The Big Myth That Holds You Back From Having A Great Vibrato

A while ago I was sitting in my garden with a friend that plays guitar. As usual, we talked about guitars and guitar playing.

At one point we were comparing our experiences learning guitar when we were teenagers and how we were taught, and the conversation moved to our experiences learning vibrato.

He was telling me how his guitar teacher had demonstrated a good vibrato and told him to “go do it”. He tried for several weeks and eventually got the hang of it, and like anything with the guitar, slowly refined it over the years.

He was of the opinion that vibrato isn’t something you can teach, because it’s something that’s so personal and unique to each person. If you listen to great guitar players, or even players at your local, you’re going to find that all of their vibratos are a bit different.

If you listened carefully, you could probably identify different players, even local ones, by their vibrato.

If vibrato is such a unique skill, is it something that can be taught?

I completely agree that vibrato is something that is unique to each guitarist… but does that meant that it can’t be taught?

Any skill on guitar can be taught.

Whenever we do anything on guitar, from a melody that someone learns in their very first guitar lesson, to learning a crazy Steve Vai guitar solo, it all comes down to holding down different frets on the strings and moving our fingers between those frets.

We can identify the basic motions involved, train ourselves on them, and then execute them on the guitar and play what we’re trying to play.

When it comes to the guitar, that’s what learning is.

And vibrato is no different.

Good and bad vibrato

Before we look at what is involved in vibrato, let’s take a quick look at what makes a good and a bad vibrato.

See if you can think of some examples of vibrato from players you like.

Think of your two or three favourite guitar players and take a minute to think about their vibrato, play a couple of their tracks to refresh your memory.

Now think of a time you saw someone play a really bad vibrato (or maybe take a minute to think about your own! Don’t beat yourself up over it though, it is what it is and we’re here to improve).

What’s the difference?

Even though all guitar players have a unique approach to vibrato, for example Yngwie’s vibrato is different to Greg Howe’s; the one thing they have in common is consistency and control.

If you listen to a good vibrato, it is consistent and controlled. The pitches being hit and the timing are all nicely controlled. The end result of a controlled vibrato is an emotional quality is added to a specific pitch. The consistency in the vibrato allows the ear to perceive a single specific pitch, with vibrato added.

A bad vibrato is random, the player hits different pitches every time they bend the string and the pitches all have a random spacing. The end result of a random vibrato like this is that it sounds like someone is twiddling the tuning pegs! The random nature of the vibrato means the ear is hearing a fluctuating pitch, it is not hearing a single pitch with vibrato added to it.

Another difference is that great players will tailor their vibrato to difference musical situations. The vibrato they use at one point in a solo is going to be customised for that specific point in time and that specific musical situation. When the music changes later, the vibrato changes to match it.

Players with a bad vibrato are going to use the same vibrato everywhere. Their vibrato is either “on or off”, there’s no subtlety or change in the vibrato to match the musical context.

The fundamental motions of vibrato

There are a handful of fundamental motions with vibrato:

1. Bending the string
2. To a specific pitch
3. In a certain time

That’s all vibrato is.

So when it comes to learning vibrato, we need to:

1. Have the strength to bend the string
2. Be able to bend the string to a specific pitch
3. Be able to execute string bends in a certain rhythm/timing

And if we have exercises for those areas, we have exercises to develop a vibrato.

If I practice vibrato this way, won’t my vibrato sound the same as everyone else?

Yes and no.

At first yes. Everyone that practices and trains their vibrato this way will, after a couple of weeks of practising the exercises correctly, have a vibrato that sounds the same.

But here’s the thing - the point of these skills is that you consciously master the fundamentals of vibrato. And once you have mastered them, which only requires a few minutes a day of practice, you then have the freedom to make the vibrato your own.

When you can control the pitch and the timing of your vibrato precisely, you can adjust the pitch and timing for different musical situations, you don’t just have a vibrato that you either use or don’t, you have the skill of vibrato that you adapt each time you want to use it.

And exactly how you do that is going to be unique to you.

A lot of players have a vibrato that is random and uncontrolled…

You’re going to have a vibrato that hits like an emotional laser guided bomb, that is recognisably yours and musically fits in the different situations you apply it to.

It’s exactly the same as any other skill on guitar that we want to be creative with: First we master the fundamentals of the skill, and I mean really master it, not be vaguely familiar with it, we learn it in so much depth that it gets committed to our subconscious, then we work on applying it in different ways and that’s how we become creative with that skill.

By mastering the fundamental elements that go into vibrato, you can then apply it to different musical situations and create your own expressive, emotional and ‘uniquely yours’ vibrato.

Exercises to learn vibrato

You can see my vibrato exercises here.

They take 5 to 10 minutes a day to practice and after a few weeks, you’ll have a skilled and controlled vibrato.

The exercises are all in order, so you do the first one for five minutes a day for two weeks, then the next one for five minutes a day for two weeks, etc.

It doesn’t take a lot of time, five to ten minutes a day is nothing really, but you do have to make sure you are consistent with it - the consistency is part of the secret to getting this right.

After working through the exercises for a few weeks, you’ll be able to freely apply vibrato to different musical situations and you’ll have enough skill and control to make it your own.

There’s also an incredibly detailed breakdown of exactly what vibrato is and how it works - at just over 7 minutes long, this lesson alone will give you a PhD in vibrato theory.

Vibrato can be taught, and you can learn it.

And it’s simpler than you think.