Re: [Harp-L] Throat Vibrato

["Chris Michalek" <Chris@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

My vibrato has nothing to do with the diaphram.  it's all in the
front of my mouth.  Imagine whistling a note, how would you add
vibrato?  Whistle a note and then bend the note slightly back and
forth.  That all I do and it's the same action I employ on the
harmonica.  It works well on all of the notes with conviction even
the OB1.  I have never heard another player use vibrato on that note.
Not even HL thought I'm sure he could but he produces his vibrato
differently than I.


>
>
>
>---- Original Message ----
>From: winslowyerxa@xxxxxxxxx
>To: harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx
>Subject: Re:  [Harp-L] Throat Vibrato
>Date: Wed, 22 Sep 2004 15:50:32 -0000
>
>>--- In harp-l-archives@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "samblancato" 
>>
>>Throat vibrato is a sort of "gated" pulsation in the air column that
>
>>can also affect the pitch of a note.
>>
>>The gate is the same apparatus is the throat that makes you cough. 
>>When you cough delibrately, the musculature closes off the air 
>>passage momentarily, thereby building up pressure in the moving 
>>column. Releasing the blockage creates a percussive release.
>>
>>As a child, you may have used this mechanism to imitate a machine
>gun:
>>
>>eh!-eh!-eh!-eh!-eh!-eh!-eh!
>>
>>(the ! indicates where the throat gate acts).
>>
>>The point of vibrato is not to completely interrupt the air flow but
>
>>to momentarily *almost close it off. This creates a narrowing of the
>
>>air column which is then released, causing an audible pulsation in 
>>the air flow. As with note bending, it also creates a resonant 
>>chamber between the point of constriction and the reed, and you can 
>>use this to drive the pitch down in a controlled way.
>>
>>Try doing the machine-gun cough, then back off so that it sounds (in
>
>>whisper mode - don't use you vocal cords) more like Ah-Ah-Ah-Ah - 
>>you're putting a wave in the flow rather than breaking it into
>chunks.
>>
>>Another approach would be to play a series of short, chopped-off
>bent 
>>notes - maybe try 2 draw bent all the way down, with a short silence
>
>>between them:
>>
>>!bent_note! (short pause) !bent_note! (short pause) etc.
>>
>>Then, start trying to connect them so that you get a smooth
>pulsation.
>>
>>Of course you also want to do this on unbent notes. Try playing an 
>>unbent note, use the throat gate to get a pulsation going, then, if 
>>you're not getting any pitch "throb", try useing the gate to dig in
>a 
>>little more - make it more like each time you cativate the gate, 
>>you're also getting a bend and pulling the note down just
>momentarily.
>>
>>You bring up diaphragm vibrato - laughing vibrato as you call it. 
>>This is a useful vibrtato, very different in sound, and it can be 
>>used together with throat vibrato.
>>
>>Diaphragm vibrato creates a pulsation in the airflow with pulses 
>>originating in the abdomen, giving the air colum little nudges. It 
>>doesn't have a note bending component, For this reason it can be
>very 
>>useful for creating a vibrato on a deeply bent note or an overblow, 
>>where changing the bend with a bendy vibrato may destabilize the 
>>bend, cause it to break up into staccato notes instead of a wave, or
>
>>make the pitch vary too much.
>>
>>Throat vibrato acts primarily on the forward half of the air column 
>>(throat to reed), but there has to be "backside" component, and that
>
>>is the part of the air column that extends backward from the throat 
>>into the lungs. By concentrating on letting the pulsations resonate 
>>downward into the lungs as well as forward to the reed, you can 
>>reinforce the strength of the vibrato. This could be called passive 
>>abdominal vibrato (sheesh - the stuff I make up!)
>>
>>In addition to strenghtening passive abdominal vibrato, you can use 
>>diaphragm vibrato simultaneously with throat vibrato. With practice,
>
>>you can even learn to control the proportion between the two. I 
>>suspect that Chris may be doing something like that. Vibrato that 
>>works on all notes equally will have a fairly narrow pitch bend 
>>component - all notes bend at least a *little bit, and an even 
>>vibrato must bend them all by the same perceived amount. At the same
>
>>time by strengthening the air pulsation componenet and the resonance
>
>>component, you can thicken the overall sound of the vibrato.
>>
>>
>>
>><samblancato@xxxx> wrote:
>>Hi Folks,
>>
>>I have inquired about the following subject on Harp Talk, another 
>>list but I
>>thought I'd give it a shot here as well.
>>
>>> but you have to have tb to do certain other
>>> things getting vibrato on a hard bend, for instance, 
>>
>>Not necessarily - see above re diaphragm vibrato and deep bends.
>>
>>Winslow
>>
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Chris Michalek
Avenger of the Downtrodden