February 2011

Teacher Talk

A series of teaching-articles in the Strad Magazine

Where do you stand prac­tising vibrato exer­cises sep­ar­ately from rep­er­toire? Angela Bea­ment, Col­orad, US

Boris Kuschnir: I think of vibrato as a col­our to help musi­cians make pieces more express­ive. As in real life, there are a mil­lion shades of col­ours, and the infin­ite pos­sib­il­it­ies of vibrato in com­bin­a­tion with other tech­niques enable musi­cians to show their thoughts, feel­ings and moods.

There­fore, when teach­ing vibrato with spe­cial exer­cises and giv­ing tech­nical advice about it, I never sep­ar­ate it from music, as it is only a means to a musical interpretation.