Guitar Vibrato

One of the more unique and distinct aspects of any guitarist’s play style is their use of vibrato. This single technique keeps many guitarists sounding quite amateurish, even if the rest of their technique is quite solid. It may not seem like the most major technique, but used correctly, it has a big effect on just how polished a performance actually sounds. This is one of the biggest reasons why two guitarists can take the exact same part, play the same notes, and at the same tempo, and still quite different.

Vibrato is simply just a small, rapid pitch fluctuation that is used to draw interest to a particular note. This pitch change is almost never large enough to actually sound like a different note, but this small change is enough to draw the listener’s attention to a longer, sustained note. With good technique, this also can increase the sustain of a note, which is a major advantage for the exact same situation.

The reason so many guitarists perform this technique so poorly is because they think the whole idea is to shake the string as fast and hard as possible. This is not the case, even though the vibrato is almost never actually times, it should still be a very consistent and controlled motion. Just shaking the string without practicing the basic motions just sound uncontrolled and sloppy.

When first practicing vibrato, it is a good idea to practice it like a timed bend. Even though the below example is practicing the vibrato technique on whole notes, it can still be broken down into a series of eighth note timed bends. The important part of this exercise is to develop consistency and control, once you can do this consistently, then maintaining consistent vibrato should be much easier without having to specifically time each bend.

This example should be played from the fifth position, so don’t move your hand for each note. The G note (5th fret) is played by the index finger. The G# (6th fret) is played by the middle finger supported by the index finger. The A note (7th fret) is played by the ring finger supported from behind by both the middle and index fingers. The extra fingers will improve your stability and control and should be used outside the few rare instances where the other finger is needed for something else.

There are some instances where the pinky is used for vibrato notes, which was not demonstrated in the above examples. In those cases, the pinky really only serves to fret the note, and the ring finger is actually performing the real vibrato mechanics. This really comes into play when you need to stretch down to a note and then vibrato it, so it isn’t an incredibly commonplace situation. In some cases, a bent string vibrato technique is used to reach those notes, but that is a more advanced technique that requires a good command of bending and vibrato.

This is actually one of the more difficult techniques for a guitarist to get a hold on. It looks easy, and seems fairly minor in effect, but this is quite deceptive. Making a lot of very fast, precise, consistent motions can be quite difficult to learn to do properly. Most guitarists don’t ever practice the mechanics behind it and just shake the string to very poor effect. If you take the time to actually practice making these motions, then you will definitely be a step above most other guitarists, and it will be quite evident in any piece of music that makes use of this technique.

Keep on rockin'!