View Full Version : Tremolo or vibrato? Hi Folks, OK Would a mandolinist ever use vibrato rather than tremolo on long notes? At this point in my learning just over a month I can do neither really well, but I was just wondering for future reference. Thanks for humoring my curiosity. Without much sustain even good mandolins have very little sustain a vibrato can only be used effectively in small doses.
An effective tremolo can add a "feeling" of vibrato, but it isn't the same. Besides, a fretted instrument is hard to get a good vibrato from since a vibrato is a change in intonation and a fret pretty much dictates intonation.
A vibrato-like bend can have the same effect, but without the sustain of a bowed note as in a violin it's hard to have an effective vibrato by itself. That said, do what feels good. Tremolo, vibrate, wiggle, it's all good. Best, Ken.
I've just one thing to add to Ken's comment. Vibrato is quite common with electric mandolins, they have more sustain than acoustics which gives you scope to use string bending to get a vibrato effect. For the above stated reasons, vibrato is rarely used on the mandolin. David Grisman. Grisman in particular uses it a lot on slow- midtempo numbers to great effect.
It can be very expressive if used with taste- just check out the albums grisman made with Jerry Garcia, particularly tunes like "friend of the devil" or "the thrill is gone". Greetings from a mandolin player starting to play the flute: - two instruments that are a lot more trickier than they seem at first glance Vibrato is extremely common to, even expected of, classical and electric guitars in spite of their frets.
