Practicing Vibrato

by Jason Earls, author of How to Become a Guitar Player from Hell & Red Zen

Guitarists usually don’t practice their vibrato enough. I mean playing wide, soulful vibrato that actually requires some technique to execute. Personally I have a bad habit of falling into using a fast, nervous, jittery type of vibrato that isn’t bluesy or soulful at all. Why? Because I’m usually too busy worrying about playing all the notes in a melody or a lick as precisely as possible, so that when vibrato time rolls around I simply forget about shaking the notes in a wide arc or making them sound emotional. So after I notice what I’m doing, I put on my thinking cap and concentrate on making my vibrato sound musical and interesting. Enough about my mistakes. Let me give you some tips on how you can practice your own vibrato.

First, what is a good definition of vibrato? Well, it’s when a tone wavers up and down in pitch so that a vocal-like quality is produced. A guitarist’s vibrato is very important to their overall style. With enough practice you can create a distinctive sound with your vibrato that can become instantly recognizeable.

Now it’s time to shake some notes. Remember that with good vibrato the majority of the movement should come from your wrist. With that in mind, take a note, say the 9th fret on the G string, and bend it up until it sounds like the pitch at the 10th fret. One half step. That is how far we are going to shake the note. So that it goes back and forth from the original note up one semitone. This will guarantee your vibrato is wide enough. Simply strike the note and bend it up and down trying to make it sound wide and soulful and concentrating on hitting the 10th fret pitch.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
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–9(10)9(10)9(10)9(10)9(10)--
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The vibrato marks above are just to remind you that this is a note-shaking exercise, and not a trill, bend, or a hammer-on and pull-off exercise.

Once the half-step vibrato is under your belt, and if you feel up to it, you can try the same method except taking the note up ONE WHOLE STEP from the original note and releasing it for your vibrato. This is DIFFICULT to do with only your index finger, but with your middle and ring fingers it’s a lot easier as there are other digits behind them for reinforcement. Practice these types of vibrato on each of your strings and in the lower, middle, and upper registers of the neck. Also remember not to neglect your pinky finger either. (Warning: Performing whole step vibrato with certain digits can be dangerous, so be careful not to strain yourself and take it easy. Your pinky or index fingers could get overworked or become quite fatiqued, so give them regular breaks when attempting any monstrously wide vibrato.)

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Jason Earls is author of the books Cocoon of Terror (Afterbirth Books), Red Zen, How to Become a Guitar Player from Hell, Heartless Bast*rd In Ecstasy, If(Sid_Vicious == TRUE && Alan_Turing == TRUE) {ERROR_Cyberpunk(); } and 0.136101521283655... all available at Amazon.com and other online book stores. His fiction and mathematical work have been published in Red Scream, Yankee Pot Roast, Scientia Magna, three of Clifford Pickover’s books, Mathworld, Thirteen, Chiaroscuro, Dogmatika, Neometropolis, Prime Curios, the Online Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences, OG’s Speculative Fiction, AlienSkin, Escaping Elsewhere, Recreational and Educational Computing, Theatre of Decay, Nocturnal Ooze, Bust Down the Door and Eat All the Chickens, and other publications. He currently resides in Texas with his wife, Christine.