Three Steps to Developing a Healthy Violin Vibrato

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Not happy with your vibrato? You are not the only violinist searching online for violin vibrato tips. Violin vibrato is such a hugely popular topic for violinists especially online. In this post, discover the three steps to violin vibrato.

  1. Foundation
  2. Practice
  3. Application

I clearly remember getting my hair done in Utah one time with an adorable male hair dresser…
He told me, “Girlfriend, you need to get organized. Organize that hair.”

You see, I have naturally curly hair that would be much happier wild and free than for me to straighten it.
He instructed me on how to get organized and get it done.
I will never forget that moment.

It applies to everything even vibrato on the violin.
Vibrato organized in three simple steps…

Foundation is key

If you don’t have the proper foundation, vibrato is not going to develop as naturally or as well. Foundation is extremely key in order for your vibrato to flourish.

Read below for tips on what to watch for.

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  • PROPER VIOLIN HOLD

    Proper Posture is the fundamental technique for all of violin playing. Never underestimate the importance of your violin hold and check in with it regularly. Need some guidance? Check out my blog post, How to Hold a Violin Properly.

  • PROPER RELAXED LEFT HAND POSTURE

    Be sure to have your left hand facing the fingerboard and that it is relaxed. If you have tension in your left hand, please read How to Get Rid of Left Hand Tension.

    If you do not have a relaxed left hand it will be IMPOSSIBLE to have a healthy vibrato. A tense left-hand leads to a  tension vibrato which is not vibrato.

  • TABLETOP FINGERS

    If your fingers are coming down flat without a nice what I call, tabletop or arch to them, it’s going to be difficult to develop a vibrato as well. The knuckles of the fingers need to be loose and not locked up.

  • GOOD INTONATION

    Vibrato is not a tool to fix intonation. Good intonation needs to be established before adding vibrato to the mix. Fingers definitely need to have stability and consistency before adding vibrato. A discerning ear is imperative for intonation practice. How to develop a discerning ear? Read “Every Pitch a Pearl” blog post here.

  • GOOD LEFT HAND AND RIGHT HAND INDEPENDENCE

Practice is Mandatory

Violin vibrato is not going to blossom forth if it’s neglected or practice is sporadic.

When I first learned vibrato, I was about 9 or 10 years of age. I was very self-conscious about how I sounded on the violin when learning vibrato. I holed myself up in my bedroom and shut the door for a week and I worked on that vibrato every single day. Probably for hours upon hours for the vibrato to develop.

I really didn’t have too much guidance from my teacher. Only to hold the violin with a sponge against the wall. Later on, in my violin journey I did do a lot of focus studying on the vibrato but at the very beginning that’s all I got and I was lucky enough to have my vibrato blossom forth.

Keep in mind, you do have to devote a lot of time to vibrato for it to develop.

  • PREP EXERCISES

    Very important to introduce your muscles to the idea of vibrato.

    so even before you start trying to vibrate there are some prep exercises to help you out just to get those was going and I discussed this actually in my master class free your inner vibrato and give all those prep exercises in there and I’ll leave a link here if you’re interested to check out more about my master class free your inner vibrato.

  • KNOW YOUR STARTING POINT

    Great idea to record your starting point to observe what is your natural tendency – a hand or arm vibrato.

  • NOURISH YOUR NATURAL ABILITIES

    Always remember vibrato is a natural motion parallel to the fingerboard. All muscles work together not against each other.

    I always encourage my students to nourish their natural abilities. When you first come to vibrato you may find that you are either having a natural hand vibrato or a natural arm vibrato and when my students come to me and we start working on vibrato that is one of the things I just discover. Without them even knowing, I investigate what happens what is naturally occurring for them and that is the vibrato that I choose to foster in their violin journey. First it’s good to have both vibrato but to develop your range first abroad oh it’s good to do would you go with something that happens naturally.

  • KNOW THE VIBRATO CODE

    ACTION RESULTS IN A REACTION. Vibrato is a response to the impulse instigated by the larger muscles of the hand or arm.

    Now it’s really important that you understand what I call the vibrato code and that code is action results in a reaction. Okay so some people think because they see the finger vibrating that the impulse or the impetus of that motion is here in the finger but it is not. This is actually the reaction of a motion that is caused by bigger muscle groups.

  • OBSERVE OTHERS

    Time to open youtube and observe Hilary Hahn, Maxim Vengerov, David Oistrakh, Yehudi Menuhin etc… Hey check out my performance videos too if you want.

  • TENSION IS NOT VIBRATO

    A tension vibrato when you are finding that you have to have tension in order to vibrate.

  • START BIG - PRACTICE SLOW AND WIDE AND THEN GET SMALLER.

    I always suggest to start big and then work smaller especially if you already have a tension vibrato you have to loosen that hand up. So I always say to work with a big vibrato as opposed to a small vibrato. I’m gonna go ahead and demonstrate to you a big vibrato and a smaller vibrato and actually the proper terms are wide vibrato or a narrow vibrato. Okay so vibrato has oscillations so this is a wide vibrato, very wide vibrato and this is a narrow vibrato and you can really hear the difference of the the sounds and the mood that it creates.

Application is Imperative

If you always practice vibrato and never apply to your pieces, your vibrato will never go to that next level or take that next step.

Many years ago, I had a student I was working with who had a beautiful vibrato when we worked on it together but as soon as he played his pieces he completely didn’t apply the vibrato. It’s not like he didn’t have a vibrato, he just didn’t apply it.

You have to make sure you mindfully apply vibrato to your pieces.

  • APPLY TO WHOLE NOTES AND HALF NOTES

    Start with whole notes and half notes because they’re the longer held notes for the left hand.

  • APPLY TO SAME PITCH WITH MULTIPLE BOW CHANGES

    Vibrate in places where your left finger is down for more than one beat but you may have a bow change. For example two quarter notes on the same pitch. This way you can practice vibrating through the bow changes.

  • APPLY TO VERY SECURE SCALES

    What do I mean by very secure scales? Scales that you feel extremely confident with your intonation G major, D major, A major, E major. I wouldn’t advise to a C minor scale or let’s say a D flat major scale unless you are super solid on your pitches within those scales and also it’s really good take it you know take it from the very beginning, one octave scales, two-octave scales. Don’t worry about applying your vibrato to the three-octave scales if three-octave scales are difficult for you. Once you feel more comfortable with the three-octave scales and you can start applying vibrato to those.

  • APPLY TO SIMPLE PIECES

    Remember those simple pieces you started on when playing the violin? Barbara Barber’s Solos for Young Violinists Volume 1 at the beginning has great folk songs that are wonderful for vibrato practice.

  • APPLY TO LONG NOTES IN PIECES

    First, apply to long notes in those pieces and then like for your whole notes your half notes to start by adding it in their dotted quarter notes and eventually to your quarter notes.

  • EVENTUALLY APPLY TO EVERY NOTE POSSIBLE IN PIECES

    Eventually, you will want to be able to apply your vibrato to all those within the pieces even with sixteenth notes in some cases.

LOVE this blog post? Want a copy to keep on your music stand?

Click here to purchase the PDF for $2.00.

Please share in the comments which above tips you will be implementing into your daily practices sessions.

Happy Magical Practices,

4 replies
  2. Barbara
    Barbara says:

    Thank you. I have only been playing 2 years. Have not gotten this far yet. You have done really good points so I will try to relax more.

    Reply

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