Talk:Tremolo

Tremolo or trill?
"between two notes or chords in alternation" ... Isn't this a trill, not a tremolo? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.16.252.154 (talk) 16:42, 13 September 2009 (UTC)
 * I agree. Additionally, single-note tremolo is used occasionally on the keyboard and is one of many finger techniques students must learn.  I have edited the article 64.222.233.122 (talk) 01:29, 23 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Trills and mordents are made from adjacent notes and are regarded as the ornamentation of one principal note by an auxiliary.  The alternating tremolo gives the impression of two or more simultanious tremolos. Btw, it is conventional on talk pages to put most recent at the bottom.  Sparafucil (talk) 10:22, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

Naming controversy
Removed text:

''Tremolo is also a short name for the tremolo system consisting of a Tremolo_arm and a Tremolo Bridge_%28instrument%29, a part of an electric guitar that can be used to create a vibrato pitch-variation effect. In the electric guitar terms, vibrato often refers to a rapid repetetive increase and decrease in volume, similar to the first meaning of tremolo as defined above. This opposite naming of vibrato and tremolo was made popular by the products of the Fender Musical Instrument Corporation and has since become the norm in the nomenclature of players of electric guitar. Other names for the tremolo bar are Whammy Bar and Trem Bar. The Bigsby vibrato is one example of this device.''

I think this is more properly discussed at this length in the tremolo bar and vibrato unit articles, as this is a (still) controversial and minority usage of the term (and I've been a serious student, and dare I say performer, of electric guitar for forty years now). Andrewa 17:49, 12 September 2005 (UTC)

Bird calls
I'm new to Wikipedia and need help updating this definition. It should be noted that a Tremolo is also the distress/defense call of the Common Loon. There are three noted Loon Tremolo types that ornithologists cite. The call is very unusual but other birds may also have a Tremolo, I am not certain. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.118.58.66 (talk) 05:54, 26 September 2005‎


 * Please sign your posts on talk pages. Agree that this information should be included. What are your sources? Andrewa 04:53, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

Misnomer
Rem text:

, but is often considered a misnomer.

By whom is it considered a misnomer?

This isn't really consistent with what the article says, or what the existing articles at tremolo arm and vibrato unit say. Andrewa 05:01, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

Some musicians who use synthesizers have adopted/co-opted this term ("tremolo") to refer to a pure amplitude (loudness) modulation to be distinct from "vibrato" used to refer to a pure pitch modulation. But while the two effects are distinguishable if you know what to listen for, the overall effect on the tone is much the same; the term "vibrato" has historically been used for either -- a flute's vibrato, for example, is mostly amplitude modulation. Because "vibrato" can include amplitude modulation and because "tremolo" has a clear musical meaning that is something quite different, the first sense given for "tremolo" is a misnomer. Dave Brown 20:38, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Re my comments above, references to use of "tremolo" to describe amplitude modulation can be found in the archives of the wind-controlled synthesizer discussion list at windlist.org (also the Yahoo group windsynth). Historical musical meaning of "tremolo" can be inferred from the lack of the pitch modulation sense and agreement with pitch repetition/alternation senses in sources such as _The New Harvard Dictionary of Music_ (Randel, Don Michael; 1986), and the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary CD-ROM (Oxford Press, 2002).

To directly answer the by whom question, I would suggest that the amplitude sense of tremolo would be considered a misnomer by anyone who would give precedence to the centuries of use of the term to mean something quite different. Dave Brown 00:09, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

vocal tremolo?
Should the article note that, when applied to vocal music, the tremolo notation (slashes across the stem) indicate vibrato? (Is this true?) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 66.44.148.237 (talk) 00:50, 23 February 2007 (UTC).
 * Vibrato is pretty much a given, as far as I know. I've never heard of that notation, so I'd assume it's untrue, but I'm no vocal expert. -- Cielomobile talk / contribs 04:34, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

British/American usage
Personally, I find it odd that there is both American and British terminology (both crochet and quarter note, etc.) being used in the article. It looks untidy. I'd like to remove one of the two types of terminology, and I nominate the British to be removed, as it is lost on many Americans (myself included), whereas I think most Brits who understand basic mathematics also understand "whote note," "quarter note" and so forth. -- Cielomobile talk / contribs 04:39, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Additional citations
Why, what, where, and how does this article need additional citations for verification? Hyacinth (talk) 01:11, 6 October 2010 (UTC)
 * The tag on 30 April 2009 when the article had 1 reference. If you feel it's no longer needed you should remove it. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 05:58, 6 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Tag removed. Hyacinth (talk) 21:24, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

"Invented"? by Montiverdi
At the moment the History section states: "Tremolo was invented by the late 16th century composer Claudio Monteverdi". It seems to me that "invented" is probably the wrong word, as it seems that tremolo of some sort had been around for a long time previously. As explained in various places, including the vibrato article, the terms tremolo and vibrato are often used interchangeably, and the two different underlying physical processes (amplitude modulation and pitch modulation) are often produced at the same time, and is/are (a) 'natural' ability of the human voice. Perhaps it is really meant that a particular use of, or notation for, tremolo was originally used by Monteverdi. I do not have access to the printed documents referenced so I cannot check the wording or context of the original myself. There are also other things in the History section that seem awkward or unclear to me, such as: what is meant by "the real tremolo"? and do musical techniques become "obsolete", as stated, or do they just go out of fashion? FrankSier (talk) 00:56, 20 February 2012 (UTC)
 * More than three years after these problems were pointed out, I have tended to them (after a fashion). Because on Wikipedia the criterion for inclusion is verifiability, not truth, I have let stand the claim that Monteverdi "invented" tremolo in 1624 (since two august sources appear to declare that this is the case), whileat the same time adding an equally revered source that mentions dated earlier examples. I have also flagged the "real" phrase for clarification, which presumably can be accomplished by referring to the Forsyth book cited at that point in the text.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 00:56, 27 May 2015 (UTC)

A related joke
Q. How do you get a violist to play a passage ‘pianissimo tremolando’?

A. Mark it ‘solo’. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.65.48.88 (talk) 08:45, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

Number of Lines
"Generally, there are three strokes, except on quavers (eighth notes), which take one, and semiquavers (sixteenth notes), which take two:"

I think quaver and semi-quaver need to be switched. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.172.62.107 (talk) 21:17 22 August 2013 UTC
 * I'm not sure. Dolmetsch shows one stroke for eighth notes, but they don't have an example of a sixteenth with tremolo. I suspect there are very few, if any, occurrences of this, so I suggest the whole sentence should be removed and replaced by an explanation of notational differences between measured and unmeasured tremolos, where unmeasured ("as fast as possible") is indicated by three strokes or an instruction "tremolo" or "trem.", and measured tremolos by the number of strokes: 1 for double (which is usually written explicitly), 2 for triple. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 07:31, 23 August 2014 (UTC)

Sources?
I found that the source called "Forsyth 1982" is actually a misnomer: Forsyth published the book in 1914 and died well before 1982. The book is quite out of date and not at all a standard source for information on orchestration, although it might be of specialist interest. I am very new to Wikipedia so I'm not sure what kind of source is acceptable, but Adler's text The Study of Orchestration (ironically also 1982) is considered authoritative in university programs but is not free-access on the Web (afaik).

In particular, the information on "Bowed-and-fingered tremolo" is quite non-standard and obsolete and is not representative of current practice. Liccposting (talk) 14:16, 26 July 2021 (UTC).
 * The cited version overleaf is the revised edition from 1935, reprinted in 1982. Wether a source is freely accessible doesn't matter. You are welcome to improve the article by providing material and citations from Samuel Adler's The Study of Orchestration. Be sure to mention which edition you quote. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 15:02, 26 July 2021 (UTC)