Quartet Vibrato

Reading "The Art of Quartet Playing, the Guarneri Quartet" has given me some really powerful insights including how to think about vibrato in our quartet. Vibrato can easily fall victim to becoming a "routine" component to making music rather than a fundamental nuance, artistically integrated into the overall performance of the tune. Routine vibrato is the kind of vibrato that is always the same, same speed, same degree - all the time, no matter the musical style, ensemble mixture, dynamics, or..... Approaching vibrato as a fundamental nuance to performance immediately challanges us as a quartet to thoughtfully integrate vibrato into the score.

So the challenge is laid out - Integrate Vibrato, be Thoughtful about Vibrato, Have a Plan (and justification) for Vibrato Use, Ensure Group Involvement in Applying Vibrato. Sounds easy right?

I've taken the material from the book and developed the following list for consideration.

• Ensure all members of the group have a fundamental understanding of vibrato production.
• Ensure members feel confident in their own production of vibrato -- ie -- all have applied the fundamentals of vibrato to create variations in vibrato, including speed and degree and application at various dynamics.
• Recognize that vibrato is not standard. The amount and degree of vibrato WILL vary for the group and for individuals.
• Recognize that vibrato is not ALWAYS ON. A non-vibrato passage can be very powerful.
• Recognize that mixing non-vibrato layers with vibrato layers can help bring out musical priorities.
  
• Recognize that vibrato can bring emphasis to a lesser important musical line (this is a negative thing :-)
  
• Recognize that vibrato should be discussed, decisions made and marked into scores and parts.

This seems like a lot to think about... and it is. In the book, this topic takes several pages with examples, and additional converations. I've just brushed the surface. Our art and our desire to better our performance requires indepth study of the elements. Vibrato is one of the elements worth dissecting and understanding.