(December 31, 2013 at 1:13 pm)teaearlgreyhot Wrote: 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
