Vibrato is something a lot of developing violinists struggle with. It seems so effortless when done well, but it can sure feel like a lot of work to develop. Some violinists claim it can’t be taught – each violinist just has to figure it out. Some teach it by going into great detail about every aspect of arm vibrato, wrist vibrato, finger vibrato, width, and speed ... not to mention finger pressure, finger angle, thumb placement, and more.
The truth is probably somewhere in between. It takes some understanding of the motions involved, learning from the experience of generations of violinists before. But that mere understanding isn’t going to translate into the vibrato of your dreams without some experimentation of your own.
It’s worth the effort to refine your vibrato, because the end result is so seductive:
a glossy shine that adds life to a note or phrase
an inner glow that brings your sound alive
a hallmark of your musical personality
Ideally, your vibrato flows as effortlessly as ripples through water. So how do you develop an effortless, expressive vibrato? How do you find your own vibrato technique? Here are my top 3 tips.
Untie the knots of tension that are blocking your vibrato
Tip 1: Loosen Up
For violinists who already have some experience with vibrato, one of the biggest walls they run into is tension. Vibrato that looks effortless ... well, it is. At least in that moment. (Putting aside the work that happened before that moment.) Vibrato only takes a lot of effort when tensed, held muscles get in the way. And the result of all that extra work is never very satisfying.
The topic of rooting out tension is a big one. I have a separate post, “Develop Effortless Technique (and Let Go of Tension),” that covers the topic in more depth. Just keep in mind that if tension is interfering with your vibrato, it’s not necessarily coming from your hand. It’s not necessarily from your arm or shoulder, either. Any of these are good places to start, but be open to the possibility that the origin of the tension could be in your ribs, hips, or even feet, then transferred muscle-to-muscle until it reaches somewhere it can get in the way of your vibrato.
This section is short, because most of it is covered in another post. But please don’t take that to mean this is just a gloss-over section, because:
Your vibrato will never fully develop if you’re harboring tension.
So spend some time investigating this, and your vibrato will benefit.
Tip 2: Get Better Acquainted With Your Vibrato
With tension and unnecessary effort cleared away, you’re well on your way to a better, more natural vibrato. But you’ll still need to understand the motions involved in a beautiful vibrato. Without a clear understanding of what you want to happen in your fingers, you can’t send clear instructions to your fingers/hand/arm. When they don’t get clear instructions, they start filling in the gaps ... usually with tension.
The most fundamental components of vibrato are width and speed, so exploring those factors can help bring more control and variety to your vibrato. (Or help develop it from a “wobble” to a true vibrato.)
Just to make sure we’re on the same page, a few definitions.
Width refers to either how far your finger rocks up and down the string, or the resulting pitch range of the vibrato motion (usually less than a half-step).
Speed refers to the rate of vibrato cycles – how many down-up cycles per second – which is not necessarily how fast your hand is moving.
To help you get to know your vibrato better, here are a few exercises for violinist at all levels (beginning, intermediate, and advanced violinists). The exercises are the same, but violinists at different levels will get different things from them.
Exercise 1: WIDTH
Cultivate relaxed motions to improve your control over the width of your vibrato
Exercise 2: SPEED
Cultivate relaxed motions to improve your control over the speed of your vibrato
Exercise 3: FINGER RELEASE
Develop naturally-relaxed fingers, while adding an extra dimension to your sound
These are just a few exercises to get you started, and almost every violinist at any level will find them helpful. Of course there are tons more — a skilled violin teacher can help you explore them.
Tip 3: Listen
The final piece of the vibrato picture is listening, both to yourself and to great violinists. Your vibrato will only be as good as the ear that’s guiding it. So developing your ear is a crucial part of developing your vibrato.
Listen to the greats
Listen to high quality recordings of great violinists. The better the gear you can get ahold of, the more you’ll be able to notice.* But the most important factor is the violinist you’re listening to. Pick one whose sound you love. At first you might just “absorb” their sound. But after a little while, start to notice what they do with their vibrato. Can you notice things like width and speed just from listening? What about how they vary those over time? What effect do those changes have on the sound color and dynamics? Even if you don’t come up with clear answers about their vibrato technique yet, the biggest thing you’ll gain is to have an excellent sound in your ear as a model.
* It’s not necessary to invest in high-end gear, but it’s worth the effort to use the best that you have available. CDs, LPs, or “high-res” and “high fidelity” streaming will reveal more detail than regular audio streaming or YouTube. And headphones usually give better sound than built-in phone or tablet speakers.
Listen to yourself
If the thought of paying attention to your own sound makes you cringe, then I’m sorry to say that you have no way of knowing if others should cringe when they listen to you. I’m not saying you necessarily sound bad! It’s just that you don’t know, if you’re not listening to yourself.
On the other hand, if you’re in the habit of listening very closely to what’s actually coming out of your violin, then you’re in a good position to catch things before anyone else has a chance to notice.
Try these approaches to start developing your ability to listen to yourself accurately:
1. Record yourself
... and then listen to the recording. Choose short passages, so you’ll actually have time to go back and listen. The point isn’t to torture yourself by dwelling on all the things you don’t like. One of the biggest things you gain from this is the ability to connect what it sounds like under your ear with what it sounds like to others. Sometimes things that stand out right under the ear are impossible to hear just a few feet away. (Yay!) And sometimes things that aren’t obvious to you while you’re playing are really obvious to people a few feet away. (Shoot!)
Think of it this way: isn’t it better to notice that your own fly is down before you leave the dressing room, rather than everyone noticing it while you’re on stage? The first one is just a little “oops” moment. The second one, well ...
2. Listen to the room sound
It’s important to be able to focus on the sound directly from your violin. But it’s also good to be able to focus on the sound that comes back to you from the room – the reflections off the walls, floor, and ceiling. There are two main reasons I like to do this:
Like with recording yourself, it can give you a sense of how you sound to others.
It can also help you zoom out to a global view of what you’re doing. Instead of obsessing over what your fingers are doing, or what notes are coming up next, you can look at how all the different pieces are working together.
3. Vibrato exercises
The exercises in Step 2 above (“Get Better Acquainted With Your Vibrato”) are also a great way to start developing your ear. Of course they help you explore the physical motions involved. But they also help your ear start to be aware of the effect of different motions on your sound.
Now go Try!
Reading about vibrato is helpful, in the same way that reading a recipe is. You know what the steps are. But simply reading a recipe won’t produce something to eat. You need to put the recipe into practice. And it’s the same with vibrato. Simply reading about vibrato won’t produce a great vibrato. So put this down now, and go try these out! A little patience, an open mind, and little more patience ... and you’ll be on your way.
If you run into difficulties, an experienced violin teacher can help. A general article like this can’t cover everything, and it can’t be tailored to your situation. But private lessons with a skilled teacher can get right into the things that will make the biggest difference in your playing. Send me a note below if you’d like to set up a lesson or two.
If you’ve tried any of this out, leave a comment below to let me know how it went!
I’m a violinist and private teacher in the Chicago area, and in a previous musical life I was in a professional string quartet. Teaching violin and chamber music are dear to my heart. Send me a note or leave a comment on a post — I’d love to hear from you.
I’m a violinist and private teacher in the Chicago area, and in a previous musical life I was in a professional string quartet. Teaching violin and chamber music are dear to my heart. Send me a note or leave a comment on a post — I’d love to hear from you.
