I find Breath vibrato is a good way to reserve air when you want to milk that long note…What is the best and most effecient vibrato technique…from the abdomon, chest or mouth? Fingers…lol, i’ve seen guys push and pull the whistle in and out of there mouths for god sakes!!!another sort of chews the end,…I’ve seen people achieving a vibrato by some funny methods…
Greg
In Irish trad whistle playing, finger vibrato (classical flattement) is the usual way. Breath vibrato is reserved as a special technique, seldom used, and never with the broad/deep vibrato that characterizes (modern) classical flute playing. For non-ITM, I suppose anything is fair game. In any case, vibrato should work independently of breath usage, and shouldn’t be a cheat for running out of air. 
??? really? not being mean or anything, but really? i was taught to use “breath vibrato” when playing that clanky silver thing with all them keys… so i find this info just a tad interesting… please pardon my skepticism… just curious. maybe all those rumours that i’m an idiot are true.
be well,
jim
If you do turn out to be an idiot…I just want you to know, “we’re in this together”…you were taught classical flute by the sounds of it…well i wasn’t. I was however taught classical violin…and vibrato was taught by going flat to true pitch in an oscilating fashion…so forgive me I have been playing whistle kind of blind, but common sense tells me that by oscilating the force of my breath i can achieve the same Idea as rocking my finger back and forth on the fret board of my violin… I personally do this by pushing my breath low to high pressure causing the pitch to oscilate …so my breath is oscilating from low to high…high being the tue pitch and low being flat…this means that i have more air time…rather if i was just pushing one pressure constant note…
Does this rule out circular breathing…? 
I’ll have to confess that I am absolutely GUILTY of vibrato that comes from the diaphragm. It comes from years of classical flute training. In the 10 years that I’ve been playing almost exclusively trad music, I’ve not been able to break myself of it and I HAVE TRIED. Just can’t do it, but I do realize this is not the traditional way.
I’m curious whether any folks out there use circular breathing. I’ve never been able to coordinate things to be able to do it, but I’m told that it works best when there is a fair amount of backpressure. Can it be done effectively with whistles?
Best wishes.
Steve
Right, MTs point is that while breath vibrato is common with classical flute,
the tone of Irish flute, at least when playing ITM, does not contain breath
vibrato–except as a rarely used technique.
One of the great difficulties people have in learning to play
Irish flute is training the vibrato out of the breath.
Same goes for whistles. We use finger vibrato, generally.
As plenty of whistlers sooner or later play Irish flute too,
using breath vibrato on the whistle at all routinely
is setting up a habit it may take quite considerable
effort to break.
I was in a flute workshop with Chris Norman and the first thing he
did was point out our breath vibrato, saying it’s beautiful
per se but strongly encouraging us play the instruments
as traditionally played.
Once you get mastery of traditional whistle, maybe that’s
the time to start experimenting with breath vibrato, if ever.
But if you learn to play whistle at all well, you won’t
need vibrato (or even circular breathing or anything
else remarkable) to have the air you need to play.
Vibrato and air are separate matters and probably
best kept so.
okay… i am an idiot… but i’m comfortable with that.
might take awhile to lose the vibrato for me (as i still play that silver thing a bit.) vibrato is just natural for me.
be well, all,
jim
Well, then we’re all idiots. Anyhow many of us had to learn this.
A good way, IMO, is to play long tones on the instrument (in my case
it was flute), aiming at an even, vibratoless sound–up and down
the scale. This as part of regular practice, daily. Also stay aware
when playing tunes and, when you hear the vibrato in your
breath, do the long tones again. And patience. It can take
quite awhile.
This is worth the trouble; you end up with something very
expressive, in fact. It’s worth mastering these instruments
as traditionally played, not slavishly but up from the fundamentals,
and this is one of them.
I remember my horror when I found I had to do this.
I told a fellow musician who scoffed: ‘Ah, you
don’t have to do that. Play it your way!’
Then I considered that this fellow, who has a lot of
talent, was pretty mediocre cause he had
never bothered to master his instrument
from the bottom up.
So I did it anyway. Took about a year.
No, no idiots here. But MTGuru’s advice is on the money for ITM. It’s one of the things that makes “crossing over” challenging to players at all levels. Few, for example, feel that James Galway plays ITM convincingly, though none would question his talent and accomplishment.
oh well… sadly (for some) the truth of it is that i don’t really play a lot of ITM. (is it blasphemous to type that here?) i mostly play early american folk music. i suppose this means i won’t be receiving my ITM merit badge.
be well,
jim (the village idiot)
I play lots of that too. Personally I think ITM technique
does exceedlingly well with it.
In the end it really doesnt matter, unless you go for a contest or something
It what you enjoy playing the best, casue really thats all its about…
You can circular breathe on the whistle I’ve heard it done - well actually I’ve seen it done, the player was so good at it that you could not ‘hear it’. If it can be done on the whistle I’m sure it can done on the flute.
Greg - you didn’t mention throat vibrato, I learned vibrato on the oboe starting with diaphragm and then evolving to using throat (don’t ask how I can’t answer). When I started playing whistle seriously I did not use any vibrato as is the style in ITM and this came easily perhaps because blowing a whistle quite different and so much easier than an oboe reed - and whistler’s talk about back pressure they have no idea. Then one day playing a slow air I suddenly discovered a breath vibrato on the whistle, and now reserve it for occasional special purposes.
As to reserving air - I’ve never found vibrato to change the air requirements - least not significantly.
This Hatao is amazing…he has a lochlan on order right now, it will be interesting to see him play
http://www.thelochlan.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LneFoTNoW84