96CO - Viva Vibrato! - Cello

Though the basic vibrato methodology is proveably incorrect, Viva Vibrato for Cello is an honest and earnest text for how to learn vibrato. The amount of charity that went into the book by the authors is commendable and they are both well-known and respected in the elementary education world. The problem is really in that world's understanding of vibrato. Though there are so many exercises that some students will invariably learn to vibrate anyway, I would assume that many students would be hindered by it.Viva Vibrato never makes mention of what the basic vibrato motion(s)are. Perhaps they don't think anyone reading the book would care, but it is true that there is great debate in the cello world about what the basic motion(s) are and the muscles involved. The Viva Vibrato does not, many teachers are still asking their students to "turn the doorknob", the single greatest destroyer of vibratos around. If you write a book about vibrato it should simply be correct. While Viva Vibrato does follow the largest body of teaching out there for vibrato, and this should perhaps be expected, it is firmly in the realm of the music educational world-view rather than the practical, reality world view. A simple analysis to look for the facts involved in making vibrato would have yielded results that are very helpful and a step forward for cellists rather than simply a cute packaging of the tried and so very not true concepts that leave so many cellists unable to vibrate.Many of the tenants of vibrato theory are easily proven with a science-based analysis with an outsiders perspective. There are two basic, easily demonstrated motions used in vibrato: the entire arm rotating in its socket while the arm is bent (think dribbling a basketball with your hand directly in front of your chin) and the forearm opening and closing at the elbow. Rare indeed is the child that can do either of these motions smoothly for any period of time. She has not done them before and needs time to develop the coordination. Viva Vibrato does start out with lots of exercises which are trying to develop these motions before they are attempted with the bow. Unfortunately, they then apply on top of that a series of metronome markings that the student is supposed to go through to gradually speed up the motion. While this is standard practice for many teachers, I expect more from a modern book that should know more. Do we ask kids learning to dribble a basketball or ride a bike to do it slowly first? When the student does these motions slowly, they feel them without the momentum and inertia that are absolutely essential to the creation of vibrato. Instead, they learn from the beginning that they are muscularly in control of the motion at all times. This instead of the pulsing, like dribbling a ball, that actually happens. Having the student start slowly assumes that the reason a person cannot do it quickly and evenly is because it is hard to do it quickly enough and that they must start slow and bring the speed up, but this isn't a complicated scale passage with the motions constantly changing. Just ask the same student to make one of the basic motions with her right arm instead of the left; most can do it quite well. Its simply about having built the coordination in the brain. Can you imagine riding a bike slowly or dribbling a basketball slowly to learn how to do it?From about 1960 on, the string pedogogy world has gotten deeper and deeper into a relaxation world view where the solution to most problems is relaxation instead of what might be more accurate, looseness. Relaxation implies not using muscles, where the truth is using only the muscles that must be used. Everything from shifting to bowing to vibrato is approached from this perspective and has now reached the level of dogma, a political correctness or our very own. A quick read of technique writings from before that time, however, hardly mentions relaxation. The reasons for this are possibly many, including that it is never the wrong thing to say and can always be retreated to when nothing of greater substance can be found to say. However, there is indeed lots of force involved in various aspects of playing the cello. For instance, with the bow there is no escaping that Yo Yo Ma is applying a minimum of 5 pounds of force to the string with his bow in fortissimo passages and that his thumb is the only thing between his bow and the ground on that side of the bow. This leverage has to come from somewhere, though many teachers spend a great deal of time cultivating bow hands that are always inert. While being as relaxed as possible is indeed important, it would be helpful to know what muscles we are allowed to use and how much. This information is nowhere in the book. Nor does it say that a professional might have up to a couple pounds of weight holding down the string during particularly vigorous vibrating.In my own research I have interviewed a great many cellists of major symphony level or above. I have asked them all vibrate widely and powerfully and then insisted that they follow the instructions from Viva Vibrato: that they keep their fingers and wrists flexible and that they are very light on the string. Not one has been able to keep the vibrato going. To keep a flexible wrist, the weight indeed must be very light on the string, but that inevitably means the string isn't held down to the fingerboard they say. So I ask them to apply only as much weight as is possible to hold the string down. How much weight is this? Would you call it light? "No." Can you vibrate widely now? How much weight do you need to vibrate widely? Quite alot or the finger moves around too much. Can you vibrate widely now and make sure your wrist is flexing (Viva Vibrato says only to keep it flexible, but I assume it must be because it is actively flexing)? No, not possible. In fact, the solution for many students who have been trying to vibrate for a long time and can't seem to "relax" is to ask them to push the finger down heavily and shake widely. How about asking students to be only as heavy as is necessary, rather than confusing them with the insistence on being light. Better yet, tell them they need significant weight, which is the reality and can be proven easily if one looks to do so.Once again, the blind insistence on relaxation at all times without a real look at the physics and physiology involved will only confuse people. Because we, as the culture of cellists do not understand the physics and physiology of vibrato, we often diagnose most problems as tension. But, if professionals with fine vibratos can't make sense of these instructions, how could a student. It is easily proveable that significant weight is required to anchor a finger in place and hold the string down. So much that calling it light is simply confusing. So I ask all these professional cellists (I am one myself) to put perhaps far more weight into the string/fingerboard than they normally do. What is the result? No issues in short term, the motion is unaffected. In the long term the fingertips start to hurt. Do they have students they must ask to be lighter on the fingerboard so they can vibrate? No, this is not a problem we encounter.Then I ask them to make their wrists absolutely rigid. The result: no change. While there can be some flexibility in some vibrato situations, it is actually for a brief moment in the path of the oscillation and is a very advanced technique, not the basic one.One should be able to expect in buying a method book that its contents are true. This, sadly, is not correct in this case. Of course, the authors would never had thought of their book this way, but then again, they did nothing more than present the standard body of "knowledge" of the cello vibrato teaching world. But this is not enough. Until someone holds texts like these to the standard of actual, proveable truth, we will not advance as cellists. And make no mistake, these things are easily proveable if one only looks with a rational mind.So why give this book three stars? Because the writers are good people who only wrote mainstream teaching on this subject. Though there is nothing new in this book, it is a perfect reflection of the culture they work in and it is presented with great care and I appreciate that. Though it does follow the current, ever present trend in string pedogogy writing to call everything a game with a tone so saccarine that Mary Poppins would choke on the words, to their credit, if they used a different tone, the string pedogogy world would reject it.Finally, the second half of the book would be a fine series of exercises to give to a student trying to apply his new vibrato to the cello. The second half of the book would be worth the price alone. Just skip the first half, the back inside cover telling the student to practice slowly then faster, and the advice to relax all the time. Looseness might be what we should start talking about; NOT using the muscles we don't need to.Cellists, try this: shake widely on or off the cello in either of the basic motions. Try to tense the muscles of your arm but continue shaking widely.... you can't! In my opinion, the best resource we have to learn vibrato for now is the videos of celloprofessor.com, with whom I am not affiliated but have gained the deepest respect.