Measurements of violin vibrato
Joan E. Miller · The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America · 1981
The periodicity of bowed violin strings has been measured with high resolution by means of a specially designed violin bridge and computer interface. (See ASA Meeting, May 1981, Ottawa, Canada.) The equipment has been used here to examine various characteristics of vibrato. Period lengths are measured with accuracies ranging from 0.5 to 4 cents for a corresponding frequency range of 195 to 1950 Hz, and the four strings are each sampled every 5 ms. Thus, data are gathered in the form of a time series whose probability density and spectrum can be estimated. These measures are examined in the context of actual music as well as sustained notes played on different strings with different fingers and in different positions by different players.