Sure sounds like it to me. Congratulations for attempting this difficult technique. However, as a fiddler I think there are other things you can strive toward. BTW Anja, I only say this because I think you have said many times your goal is to be a good fiddler rather than a classical violinist.

I'm in the same boat, Quincy! Good work. I'm still using too much arm with my attempts but I think it's a great tool you're learning.
Vibrato is great for slow tunes. One of my favorite "Fiddlers/Violinist" is Brittany Haas. You should check her and her band out "Hawk Tail" She plays every style of violin you can think of. Keep it up!

Finger, wrist and elbow, I keep it in my gently moving finger. Good vibrato isn't overused but present in my definition of "good fiddling". Listen to some Kenny Baker waltzes. Keep up the good work. R/

There is a little vibrato there. I think as you listen to violin music and singing, it’s just natural to eventually start doing some elementary vibrato. The same happens with singing—after doing it for a certain amount of time and listening to good singers who use vibrato, it just starts to find its way into your own singing.

I’ll add that as you begin to explore vibrato, doing exercises to develop it will really help you. To really make good use of it, you need to learn to control the speed and amplitude, as a good player will make use of these things in playing. It’s also good to develop the ability to stop using vibrato in places where you don’t want it—vibrating becomes second nature as you do it more and more, so it takes some mental preparation then to play without.

At this point in your development I think working on vibrato is less of a necessity than intonation and rhythm, though. Get those where you’re solid, then vibrato can follow. A lot of students rush into learning vibrato too early and it makes their intonation issues worse.

Yes i think uncontrolled vibrato is a nervous twitch that can become difficult to cure. And can lead to vague intonation.

quote:

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Originally posted by RichJ

Sure sounds like it to me. Congratulations for attempting this difficult technique. However, as a fiddler I think there are other things you can strive toward. BTW Anja, I only say this because I think you have said many times your goal is to be a good fiddler rather than a classical violinist.

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Hey Rich, I agree there is still a lot of stuff I need to learn. My violin teacher always claimed vibrato would give a more adult touch to my playing, so I never deleted the idea , after several failed attempts. There IS stuff from the classical world I want to dive into also, I mean the technique: for example upbow staccato and spiccato sound pretty cool and perhaps useful!

Vibrato isn’t a classical-only technique. Jazz players certainly make good use of it, and being able to control it makes a huge difference in the maturity of the playing.

There’s been a lot of discussion about vibrato in the baroque era. When baroque music was rediscovered and before a more scholarly approach was taken to understand the style, players of modern violin technique simply applied their normal playing style to the music, using a continuous vibrato. The early baroque recordings therefore have a much more romantic flavor to them. Eventually there was a movement to play without any vibrato at all, as there was an argument that regular use of vibrato was not a practice until the late 19th century. This led to very dull recordings that no one could stand and a bit of a decline in enthusiasm for the style. With more study, the opinion has fallen somewhere in the middle: it seems that vibrato was used more as an ornament or for dramatic effect in certain passages. This means that a player needed the ability to vary vibrato and to vibrate or stop vibrating at will. As the study of baroque music has become nuanced, enthusiasm for it has returned, and now it has become common for prominent players to include recordings of the style in their discography.

The fiddler who taught me had this really wide, slow vibrato that he could use when he played jazz or his own compositions. He’d been an award-winning fiddler and spent his life playing in bluegrass bands and teaching various fiddle styles to a studio of aspiring musicians. What made him so intriguing to the listener was his wide tonal pallete and his ability play music of different styles with real musicality.

I think there’s a huge misconception that if you learn a technique, you’ll be unable to stop using it afterward. While some players may struggle with that problem, it certainly isn’t guaranteed to happen. I can’t really think of examples where learning more about playing the instrument has been detrimental (unless taught poorly).

That being said, don’t rush into techniques without a good foundation. The progression does build on itself, even if one’s own journey doesn’t follow a straight line.

@Rich Maxham, I want to thank you for taking the time to warn me to practise specific vibrato exercises, I was taught the ambulance exercise by my violin teacher and found other useful exercises on YouTube during the last day, I will take my time every day to practise the more boring parts also - also others advise doing these specific exercises. Good point that I should also same time learn to stop vibrato. I guess it's like with double stops , in the beginning I constantly used this, now only subtle. There was a short period in which I really needed to unlearn the habit of constanly playing double stops, but a bit of correction and now I use them wisely and can pick where and where not.
I try to see vibrato as vibrato and do not mind the claims there are x types of vibrato, but I DO aim for arm vibrato after seeing a couple of videos of respected violinists. I know I cannot touch the fingerboard with the side of my fingers and hand like in normal play and that I should roll while fingers are as flat as possible , elbow a bit turned to the right helps playing vibrato and all should be loose, except I guess maybe strictly spoken the stretching and bending of the knuckles of your fingers.

I practised some more today and to my surprise it is not that hard at all. I made some serious progress during the last hours. Knowing that others see it as vibrato, even just a little vibrato, gave me a great boost, now I already got a more pronounced vibrato. I found out vibrato is quite easy on the highest string and even easier there in what DOES appear to be another position; second position.

I feel excited because I reached something during the last 24 hours I thought that was maybe just not within my reach. I figured out something about another position and my vibrato is developing, my attempts do not sound anymore like I am mistreating the neighbours' cat.

You write: '' I think there’s a huge misconception that if you learn a technique, you’ll be unable to stop using it afterward. "

While I still think it had been better if I started fiddle way straight away , I do not apply this to technique in general. It's not that I want to limit myself in technique by saying this I need for OT fiddle, this I do not. My admiration for this instrument goes far enough to have interest in coloring outside the lines of what should and what should not be done as a fiddler.
All these different bow strokes , they intrigue me all of a sudden too. Must know spiccato and upbow staccato!!!
There is stuff I will never like , like - and I hate to say this - but I really detest performing glissando. I know it is part of ( old time) fiddling , but I leave this one to others.

I do am crazy about cross tuning though. Did I ever mention this? ;-p

I say cross tuning FTW en vibrato for my own entertainment and for the show!! And long live other positions!!! Yes I want to know more.

quote:

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Originally posted by Erockin

I'm in the same boat, Quincy! Good work. I'm still using too much arm with my attempts but I think it's a great tool you're learning.
Vibrato is great for slow tunes. One of my favorite "Fiddlers/Violinist" is Brittany Haas. You should check her and her band out "Hawk Tail" She plays every style of violin you can think of. Keep it up!

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I am checking her biography... she sounds so cool! 

On Wikipedia;

''At the age of eight, her violin teacher gave her some bluegrass sheet music to practice sight reading. For the next five years she took both classical violin and bluegrass fiddle lessons. "

That is pretty interesting to know!  Lots of respect for her choices.

quote:

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Originally posted by pete_fiddle

Yes i think uncontrolled vibrato is a nervous twitch that can become difficult to cure. And can lead to vague intonation.

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I will take this observation to heart!!

quote:

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Originally posted by Quincy

@Rich Maxham, I want to thank you for taking the time to warn me to practise specific vibrato exercises, I was taught the ambulance exercise by my violin teacher and found other useful exercises on YouTube during the last day, I will take my time every day to practise the more boring parts also - also others advise doing these specific exercises. Good point that I should also same time learn to stop vibrato. I guess it's like with double stops , in the beginning I constantly used this, now only subtle. There was a short period in which I really needed to unlearn the habit of constanly playing double stops, but a bit of correction and now I use them wisely and can pick where and where not.
I try to see vibrato as vibrato and do not mind the claims there are x types of vibrato, but I DO aim for arm vibrato after seeing a couple of videos of respected violinists. I know I cannot touch the fingerboard with the side of my fingers and hand like in normal play and that I should roll while fingers are as flat as possible , elbow a bit turned to the right helps playing vibrato and all should be loose, except I guess maybe strictly spoken the stretching and bending of the knuckles of your fingers.

I practised some more today and to my surprise it is not that hard at all. I made some serious progress during the last hours. Knowing that others see it as vibrato, even just a little vibrato, gave me a great boost, now I already got a more pronounced vibrato. I found out vibrato is quite easy on the highest string and even easier there in what DOES appear to be another position; second position.

I feel excited because I reached something during the last 24 hours I thought that was maybe just not within my reach. I figured out something about another position and my vibrato is developing, my attempts do not sound anymore like I am mistreating the neighbours' cat.

You write: '' I think there’s a huge misconception that if you learn a technique, you’ll be unable to stop using it afterward. "

While I still think it had been better if I started fiddle way straight away , I do not apply this to technique in general. It's not that I want to limit myself in technique by saying this I need for OT fiddle, this I do not. My admiration for this instrument goes far enough to have interest in coloring outside the lines of what should and what should not be done as a fiddler.
All these different bow strokes , they intrigue me all of a sudden too. Must know spiccato and upbow staccato!!!
There is stuff I will never like , like - and I hate to say this - but I really detest performing glissando. I know it is part of ( old time) fiddling , but I leave this one to others.

I do am crazy about cross tuning though. Did I ever mention this? ;-p

I say cross tuning FTW and vibrato for my own entertainment and for the show!! And long live other positions!!! Yes I want to know more.

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quote:

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Originally posted by RichJ

Sure sounds like it to me. Congratulations for attempting this difficult technique. However, as a fiddler I think there are other things you can strive toward. BTW Anja, I only say this because I think you have said many times your goal is to be a good fiddler rather than a classical violinist.

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You had me thinking all day RichJ, I DO aim fiddle music in the first place , even do I aim OT fiddle style, but it seems like there is running something through my veins that also makes me want to play Flemmish folk tunes crosstuned for example and experiment with that a lot too, do stuff with music I grew up with in a very unusual way (note again that NOONE here crosstunes his violin ;-p) 

There is something in my sound that has to do with my origins. Maybe even with the best will in the world I cannot and will never sound like an authentic American OT fiddle player because I have another history of sound running through my veins, other sounds that have been known to make my heart beat faster, and maybe just maybe that will always have its effect. Tunes like Dixieland where I fell for as a kid .... I only heard them now and then back then and yes as a kid I immediately knew this music was MY kind of music. But I cannot deny that I somewhere throughout my fiddle journey started to sound like a very Flemmish fiddler perhaps. I mean I still like to play OT tunes slowed down and when I am improvising on these tunes at home I cannot deny anymore I actually am developping a fiddle sound with a  Flemmish touch that makes me often think: yeah right on, this is where the accordeon fits in or yeah here the male voice starts explaining about life or yeah here the female voice falls in ;-) 

But with al this WOKENESS happening I should be careful I do not get guilty of cultural appropriation ;-)

Anyway, I am sure that eventually I will learn the feel of OT style, but not before I have tried thousands of things that were not really related to it in the first place.

I like the way Chris Haigh said "In bluegrass, it's all about using the tune to show your technique where in OT, it's about using your technique to demonstrate the tune" Pretty cool