[Harp-L] Tongue Vibrato and Howard Levy

["dzeller@xxxxxxxxxxx" <dzeller@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Speaking of tongue vibrato, the folks at the Turboharp/ Turbolid outfit
have an amazing film on their website of Howard Levy's mouth/tongue/palate
taken by ultrasound from beneath his jaw while he was playing, along with
the audio.  Now ultrasounds are tricky to interpret for a non-medical
person but if you study it, his vibrato appears to be 90% tongue.  The back
of the tongue is more used in the low notes, and as the pitch of the reed
being played goes higher, you will see that the part of the tongue utilized
is further out.  The high blow bend vibratos strictly use the very tip of
the tongue.  Mastering this has got to take incredible practice and perhaps
even favorable genetics like the ability to roll your tongue! Look at the
following link and look at the Howard videos:
http://www.turboharp.com/Company/CompanyVideo.asp
I'm curious to hear from the group how many have developed this skill,
particularly on the higher notes.  I find that it's particularly hard for
me to control these high note vibratos via pure tongue vibrato so resort to
incorporating more jaw movement.
Zig

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