Achieving Vibrato Perfection

[MetalMessiah]

Recently, I have started to focus on perfecting my vibrato and have come across a few things that I am unclear on. As I listen to all of the greats play, I notice the obvious: their vibrato is better than mine. Now, as I began practicing, I also notice that there are many things that I can be doing and I am unclear as to which is the most important. Should I be practicing moving the string both up and down (I would assume that is a yes) or just down or just up? Is there a specific way to help better vibrato, a metronome or something? Also: what am I looking for, what should one improve? What kinds of things are to be considered marks of achievement? If there is anything I have left out, feel free to bring it up. I appreciate any help I can get.

Thank you all in advance.

[Oakleaf]

my vibrato sucks too. help

[Bizarro]

Admitting you have a problem area is the first step towards solving it!:D

To start working on some basic technique and vibrato control, practice slow/fast vibrato to a metronome or drum machine. You can do whole, 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, etc. note duration vibrato played in time with the beat. I use each finger and go across all the strings in a semi-chromatic manner.

Try play these various note durations perfectly with the beat. It's not as easy as it seems! Gradually widen the amount you bend as you get more control and strength. (think Zakk Wylde, he has extremely wide vibrato!)

If you do this a little bit each day you should see steady improvement. Record a sample of these exercises and you'll be amazed at how much can be accomplished in one week with only 5-10 minutes of work per day!

There's a lot more to get into but this should be a good foundation. Once you start listening to your own vibrato closely, you'll get a better appreciation for what other people are doing. At this point it's a good idea to emulate your favorite player's vibrato. Some extremely unique and good vibrato players: Yngwie, John Sykes, George Lynch. There's a million more but I find these guys to be some of my favorites.

Books could be written on this subject and still not cover everything! :eek:

[Oakleaf]

i have more of a violin vibrato, where i just move up and down on the string. i dont get too much side action.. i've always wondered what's "correct" are you sposed to bend the string? or just pivit on it or what? right now i'm just going up and down. well.. help

[EricV]

The "along the string"-type is usually referred to as "classical vibrato". It usually works best on nylon-string guitars, and is a nice way to add vibrato to one note of a chord.
FOr "rock vibrato" or whatever you wanna call it, you have to move the string up and down.
( There also is a variation of those two, called "circle vibrato". Vai uses that a lot )

Vibrato is an essential part of your tone, your voice, and definitely deserves some attention. You should try out all the different variations. Bizarro has a really important point there... timing. A vibrato which is in time sounds way more musical than one that isn´t.
Try different kinds:
Wide or small vibrato ( quarter tone or less to half or even whole tones )
Fast or slow

Combinations of those: wide / fast vs. small / slow and vice versa.

Listen to Steve Morse... he has a very distinctive wide and fast vibrato, but he also uses lots of different kinds of vibrato, and adds some extra variety that way...

One mistake that a lot of people make in the beginning is overusing vibrato. One of the nicest kinds of vibrato is to use vibrato the way opera ( and other ) singers use it:
Play a note, and let it ring for a little bit before you slowly start to apply vibrato. This often sounds way nicer than immediately starting some wild vibrato right after you picked the note

Eric

[Wyll_Watts]

Just thought I'd mention one other type of vibrato that isn't used that much. If you have extra-jumbo or jumbo frets or large gauge strings you've probably noticed that using too much pressure on the string will set the note slightly out of pitch. The most extreme case is when using a scalloped fretboard and you apply alot of pressure on the string and the nore REALLY goes out of pitch. Well, you can use this for a really subtle vibrato by varying the pressure you're placing on the string. This isn't effective on all instrument setups, but could be worth a try. On electric guitar I use the "circle vibrato" that Eric mentioned while on acoustic (set up with fairly large frets and heavy strings) I use a combination of varying the pressure and the classic vibrato.


Wyll

[Bongo Boy]

In one of Jamey's write-ups or perhaps at his site, he talks about a technique in which the hand rotates much like it would if you were to reach forward to turn a door knob--that is, rotation around an axis parallel to your forearm. The pivot point is that point where the left-hand thumb rests on the top edge of the next (thumb is over the top of the neck).

Elsewhere on this site James (szulc) also referred to this technique. This is way hard. It also means than when fretting certain notes with certain fingers, the natural finger tip motion would not be parallel to the fret--it would be more like 45 degrees to the fret (if you kept your finger stiff). In fact for me, with my bratwurst fingers, this tends to move the finger tip back and forth more parallel to the string than parallel to a fret--certainly if I'm on any string bigger than #1 or #2.

This is difficult to describe without a picture, and of course I may have it wrong. But if not, then I wonder why this technique is recommended--why it's considered effective, etc. I guess I'm also a little surprised that a classical guitar guy would refer to this as the "right" technique when, as I understand it, classical guys would seldom, if ever, have their thumb up over the 6th string edge of the neck.

[szulc]

http://www.ibreathemusic.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=562&highlight=vibratto

[The Bash]

Great advice, in addtion to that my little thought:
I be stating the obvious but listening to singers as well as guitar players. Or more to the point trying to make your guitar sing lke a human voice. I think often time singing what you play helps in a lot of musical ways.

[mattie]

Hey,

here you can see 2 player videos where the player uses the vibrato technique Bongo Boy described:

http://www.html-kunde.net/01R8/01R8.htm