Re: [Harp-L] throat vibrato

[Mojo Red <harplicks@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hey Winslow,
Thanks so much! This is the best explaination of throat vibrato I've ever read, and the best set of excersizes to gain control over it I've ever seen.
After playing harp for... um, well forever... I'm still not happy with my vibrato. Perhaps with this approach I can finally get it where I want it!! 
Harpin' in Colorado,
--Ken M.



----- Original Message ----
From: Winslow Yerxa <winslowyerxa@xxxxxxxxx>
To: harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx; Jimmy D <jimmyd1147@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Tuesday, July 22, 2008 6:45:50 PM
Subject: Re: [Harp-L] throat vibrato

I might suggest that you make a concerted effort to make each individual throb of vibrato completely voluntary.

Not for all time, you understand, but just so that you can gain the kind of control you want.

First, look at the mechanism that controls throat vibrato - the glottis.

The vocal folds that vibrate when you speak or sing are a pair of soft-tissue sheaths that can completely close off the flow of air to and from your lungs. The little opening that exists between the vocal folds is called the glottis (though some writers also use the term to refer to the vocal folds themselves).

You can open and close the glottis to start and stop the air flow as you breathe. You do this when you cough lightly, or when you make a machine-gun eh!-eh!-eh! sound . Each time you close the glottis, the pressure builds up, and is released with a small explosion when you open the glottis again. This is called a glottal stop.

Now, leave your harmonica alone for the moment - you want to concentrate on the sensations in your body and the sounds in your vocal tract.

Try doing a very light, quiet cough - just one by itself - by closing and opening your glottis. Nothing should move anywhere in your body except your glottis. You'll hear a sound like !Ah!

Try doing a glottal-stop cough both inhaling and exhaling, doing each a few times.

Now, try doing evenly spaced coughs. Do them once a second, or, if you have a metronome, at a setting anywhere from about 60 beats a minute to about 92. This is slow enough that you can still control each individual cough.

Again, do the coughs both inhaling and exhaling.

Once you're comfortable doing the coughs at a regular pace, try them with a harmonica. You won't hear vibrato. Instead, you'll hear a new note starting with each cough. This is actually a useful way to start notes, but to produce vibrato, you need to modify the cough.

A full glottal stop arrests the breath flow. it ends one note and starts another - it "articulates" notes.

But for vibrato, you don't want to start and stop notes, you want to play one long note and put a 'wave" in it.

To do that, instead of shutting the glottis, you just narrow it and then open it again - you use your glottis to create a puslation.

Glottal pulsation can be tricky to separate from other things you naturally do with your ribs and abdomen. For instance, when you say "ha-ha-ha," there's a good chance that those other body parts will get involved (however, you can try using that syllable while being careful to keep your chest and abdomen relaxed and motionless).

But there's a better way. To gain control specifically of your glottis, try doing the cough in extremely slow motion. I don't mean just that you space the coughs far apart in time. I mean that you perform the entire act of opening and closing your glottis very slowly.

You can start with your glottis completely open or completely closed, then s-l-o-w-l-y change it to the opposite position.

For instance, if you start with your glottis closed, at first you can't make the breath move. Then you open it a tiny bit. You can now move air, but the flow is still constricted. As you open your glottis wider, the air flow gets easier and there's less pressure when exhaling or suction when exhaling.

if you start with your glottis open, at first air flows freely. However, as you close the glottis, you feel increased difficulty of motion, with a rise in a feeling of pressure when you exhale or suction when you inhale, until you finally close off the glottis and the air flow stops.

If you work with slowly closing your glottis, you can develop enough control so that you can constrict air passage at will, but not close it off. Then you'll be able to do a glottal pulsation.

As you develop the knack of glottal puslation, try doing it slowly in time with a beat, with one pulsation per beat. Do this with a metronome, or in time with music.

Now, here comes the letting-go part.

At first, you want to have conscious control of each individual pulsation, placing it in time with each beat. But once you get comfortable with that, try letting your body take care of keeping the pulsation going in time with the music while you look out the window, or read the newspaper, or some other activity that is physically passive but will take you mind away from what your body is doing.

As you gain command of doing glottal pulsation, start trying it with a harmonica, After all, you need to work on getting the glottal pulsation to turn into a note that throbs, and that will take its own set of adjustments.

As you gain the ability to let your glottal pulses cross the street without your mind holding their hand, try speeding up your gottal pulses IN A CONTROLLED WAY.

At first, work on timing your glottal pulses to a faster beat, first by controlling the individual pulses, then by letting them do the job on their own.

Then, start timing your pulses to the divisions of the beat. Most American music divides the beat into either 3 or 2 parts (and these can subdivide as well). To do this and still retain control, you need to work with a beat that moves slowly. That way the divisions of the beat are also slow enough for you to accurately time your vibrato to them. 

You'll have to experiment, but you might try setting the beat to 60 (one per second), dividing that into two equal divisions, and timing your vibrato to the divisions. Try working your way up to 90, still dividing the beat in two. Then you'll have the chops to go back to 60 and start dividing the beat into 3 (both 90x2 and 60x3 equal 180).

At each stage, at first control each pulse consciously , get comfortable with it for a few days, then letting your willful mind bow out. 

Aside from further increases in speed, and further dividing the beat into smaller units, that's pretty much the method for getting full control of your throat vibrato. Not as simple or as intuitive as some of the methods proposed, but it also absolutely will work if you follow the steps.

Winslow


You can close the glottis completely, then open it to make an Eh!-Eh!-Eh! sort of machine-gund sound, or to cough very lightly

--- On Mon, 7/21/08, Jimmy D <jimmyd1147@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
From: Jimmy D <jimmyd1147@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [Harp-L] throat vibrato
To: harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx
Date: Monday, July 21, 2008, 4:39 PM

I have been playing harp for over 10 years.My throat vibrato is not great. I
have practiced the throat exercises some. I decided today i am going to 
practice these throat exercises daily until i get it.For those of you with
decent vibrato .Did it take a lot of practice?  Tongue blocking came easy for
me.Is it like that with vibrato. Does it come naturally for some? Can it be
learned through intense practice ?
thanks 
jimmy
_______________________________________________
Harp-L is sponsored by SPAH, http://www.spah.org
Harp-L@xxxxxxxxxx
http://harp-l.org/mailman/listinfo/harp-l


      
_______________________________________________
Harp-L is sponsored by SPAH, http://www.spah.org
Harp-L@xxxxxxxxxx
http://harp-l.org/mailman/listinfo/harp-l