OK, I’m now half-holing the C natural
pretty regularly. But how do you do
a finger vibrato while doing that?
I can’t tap the third finger of my
left hand without wobbling the note.
What do you’all do?
I think there’s far too much note-wobbling in the world. I see any note without vibrato as a blessing. Enjoy your C. Don’t be scared of letting it stand unadorned in all its naked, vulnerable beauty.
Jim, using your right hand index finger to vibrate the edge of the 2nd hole while half holeing the 1st hole is one way,and another way is to play oxxooo and vibrate your RH index finger on the edge of the 1st hole…its easy with a little practice and also looks rather impressive!
Mike
Jim, using your right hand index finger to vibrate the edge of the 2nd hole while half holeing the 1st hole is one way,and another way is to play oxxooo and vibrate your RH index finger on the edge of the 1st hole…its easy with a little practice and also looks rather impressive! Mike
Thanks to all. I especially liked
the part about ‘naked, vulnerable
beauty.’ Sounds alright to me. Best wishes…
[ This Message was edited by: jim stone on 2001-10-11 19:06 ]
Hey,
If you’re holding a C nat. long enough to vibrate on it, then why half hole? I usually vibrate on C nat. as I would do on a transverse flute, using my breath control. But for finger vibrato, depending on the make of your whistle, you should play C nat. with whichever fingering makes it play the most in tune. I mostly play C as 0XX 0XX, so then I could vibrate with my left index finger, as I might also do if the note was more in tune with 0XX X00, or with 0XX 000. But listening to ulleann (spelling not found in my unabridged dictionary) pipers, there are some notes they just don’t vibrate on. One thing about vibrato is its speed. Some people do it slowly, while others do it quite fast. I was taught on flute, in college, to vibrate at 5 vibrations per second. By the way, my flute teacher played piccolo for the opening of the TV show, St. Elmoes (sp) Fire. I never did watch that show, and you couldn’t hear the piccolo part, anyway.
JP
One thing to add to the previous suggestions, is to cover the holes using more of the ‘pad’ of your finger, even part of the back of the first knuckle. When you half lift off then for Cn feathering your G finger should (theres that word again) not affect the Cn … works for me.
Good luck,
Ciaran
Thanks. I’ve found that half holing
the C natural has improved my playing
generally. It simplifies fingering, I’ve
found, and I’m trying to do it virtually
always now (this has been a long process,
I promise you). So finger vibrato in
a half holed position is interesting to
me. At the moment I actually like finger
vibrato–something else I’m getting
better at, in fact. Maybe after
I’m really good at it I’ll do it less.
This by way of explaining my original
question. Thanks again.
I usually like to play Cn using cross fingering the same as John Palmer, i.e.
( o x x o x x ). Makes it easy to do Cn rolls and to get other nice effects. I got an idea from Ciaran’s posting to try doing the finger vibrato using ( o x x o x x, o x o o x x , etc. G finger? ) and it works quite well although a little challenging to shake the ring finger while holding down the middle finger! Also another challenge popped into my head. Try going from finger vibrato to breath control vibrato in a seamless fashion! Seems like a nice technique builder when you are in a masochistic mood! In the final analysis I think I agree with Stevie and will leave Cn unadorned!
Best wishes to all,
Tom