So at school I have to play part of the song les toreadors for a chair test and I want to sound good (of coarse) it all started when I had to play a song with my bass ensemble and the judge said we could use more vibrato (I thought my tone was very unconfident sounding that day) I used to only only play vibrato on whole notes and half notes just anything I had to hold out. I wanted to try vibrato on quarter notes and all those short notes I tried and wasn't the best at it. Should I use vibrato a lot? Or am I doing just fine? Thanks!
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Double Bass How much is too much?
- Thread starter JDtheBassPlayer
- Start date
For a nice vibrato I saw on Youtube today look for 'Fora Batacigil' the Turkish player in the BPO.
There are those who do use excessive vibrato. A good vibrato technique is essential but should be developed slowly and properly. Technically, any note can be decorated with vibrato. If you are just starting-out, work rhythmically with a metronome. Avoid locking joints and tensing-up. A fluid, rocking arm will give you good results. Ideally, we mimic the human voice with much of what we do on the instrument; Check-out a few clips of good opera singers and study how much vibrato is typically used for familiar melodies and try to replicate these results with your own playing.
The answer to 'how much vibrato' totally depends on the context. So there's no one answer... you have to study what works in each situation. Sometimes any amount is too much, sometimes nothing you can do will be too much.
When playing Les Toreadors it's unlikely you could have too much vibrato. I think with vibrato in the context of a romantic melody like that you want:
1. no note to sound straight. That doesn't mean you have to vibrate on every single eighth note, but it does mean that none of them should stick out to the listener as being 'non vibrato', which in the context of an otherwise warm melody, would be aesthetically unpleasing, reminding the listener that you are playing the double bass (you want them to imagine you are singing with the instrument!). Even the smallest hint of a vibrato will achieve this purpose already, warming the melody considerably and bringing it substantially closer to the quality of the human singing voice.
And 2. You can have several notes in the melody where you make the vibrato an expressive element of the music, consciously using it to phrase by varying its speed and depth. Here it'll mostly be the long notes that you focus on. In this case you must first have the musical plan of the phrase in mind, then use the vibrato (along with the use of the bow) to bring that out, to realise it. To help make your musical vision of the phrase clear, singing it yourself can help. Also listening to other singers of course, since they are likely to have ideas on how to phrase the melody which would be worth taking on board.
Sing with the bass
1. no note to sound straight. That doesn't mean you have to vibrate on every single eighth note, but it does mean that none of them should stick out to the listener as being 'non vibrato', which in the context of an otherwise warm melody, would be aesthetically unpleasing, reminding the listener that you are playing the double bass (you want them to imagine you are singing with the instrument!). Even the smallest hint of a vibrato will achieve this purpose already, warming the melody considerably and bringing it substantially closer to the quality of the human singing voice.
And 2. You can have several notes in the melody where you make the vibrato an expressive element of the music, consciously using it to phrase by varying its speed and depth. Here it'll mostly be the long notes that you focus on. In this case you must first have the musical plan of the phrase in mind, then use the vibrato (along with the use of the bow) to bring that out, to realise it. To help make your musical vision of the phrase clear, singing it yourself can help. Also listening to other singers of course, since they are likely to have ideas on how to phrase the melody which would be worth taking on board.
Sing with the bass
