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In musical notation, tremolo is usually notated as regular repeated demisemiquavers ( thirty-second notes), using strokes through the stems of the notes. There is some speculation that tremolo was employed in medieval Welsh harp music, as indicated in the transcription by Robert ap Huw.
#TREMULOUS SOUND SERIES#
But it must be said that, unless violinists have wholly lost the art of this particular stroke, the result is disappointing and futile in the extreme," though it has been suggested that rather than as a legato stroke it was done as a series of jetés. The undulating tremolo was produced through the fingers of the right hand alternately exerting and relaxing pressure upon the bow to create a "very uncertain–undulating effect. Four other types of historical tremolos include the obsolete undulating tremolo, the bowed tremolo, the fingered tremolo (or slurred tremolo), and the bowed-and-fingered tremolo. However, it was not till the time of Gluck that the real tremolo became an accepted method of tone production. The measured tremolo, presumably played with rhythmic regularity, was invented to add dramatic intensity to string accompaniment and contrast with regular tenuto strokes. Tremolo effects pedals are also widely used to achieve this effect.Īlthough it had already been employed as early as 1617 by Biagio Marini and again in 1621 by Giovanni Battista Riccio, the bowed tremolo was invented in 1624 by the early 17th-century composer Claudio Monteverdi, and, written as repeated semiquavers ( sixteenth notes), used for the stile concitato effects in Il combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda.
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Electronic tremolo effects were available on many early guitar amplifiers.
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True tremolo for an electric guitar, electronic organ, or any electronic signal would normally be produced by a simple amplitude modulation electronic circuit. However, the term "trem" or "tremolo" is still used to refer to a bridge system built for a whammy bar, or the bar itself. This non-standard use of the term "tremolo" refers to pitch rather than amplitude. Some electric guitars use a (misnamed) lever called a "tremolo arm" or " whammy bar" that allows a performer to lower or (usually, to some extent) raise the pitch of a note or chord, an effect properly termed vibrato or "pitch bend".
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