My Unique Approach to Teaching Flute Vibrato

Hey, flute players! We had an absolutely AMAZING class on vibrato with ​Flute School​ in November... and I wanted to further spread the vibrato joy by making a YouTube tutorial and blog post that has all the juicy vibrato-practicing details! Vibrato is one of those things that is hard to describe. Where exactly does it come from? What type of sound are you actually creating? How do you teach it? I think every teacher has their own approach, and for ME: it took a combination of decades of my own performing and teaching to come up with a clear answer. I'm going to attempt to describe it in this post, but I recommend you let the information percolate and see if it translates to your playing! Many flute players describe vibrato as a pressure change. And, with this, encourage use of the abdomen to accomplish these changes. Essentially, you're blowing fast/slow/fast/slow. You're "huffing" the air out in bursts. Well frankly, this is how NOT to do vibrato. Let me explain.

When you "huff" the air, you mess with something critical: the air support for the phrase you're playing! I find that this method leads to cracking, a more airy sound, intonation problems, and fatigue. Now let's get into MY METHOD.

MY VIBRATO METHOD:  Vibrato on the flute is accomplished by pitch bending high to low, using your vocal cords. Of COURSE, you need some nice consistent air support for this, but instead of relying on your stomach muscles to "huff" the air out, you're swirling the pitch with the same muscles that help us sing different notes. When you're doing vibrato well, the pitch swirls evenly from high to low, and doesn't interrupt the air and momentum of the phrase. Does that sound like complete jibberish???? It's ok lol. That's why I recorded a Youtube video where I explain and demonstrate. I ALSO give you an exercise to complete!!!

In the exercise, I have you play with the metronome at quarter note = 50. You pitch bend/swirl in counts of 2, 3, 4, and 5. In my playing, I love to vary my vibrato speed and use vibrato as a tool to communicate expression. I feel that vibrato can sometimes add emphasis to a note, or on the other side, take away emphasis. Check out the video to learn how to practice vibrato, and let me know your thoughts afterwards!!! This is a pretty unique way to learn and teach vibrato... I've actually NEVER been taught this before. After making this video and writing this post, I feel like I could probably do a whole doctoral thesis on vibrato because there's so much to unpack 😂

Happy Practicing!!

Amanda

P.S. Check out my program ​Flute School​ to gain access to dozens of class replays, flute tutorials, and unlock access to live classes on topics like this (where you get individual feedback on your playing!)