IT senza vibrato bowing core term Support my free tools
- Abbreviation
- senza vib., s.v.
How is senza vibrato played?
Suppress vibrato for the marked span: a string player's left-hand finger remains still, while wind players and singers keep breath and embouchure even without deliberate pulsation. The instruction can evoke the selective use of vibrato associated with some early-performance practices and is also a characteristic twentieth- and twenty-first-century colour for a plain or 'white' tone, although claims that straight tone was the universal historical default remain debated. The state ends at vib., molto vib., ord., another defined vibrato state, or the end of its bracket or transition. Non vibrato and French sans vibrato are equivalent formulations.
How does senza vibrato sound?
The listener hears a flat, pure, almost glassy tone with no warmth or shimmer, often sounding cool, archaic, or starkly exposed.
In context
Vibrato is a regular expressive pulsing of pitch, so senza vibrato removes that pulsation. Historically informed performers have often pursued a 'pure' straight tone, but whether earlier musicians used vibrato continuously or selectively is genuinely disputed; Leopold Mozart's 1756 treatise, for example, recommends it on sustained notes and phrase endings. Direct scores attest senza vib. and s.v. Stone calls s.v. frequent but prefers n.v. for clarity; n.v. expands non vibrato and is therefore an equivalent rather than an abbreviation of this exact headword.