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chrisbird

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I have at present about 5 methods of making vibrato effects on a EC concertina...

 

You can modulate the pitch without significantly changing the volume?

Huh, huh - the old "vibrato/tremolo" can of worms coming up?

/Henrik

 

Something I missed on Cnet? I searched but found very little on the use of vibrato or tremolo effects on concertina in earlier posts. Or is it one of the important universal questions that I am unaware of?

Which leads me to the following question is there a difference between the two (vibrato & tremolo)?

As I play the flute I know there is an important difference in obtaining the vibrato effect between flutes/whistles/pipes etc. and concertina's and other bellow driven reed instruments.

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I have at present about 5 methods of making vibrato effects on a EC concertina...

 

You can modulate the pitch without significantly changing the volume?

Huh, huh - the old "vibrato/tremolo" can of worms coming up?

/Henrik

 

Something I missed on Cnet? I searched but found very little on the use of vibrato or tremolo effects on concertina in earlier posts. Or is it one of the important universal questions that I am unaware of?

Which leads me to the following question is there a difference between the two (vibrato & tremolo)?

As I play the flute I know there is an important difference in obtaining the vibrato effect between flutes/whistles/pipes etc. and concertina's and other bellow driven reed instruments.

Oh dear I hesitated and rightly so for answering this one.There are three ways that I know of for creating this effect Shaking the bellows (an example on the Henk recorded tune page by me playing "Summertime" ),increasing and decreasing the pressure of the bellows as you play (Mary McNamara uses this to good effect). Fast movement of the bellows in and out (the master is Tommy Elliott) used a lot for miniature playing.This can only be done on the English and Duet.

What is Vibrato and what is Tremolo out of these three examples I am not even going there.

Al

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What is Vibrato and what is Tremolo out of these three examples I am not even going there.

 

Tremolo normally means modulating the volume (without significantly modulating the pitch). It makes it sound like you're trembling because the sound comes and goes very quickly.

 

Vibrato normally means modulating the pitch (without significantly modulating the volume).

 

The point is that the only way to modulate the pitch on the concertina is to modulate the pressure (because reeds play flat when the pressure increase, which is why concertinas always sound out of tune!) - but then you'll get far more of the tremolo than the vibrato anyway. So, in practice, I don't think you can't do vibrato on a concertina, just various forms of tremolo.

 

The vibrato on fiddle, cello, voice(?), pipes, whistles etc is/can be, well, vibrato, because it works on the pitch, not affecting the volume much (though most can do tremolo too). I think this is the case for wind instruments, but maybe I need to be corrected.

 

So, avoiding any terminology controversy, the wobbling you can do on the concertina is completely different from the wobbling that is done on most other instruments.

 

Generally (in my experience) vibrato is used on other instruments to make the sound more interesting/expressive/"musical". Temolo is normally used to add tension - probably because it's the same effect you get when you're nervous/afraid.

 

The tremolo on accordeons with multiple reeds per note works by the two reeds being slightly out of tune, so as they come into and out of phase the sound gets louder and softer.

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What is Vibrato and what is Tremolo out of these three examples I am not even going there.

 

Tremolo normally means modulating the volume (without significantly modulating the pitch). It makes it sound like you're trembling because the sound comes and goes very quickly.

 

Vibrato normally means modulating the pitch (without significantly modulating the volume).

 

The point is that the only way to modulate the pitch on the concertina is to modulate the pressure (because reeds play flat when the pressure increase, which is why concertinas always sound out of tune!) - but then you'll get far more of the tremolo than the vibrato anyway. So, in practice, I don't think you can't do vibrato on a concertina, just various forms of tremolo.

 

The vibrato on fiddle, cello, voice(?), pipes, whistles etc is/can be, well, vibrato, because it works on the pitch, not affecting the volume much (though most can do tremolo too). I think this is the case for wind instruments, but maybe I need to be corrected.

 

So, avoiding any terminology controversy, the wobbling you can do on the concertina is completely different from the wobbling that is done on most other instruments.

 

Generally (in my experience) vibrato is used on other instruments to make the sound more interesting/expressive/"musical". Temolo is normally used to add tension - probably because it's the same effect you get when you're nervous/afraid.

 

The tremolo on accordeons with multiple reeds per note works by the two reeds being slightly out of tune, so as they come into and out of phase the sound gets louder and softer.

 

Thanks for the info. I still have to think things over. Because I still find it difficult to hear what is exactly happening when I do vibrato/tremolo on the concertina. I should measure pitch and volume with some sophisticated gear to know for sure what is happening. Although I think you might well be right that you alter the volume more than the pitch while using various methods of trembling and shaking the instrument; in that case I know of 5 methods of tremolo on the concertina and none of vibrato.

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...Shaking the bellows (an example on the Henk recorded tune page by me playing "Summertime" )...

 

Al

I don't think so Al; couldn't see that one among your many hits. (I had a look because I have Summertime in my repertoire and was curious to see what an Anglo did to it.)

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Look at the world around you! People are not musical because they practise more than others. They practise more than others because, being musical, they find it more important and enjoy it more than others do!

Conversely, people without musicality would be wasting their time practising music - fortunately for them, they have no urge to do so, and can be just as happy as a musical person practising ... ;)

 

Right on the button. The more musical you are, the less satisfied you are with your performance, the more you practice, the sooner you turn purple. So musicality is the ability of some people to turn purple.

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...Shaking the bellows (an example on the Henk recorded tune page by me playing "Summertime" )...

 

Al

I don't think so Al; couldn't see that one among your many hits. (I had a look because I have Summertime in my repertoire and was curious to see what an Anglo did to it.)

I have a recording of you playing Summertime Dirge with full chords,mine was just single note playing with bellows shake just to show the effect.I do not think my version will be a hit and it was not the intention,but yours however !!

On reflection I think it's on my Tutor.

Al

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