Recording Causing Tradition

[Tea Earl Grey Hot]

This is something I read in class last semester. It's often assumed that recording technology can record tradition as if it's a neutral third party but in at least one case it seems that recording technology by its presence changed tradition rather than preserving it. It's been a tradition of classical musicians for nearly a hundred years to use copious amounts of vibrato (fast but minute alterations in pitch). You watch classical string players and their hands are constantly shaking when they play. Some call this practice "constant vibrato" which doesn't mean a "constant rate of vibrato" but "constant use of vibrato." It's been known however for a long time that this is a recent phenomena that really didn't exist in common practice until the early 20th century. Before then, if you read the many books on how to play instruments published in the 17th, 18th and even the 19th century, the picture you get is that vibrato was an expressive device used on occasion for dramatic effect sort of like an ornament.

There have been many different explanations for why the tradition changed to constant vibrato in the 20th century. Katz in this chapter (on page 94) offers what I think is the most compelling. Because recording technology when it was first introduced picked up sound so poorly, violinists found that using vibrato more liberally made their instrument stronger sounding thus allowing the machine to pick their instrument much more easily. With the proliferation of recording, constant vibrato quickly became the accepted way of playing.

http://books.google.com/books?id=r_p_Q6T...&q&f=false

[BrokenQuill92]

This is something I read in class last semester. It's often assumed that recording technology can record tradition as if it's a neutral third party but in at least one case it seems that recording technology by its presence changed tradition rather than preserving it. It's been a tradition of classical musicians for nearly a hundred years to use copious amounts of vibrato (fast but minute alterations in pitch). You watch classical string players and their hands are constantly shaking when they play. Some call this practice "constant vibrato" which doesn't mean a "constant rate of vibrato" but "constant use of vibrato." It's been known however for a long time that this is a recent phenomena that really didn't exist in common practice until the early 20th century. Before then, if you read the many books on how to play instruments published in the 17th, 18th and even the 19th century, the picture you get is that vibrato was an expressive device used on occasion for dramatic effect sort of like an ornament.

There have been many different explanations for why the tradition changed to constant vibrato in the 20th century. Katz in this chapter (on page 94) offers what I think is the most compelling. Because recording technology when it was first introduced picked up sound so poorly, violinists found that using vibrato more liberally made their instrument stronger sounding thus allowing the machine to pick their instrument much more easily. With the proliferation of recording, constant vibrato quickly became the accepted way of playing.

http://books.google.com/books?id=r_p_Q6T...&q&f=false

Does it change the sound of older pieces? Sorry I don't know too much about instruments I'm a painting (acrylic and oil pastel at that) and jewelry girl

[Tea Earl Grey Hot]

Does it change the sound of older pieces? Sorry I don't know too much about instruments I'm a painting (acrylic and oil pastel at that) and jewelry girl

It definitely changes it.

Here's a particular famous piece by Bach (1685-1750) performed in the modern constant vibrato tradition:




The only notes in that recording which don't receive vibrato are those that fall on open strings which are impossible to do vibrato on.

Here's the same piece in which vibrato is used more as an ornament rather than constantly:

[BrokenQuill92]

It sounds like it almost completely different now.

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Is it still Perlman? I'm almost sure it is.

[Tea Earl Grey Hot]

It sounds like it almost completely different now.

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Is it still Perlman? I'm almost sure it is.

The first one is Perlman. The second is Podger. There are other acoustical differences between the two performances besides use of vibrato of course. Podger uses gut strings rather than metal and different sort of bow. I explained these different issues in this old thread here: http://atheistforums.org/thread-12825.html

Interestingly, there's a recording of this piece from 1904 by a famous violinist who had the prime of his career in the late 19th century. Still far removed from Bach's time of course but you can hear the variable use of vibrato.