonation as well. Speed up very, very gradually. If you want to play with a metronome, I would speed up maybe 2bpm at a time. You will not be able to go fast yet. Your muscles really need to build up and this will take a lot of time. This patience is of the utmost importance, I think. I've been working on speeding up this slow, wobbly sound for around 18 months now and it is only very recently that things have started to come together, but just started (so now, it's not so slow but still not fast, most often too narrow and still never good). So at least for me, it has taken a long time and a lot of patience and there is much more to come. Probably not what you wanted to hear but again, I am just a beginner so I may be downright wrong. |
Posted: January 27, 2018 |
vibrato help needed Thanks for your inputs. I will look at my wrist and endeavour to make sure it rocks further back. I agree that the vibrato is tighter than I am striving for. Will access the sites suggested and see if they can help. All comments much appreciated. David |
Posted: January 26, 2018 |
vibrato help needed Coming up to a year of playing the violin and I am still struggling mightily with vibrato. I can vibrate the quick notes quite well but I am still not satisfied that my finger is completely straightening when I attempt longer notes. I have tried wrist vibrato, toyed with arm vibrato, gone back to wrist and the circle continues. I can straighten the fingers quite well up to 4 beats a click with the metronome at 60 and even 70 when my fingers are fully warmed up but are the fingers fully straightening? Am trying to incorporate arm vibrato into the wrist vibrato to see if this helps. Any words of advice very welcome. David |