I use finger vibrato.
However it’s hard to use on the low D.
You can finger-vibrato the low D note
by half-holing.
However I’ve sometimes seen people doing finger
vibrato by apparently waving their finger
above the hole, without making contact.
Anybody know what this is?
How to do it?
I can’t say i’ve seen anyone do what you describe, Jim. It doesn’t sound like you get a proper hard-D with vibrato using that method.
You may well do this already, but I would suggest using your breathing for the vibrato effect, used well it can be lovely.
I’d be interested to hear about anyone who does know what Jim is referring to.
I “shake” the flute a wee bit when playing vibrato on a hard D. Works quite fine.
I do the waving thing, usually with LH ring finger as everything else seems too vibrato-ey; if I want to amp it up I use LH3 as well. I’ve never tried for anything on the low D; do you really need it? A nice D is quite a lovely thing in and of itself …
I generally eschew diapraghm vibrato, but as a recovering classical player it sneaks in from time to time – so that’s probably what I’d do if I wanted to engineer vibrato on a D.
Edited to add …
For reference, here’s a video of our own fantastic seisflutes; she does it just a touch on her last note (an A).
On the one hand, breath supported vibrato is not on my list of things to do.
On the other hand, however, I must admit that I have heard such vibrato used really, really well, to great effect. However, let me qualify that, by saying that such vibrato seems to work only when the player “sneaks” it in, in that I am enjoying it before I recognise it as vibrato. Otherwise, perhaps no other technique can so readily spoil music.
That said, and although I am not familiar with the particular technique you have mentioned, if the technique you mention can produce the most subtle of vibrato, then, why not?
Just to say that I really do not want to do breath vibrato,
having worked so hard to get vibrato out of my breath.
Goodness, I’m a reference! I never expected that! 
classical vibrato comes from the throat.
it’s such a simple action, but i’m wracking my brains trying to figure out how to say it without sounding like a jigsaw puzzle inside out!*
as you already can guess, the finger vibrato is done with the finger to the right of the tone hole that is being covered by the note you are currently playing. e.g. for F# vibrato, you will use your middle finger (normal finger vibrato would use the ring finger) of the right hand.
the finger does in fact come in contact with the flute–it is an optical illusion that the flute player is waving their finger in the air. for F#, hit the left side of the tonehole with your middle finger. it is important not to cover the entire hole or too much of the whole, as that will make it sound like a trill.
*how i really wanted to say it:
briefly cover the leftmost part of the tonehole, one to the right of the hole being fully covered.
congrats!
Actually, the way I was taught, “classical” vibrato comes from the diaphragm.
Perhaps different teachers approach this different ways?
–James
Right. I know how to do standard finger vibrato.
This really is something else. There really is
no contact with the flute.
Cathal McConnell, among others, does it, mostly, if not always, during airs. The right hand fingers (in his case, the left!), wave rhythmically just above the open hole(s) below the lowest sustained note. It ‘flutters’ the air.
Diaphram vibrato is not traditionally done in Irish music, but like a lot of techniques sneaking into the tradition that probably don’t belong there, I’ve heard some players use it. Sounds terrible, IMO, because the whole attack of the note being vibrated has to be altered to do it. By waving the fingers above the sound holes, the attack and sustain is done the way it should be, but then the tone is manipulated externally - like the bulk of ornamentations - by the fingers and not the throat, diaphram or tongue.
Re: “classical” vibrato, I agree with James, that is most usually taught as being done with the diaphragm, and one gets told off for doing it with the throat - that works too, but involves tension and constriction thereof - which goes against Daiv’s other advice in recent threads! Playing totally without any kind of breath vibrato is really quite hard, even if one hasn’t ingrained that horrible mainstream, mid C20th slow, wide, omnipresent vibrato - harder than getting a properly controlled vibrato!
On Jim’s main point, waving fingers up and down closely over (but without touching) one or more open tone-holes can indeed deflect the perturbations of the air column so as to produce a moderate vibrato - you can establish that by simple experiment. The down stroke pushes air towards and into the tonehole, the upstroke sucks it away, plus there can be a shading effect from the mass of the finger, just as keyed tone-holes have to be tuned according to the rise of the keys. The effect is weaker than normal finger vib and is most pronounced when you do it over the sounding tone-hole, not a lower one. I wonder if this is what Jim has seen/is referring to? This or the “tapping the side of the hole” method (which simply partially closes it, thus flattening the tone) are, of course the ONLY ways to finger vib an E (i.e. with R3).
Normal finger vibrato is done by tapping the next open tone-hole below the one that is sounding, which has the effect of flattening the note as in a cross fingering. Note that there can be no sharpening element in such a vibrato, unlike a breath-driven one, hence its subtly different effect. According to personal taste, the flattening from tapping the neighbouring hole may be excessive and one can achieve a narrower fluctuation by tapping the next lower again open hole: for example, I use R3 to finger-vib a G - R2 is too broad a vibrato for me. Some cross fingerings can also be vibratoed by waving or tapping other fingers, which may involve a sharpening rather than a flattening of the main tone, e.g. on whistle, cross finger Cnat as oxx xox and vib with R1; on flute use oxo xxx and vib R1 also. With oxx ooo for C nat (if that is in tune enough to use), vibratoing R1 will flatten it, L3 will sharpen it.
Bottom D cannot be finger vibratoed in any way - even the slightest opening of the tonehole produces more of a trill effect. You can tap the end of the tube against your leg to partially obscure the end, or get someone to tap a finger on it for you or some such manoeuvre if you really want that effect on bottom D, or you can fall back on breath vib. You can wave/tap L1 on 2nd octave D, but I think this produces more of a tone-quality shift than a pitch change.
P.S. On a keyed flute, you can vibrato E with the Eb key,of course, if you wish.
Thanks. What I said was confused. I meant doing vibrato
on the low E. One can’t tap full on the D hole, obviously.
So the options seem to be tapping partly on the D hole,
which I’ve seen folks do, partly covering it.
Or tapping beside it, or waving the finger.
I think I’ve got what I need.
Ditto. Throat vibrato was bad, bad, BAD! But that was thirty years ago, so … ?
Ooh, I hope that was OK, Kelly. I’m sorry if I shouldn’t have done that, though it’s such lovely playing I think it’s something everyone should see and study – but I guess I should have checked first. 
Hey common, that’s show biz!
Much enjoyed the video.
In Baroque performance, where fingered vibrato (flattement) is used as an ornament (sparingly), and breath vibrato is generally frowned upon–does this sound familiar, by the way? 
–
Some early tutors talked about producing a vibrato on the low D by actually shaking the flute. I’ve tried this with mixed results but can’t make it work predictably.
–James
Does shaking the flute do something complicated with the acoustics, doppler effect maybe ? Or does it just move the flute slightly on the lips ? Thats what happens if I flap my fingers around, but I was assuming that it was my inexperience. Edit. I mean push the lower lip with the flute and so change the note a bit.
Why is “breath” vibrato frowned upon?