Editing Vibrato (section)

== Terminology ==

=== History ===
Descriptions of what would now be characterised as vibrato go back to the 16th century.<ref>Martin Agricola, and William E. Hettrick. The “Musica Instrumentalis Deudsch” of Martin Agricola: A Treatise on Musical Instruments, 1529 and 1545. Cambridge Musical Texts and Monographs. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994; Lodovico Zacconi, Prattica Di Musica. Bibliotheca Musica Bononiensis. Sezione Ii, N. 1-2. Bologna: Forni, 1983; Michael Praetorius, Syntagma Musicum. Documenta Musicologica; 1. Reihe: Druckschriften-Faksimiles. Kassel: Bärenreiter, 1959.</ref>  However, no evidence exists of authors using the term vibrato before the 19th century.<ref>Christian Friedrich Daniel Schubart, Ideen Zu Einer Aesthetik Der Tonkunst. Wien: Degen, 1806.</ref> Instead, authors used various descriptive terms interchangeably, including ''tremolo'', ''bebung'', or ''tremblement'', or descriptions such as ''wavering'', ''shake'' or ''trillo''. These “terminological uncertainties”<ref>Greta Moens-Haenen, “Vibrato.” Grove Dictionary of Musical Instruments. Oxford University Press, 2015.</ref> continue to pervade modern definitions of vibrato.

=== Vibrato and tremolo ===
[[Image:Vibrato and tremolo graph.PNG|thumb|300px|right|[[Spectrogram]] illustrating the difference between tremolo and vibrato]]

The terms vibrato and [[tremolo]] are sometimes used interchangeably, although (in the classical world) they are properly defined as separate effects. Vibrato is defined as a periodic variation in the pitch (frequency) of a musical note that is perceived as one fundamental frequency. Tremolo, on the other hand, is defined as a fast repetition of the same note (usually a semiquaver) or alternation between two notes, especially on instruments which do not have the ability of producing long sustained notes, such as the [[guitar]] (for instance [[tremolo picking]]).