PDG
"Robin..or Foolstroupe... please site a source to support your opinion. You are simply wrong. It is bad enough for you to be wrong, but correcting someone who is correct is not excusable."

Well now, "emily b" has nicely added to the confusion - by saying "If one can picture (or rather hear) the "beats" of a vibrato, then a tremelo is a vibrato with beats that are too fast."

This is like comparing apples with oranges - like saying an orange is just like an apple, but with an orange skin... If there are purely (frequency) beats, then it is purely Tremolo. If there are purely volume pulses, then it is purely Vibrato. If there are both - then what word do YOU want to call it? I call it a mix of both - I haven't done a "Humpty Dumpty" yet... :-) To use either word alone to describe the resultant mix of the two effects is at least misleading, in a formal sense. Of course, casual use results in teh smearing of meanings of words - fine for non-technical uses, but useless in any formal approach.

Humpty Dumpty said in Lewis Carol's "Alice" - 'A word means just what I want it to mean' - that's nice and cute for children, but not helpful for communication with others.

It is true in many musical tone generators, including the human voice, that the aural effect is a combined mix of both concepts of volume change and pitch change that people use the words indiscriminately. But to a sound engineer, there is a big difference between volume change and pitch change....

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PDG - I could please ask the same for you. What documentary or anecdotal sources can you cite to prove my statement wrong? Personal opinion is just that.

I am not interested in a slanging match, or "I say you say"...

As a Pipe/electric/electronic organ player since the 1960's, I have been aware of the "tremulant" stop. This affects the frequency - change in pressure on an organ pipe -> frquency change. There is also an apparent volume change to the ear.

I can't find my any of my specific Music Dictionaries and other reference book, they are packed away, but a quick look in my (American) Funk and Wagnall - part of my EB 1963 edition -
on the two words reveals

"Vibrato ... A tembling or pulsating effect, not confined to vocal music, caused by rapid variation of emphasis on the same tone: properly distinguished from tremolo, where there is an alternation of tones."

The crossreferenced definition of Tremolo is not as clear, but definitely not contradictory.

OK, I'm somewhat pedantic - but nuclear scientists are pedantic too - "Oh, there's no real diference between uranioum and plutonium - they both blow up in bombs" - well there's a big difference in critical mass (the minimum amount needed to "explode") and the resultant nasty byproducts....

And I can say, that on all the Piano accordions I have played - any sort of bellows shake technique produces VOLUME CHANGES due to pressure changes in the bellows - the Tremolo effects (frequency) are produced by reed tuning proceedures.

I welcome the meaningful contribution of anyone with relevant input. As I am currently updating my P/A for the Recycled Muso thread, and changing my own belatedly detected error in confusing the two terms - I would appreciate it!

Robin