The role of vibrato in the perception of violin quality
Colin E Gough · The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America · 2003
The role of vibrato in the characterization of violin tone will be considered from both a physical acoustics and perceptual viewpoint. Musical examples of individual waveforms from violins of widely different qualities will be used to demonstrate the importance of vibrato and other temporal fluctuations in the recognition of the violin as a specific musical instrument and, by inference, of its perceived tonal quality also. Dynamic physical models will be introduced to describe the waveforms of sounds produced by the bowed string when vibrato is used. The sound produced by an individual instrument will be shown to be critically dependent on both the positions and the Q values of the acoustically important resonances excited, in addition to random noise generated by the bowing action. It will be argued that the temporal fluctuations in the sound of a violin played with vibrato are just as important as the temporal fluctuations associated with the very strong frequency-dependence of the directivity of the violin. Weinreich has emphasized the importance of the latter effect in any realistic reproduction of the sound of a violin.