Creativity Quote by James Galway

Vibrato is the easiest way to sound “musical” fast, and James Galway knows exactly why that’s dangerous. “Control of vibrato helps your musical expression” isn’t a technical tip dressed up as wisdom; it’s a quiet argument against default emotion. On flute especially, vibrato can become a flattering filter that hides shaky tone, intonation problems, or a lack of phrasing. Galway’s intent is corrective: vibrato should be a choice, not a nervous tic.

The subtext is about agency. If your vibrato is automatic, you’re not expressing much beyond habit. Control means you can turn it off for clarity, narrow it for tension, widen it for warmth, delay it to let a note bloom, or change speed to match style and era. That’s where expression lives: in contrast, timing, and restraint. The line also pushes back against the idea that feeling alone makes a performance convincing. Galway is pointing to craft as the thing that allows feeling to land.

Context matters because Galway emerged as a star in a period when recorded sound, competition culture, and big concert halls rewarded a lush, projecting “signature” tone. Vibrato became part of that signature across many instruments, sometimes flattening stylistic differences between Mozart, Debussy, and contemporary repertoire. Galway’s point is not anti-vibrato; it’s anti-unthinking vibrato. Expression isn’t added on top of the music like seasoning. It’s engineered, moment by moment, by the player who can decide what the sound is doing and why.