Vibrato
A slight fluctuation of pitch that warms the sound
Related
Vibrato makes a single note fluctuate slightly and rapidly in pitch, adding warmth and life. Strings produce it with the finger, winds with breath and throat, singers with the laryngeal muscles; its width and rate vary with style.
It is not a trill: a trill alternates two different pitches, vibrato fluctuates one. Vibrato is not "the more the better": Baroque and early music use it sparingly, twentieth-century orchestral playing more widely; change the style and the standard changes.
Read deeper → Timbre
Sources
- vibrato 的声学性质与历史用法，参 The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, "Vibrato"；本文为原创表述
Used for fact-checking only; all prose is original.