Playing loudly with slide vibrato

[AndrewMeronek]

Maybe it's just me seeing figments of my own imagination, but has anyone else experienced being able to play loudly becomes easier when using a tight slide vibrato?

The idea relates to how opera singers say using vibrato is easier on their voices when they have to sing loudly for a long time in, well, operas.

[tbdana]

Interesting. For me, it's a no. But maybe that's because I usually don't use vibrato when playing loudly.

[imsevimse]

Maybe it's just me seeing figments of my own imagination, but has anyone else experienced being able to play loudly becomes easier when using a tight slide vibrato?

The idea relates to how opera singers say using vibrato is easier on their voices when they have to sing loudly for a long time in, well, operas.

Vibrato, and especially slide vibrato is a very personal thing. I think this imply jazz now because most use lip vibrato for classical music although I know many use both, but since it has to do with style I need to assume
something.

I like to use slide vibrato in soft playing but can not tell exactly before I've played it when or where I would use it, it just happens, but my raw model for that slide vibrato would be Bill Watrous. It's what I would like. I would use it to warmth the sound or to add some excitement to a note and it comes natural in ballades and also in many lead charts. Vibrato in loud playing is something else. It's not so much to bring warmth to the sound but more for excitement. I have recently just started to analyze Dick Shearers lead playing and especially look for when he use vibrato. Often he uses it while playing very loud and start just before he releases a note, it becomes a wide slide vibrato, that's not too fast, in a crescendo that ends right before he cut the note. Very effective lead with the trombone section, and the phrase hit you as if coming from a boxer. He uses his slide vibrato in his solos too, often with a tiny gliss leading into it. It is everywhere, in his ballads too, and still played very loud. This is his style but the vibrato he makes is then more used for excitement than to bring warmth to the sound. This is what I think when I hear his playing but it might be different elsewhere. I'm still analyzing.

Then there is the vibrato of Si Zentner which in volume I would place somewhere in between. All three very different styles of slide vibrato.

The character of a piece especially if it is played on a trombone changes a lot if the volume changes from soft to loud. It becomes two different expressions and I personally can not think of a ballade as loud with the same slide vibrato and same expression and character as if the ballade was to be played soft. That doesn't happen much in my head.

No, I don't think it is easier to play slide vibrato in a volume that is loud and not easier to play louder using a slide vibrato as some kind of help, if that was the real question. Then I consider both style and technique.

/Tom

[LeTromboniste]

Maybe it's just me seeing figments of my own imagination, but has anyone else experienced being able to play loudly becomes easier when using a tight slide vibrato?

The idea relates to how opera singers say using vibrato is easier on their voices when they have to sing loudly for a long time in, well, operas.

I think there's a fundamental difference in that vibrato for opera singers is directly linked to the sound production itself, whereas in our case slide vibrato is happening past the mechanism of sound production.

But there might still be something to it. For sure a sound with a vibrato tends to be perceived as fuller and warmer.

[dwcarder]

Could it have the effect of making the slot feel bigger and you are able to relax your chops more? I wonder if you perceive this as feeling more efficient if it were something like that?

[Doug Elliott]

I'm not sure how much fact is behind this, but it's a feeling - when you pull the slide in it intensifies the sound, I suppose partly in the slight raising of pitch but also a tiny bit of air compression. I do that sometimes when attacking a high note because it increases the strength of the attack - not as a scoop, but immediately before or during the attack. I think vibrato has that same effect, of making it louder (or perceived louder) than it otherwise is.

That is actually something I have thought about before, when I noticed myself doing it.

[AndrewMeronek]

my raw model for that slide vibrato would be Bill Watrous. It's what I would like. I would use it to warmth the sound or to add some excitement to a note and it comes natural in ballades and also in many lead charts.

For this particular idea (vibrato = louder = easier), Bill probably isn't the best model to examine because his mic setup included a lot of "adjustments" including (I'm pretty sure) a decent amount of audio compression (for volume).

I have recently just started to analyze Dick Shearers lead playing and especially look for when he use vibrato. Often he uses it while playing very loud and start just before he releases a note, it becomes a wide slide vibrato, that's not too fast, in a crescendo that ends right before he cut the note.

A good example of what I was thinking.

[baileyman]

My impression is loud tight vibrato cuts better even if it is not actually louder. The vibrato seems to distiguish the note from whatever else is going on.

[imsevimse]

My impression is loud tight vibrato cuts better even if it is not actually louder. The vibrato seems to distiguish the note from whatever else is going on.

Absolutely, to get attention to a phrase. Depending on how it's used it can make a part stand out better. If not used all the time or else the sensation isn't the same. I would call it "more solistic" and more individual. In case of Shearer it's "me, me, me" , 'listen to this" "get this". When he uses his vibrato, he and the trombone section gets attention even if all in the band play very, very loud.

/Tom

[tbdana]

Absolutely, to get attention to a phrase. Depending on how it's used it can make a part stand out better. If not used all the time or else the sensation isn't the same. I would call it "more solistic" and more individual. In case of Shearer it's "me, me, me" , 'listen to this" "get this". When he uses his vibrato, he and the trombone section gets attention even if all in the band play very, very loud.

/Tom

I tend to think of this kind of attention-getting as imposing yourself on top of the music rather than coming from within the music. It certainly got Dick Shearer attention and notoriety, but may have altered the music itself. Whether that's a good or bad thing is in the eye of the beholder, I guess. But it's why I went from having Dick Shearer as a role model to being put off by his playing.

[ssking2b]

You should do what the chart calls for, and always tastefully.

[baileyman]

... It certainly got Dick Shearer attention and notoriety, but may have altered the music itself. Whether that's a good or bad thing is in the eye of the beholder, I guess. But it's why I went from having Dick Shearer as a role model to being put off by his playing.

Lots of old Kenton guys thought similarly.

Back to topic...

[Doug Elliott]

The only time I heard the Kenton band live I was completely turned off, it was gross.

[GGJazz]

Hi Folks.

Well , of course this is matter of personal taste ; anyway , to me , the Stan Kenton Band is among the best JAZZ Big Band ever existed .
I think that , for the music they were performing , Dick Shearer' style was pretty appropriate...



You can listen in particolar "The Peanut Vendor" , at 41:18 , to check his approach.

Regards
Giancarlo

[AndrewMeronek]

A similar but musically distinct phenomenon might be a classic "rip" gliss.

Is it just because a performer expects it to be loud that such a "rip" often ends up popping out very strongly, or is it also due to the physics of the slide moving?

[imsevimse]

I think that , for the music they were performing , Dick Shearer' style was pretty appropriate..

I think so too. A great lead player I think he deserves his own thread, but he is a really good example of someone who plays loudly and plays loudly with a slide vibrato.

/Tom