Again, you may ask?.. because someone posted this qs not too long ago, but after reading all your replies, I still have problems. I did get the Viva vibrato book. Have tried all the non-bowing exercises. But I still don't get it. After the excercises, it jumps to the "play Aunt Rhodie in your saddest vibrato" part and then I don't get it. Most of the time when I try, most likely my whole instrument vibrates and I don't think that's right . In fact, I can do "vibrato" with my bowing hand, ... cos it tends to bounce a lot when I bow
Any MORE suggestions on how to do it?? Ok maybe you should tell me what is supposed to move and what isn't when you do vibrato... like wrist, finger joints... what??

erm... i havent seen the last post on vibrato... but i'll put some suggestions in anyway.

i'm also a violinist who has had a lot of trouble with vibrato over the years... even now i still have to do the basic exercises to ensure that it doesn't go haywire (I was 8 when i was first introduced to vibrato, and i'm still not perfect at 17!!)

the most important thing is to relax with both arms. vibrato with your bowing arm indicates tension in the muscles, which is NEVER a good thing! loosen up by playing some long slow bows on an open string.

next, put your violin down, and imagine that your right hand is the neck of the violin (this is really hard to explain in words... if you can find someone to show you, do!). hold your right hand as if you were holding the violin (fingers on the back of your hand, thumb on the palm) and gently move your wrist backward and forward (imagine you are waving really really slowly!). you should be able to feel the movement of your fingers on your right hand.

(vibrato can be arm, wrist or finger. some violinists can do all three. it's best to start with the wrist though)

once you've got this right, bung your violin under your chin again and try it in the proper position. remember to relax - take the thumb off the neck if it helps - and make the same "waving" motion as before. try this first without your fingers on the neck, and then lower your fingers onto the string whilst keeping up the "waving" (OK this sounds really really weird, i know, i'm sorry!). if you're doing this right, your fingers should be sliding up and down the strings. if they're not, you're too tense - start again. once you're comfortable with this, press a string down gently with one finger and keep the motion going without shifting position. keep the waving even - this is very important.

do this in third or fourth position. this gives you the body of the violin to support your hand.

now try it with the bow. you should be producing a nice (albeit very slow) vibrato. remember to keep both arms relaxed. (i sound like a yoga teacher don't i?!)

now try it with a different finger. keep it slow and even. you should be going about a quarter-tone down and then up again for each oscillation. this produces the nicest vibrato (although some people may disagree with me, i'd be interested to know what you all think!)

once you've tried it with all four fingers (2 and 3 are the easiest, 1 is a bit harder, and 4 is really difficult as it's the weakest finger), play a tetrachord on a string of your choice (i'd recommend the D string, in which case you'll be playing ABCD in fourth position or GABC in third position) - this is one note at a time if you don't know what a tetrachord is (at least i think that's what it's called). spend a whole bow on each note, and keep both the bow and the vibrato slow. the vibrato should be even - if it's not, you're trying too hard (which leads to TENSION! aaargh not that evil word again *bashes computer screen*).

where was i?

oh yes. once you can do that, put the metronome on! start at crotchet = 80 and try to get once oscillation in per beat. gradually increase this until you've got a faster vibrato.

speed should be varied according to which string you're on. the G string, particularly the low notes, requires slow, wide vibrato, whilst up high on the E string the vibrato should be quicker and narrower.

some extra exercises: for an even vibrato, try snap rhythms (dotted rhythms) with the wiggles!

hope this makes sense and is some help to you!

all the best,
cheeble

What Cheeble is describing sounds like how I was taught. My teacher called it "vibrato massage".

What you are physically aiming for is instead of playing a note at one precise pitch, a constant and continuous oscillation of the pitch from slightly above to slightly below the note you are playing. This is achieved by altering your wrist/arm position so that the point of contact between your finger and the string is changing slightly as your finger rocks backwards and forwards. The difficulty of achieving this is mastering the contradiction between the feeling in the left arm and wrist of motion as if it wanted to move the hand up and down the fingerboard, when in fact that doesn't happen because the finger is anchored on the note being played. That's where vibrato "massage" comes in. You start off with no contradiction, not trying to anchor the finger in place, letting the finger simply touch the string and slide freely up and down the string, generated by the totally relaxed oscillating motion of your hand/wrist/arm. This would be so much easier to have demonstrated to you that to be described in text. The next step is to do the same, with the string actually depressed to the fingerboard, but the finger continuing to move right up and down with the arm/wrist. If bowed you get a kind of woooo-woooo-wooooo sound. Only when you have established the relaxed oscillations so that you are confident with them, do you then keep the oscillations at the same amplitude (same amount of movement back and forwards of arm and or wrist), whilst ever so gradually, go by go, reducing the degree to which your finger is shifting up and down the string, by just letting it grip a little more. At this point, instead of the movement of your arm/wrist being identical in amplitude with the movement of your finger, the arm/wrist is moving more - the momentum of the top of the hand, unanchored even partially as the tip of the finger is, carries it moving on further than the finger does. This is then setting up the "rolling", or changing of point of contact of the finger with the string. At each stage the crucial thing is to keep the wrist/arm totally relaxed in its to and fro motion. If this is done, you gradually cut down the lateral movement of the finger on the string until it is basically anchored in one point, apart from the rolling motion. Once that is done you can experiment with different speeds, amplitudes and intensities of vibrato, generated from the arm or wrist - my last teacher told me that wrist and arm vibrato are not two seperate ideas - even in wrist vibrato, the movement may be generated further up the arm as in arm vibrato. (I think there is also finger/knuckle vibrato, but I've never worked that one out).

Thanks! Cheeble's description does work. I can feel some sort of vibrato in my hand coming on. Although it's still slow but it's not so bad as before. I think the trick in doing that to your right hand in the first place is so that you can feel how it's done without causing the whole violin to move.
Just one question.. is the oscillation normally forwards and backwards for your hand or sideways? Or somewhere in between? Isn't it different when you do it in first position and 3rd or 4th position?

your hand is oscillating along the line of the string. There is no side to side movement at all.

Thats actually cleared up vibrato for me, cos I can do it, it just came naturally really, and just really the past couple of days I can just start doing it whenever I want, but I've never actually understood it.

I've been working on vibrato for a couple of months and I think it's starting to come together. YAY!

lucky you. I still can't do it.

QUOTE (violin-ann @ Sep 23 2004, 03:33 PM)

Again, you may ask?.. because someone posted this qs not too long ago, but after reading all your replies, I still have problems. I did get the Viva vibrato book. Have tried all the non-bowing exercises. But I still don't get it. After the excercises, it jumps to the "play Aunt Rhodie in your saddest vibrato" part and then I don't get it. Most of the time when I try, most likely my whole instrument vibrates and I don't think that's right . In fact, I can do "vibrato" with my bowing hand, ... cos it tends to bounce a lot when I bow Any MORE suggestions on how to do it?? Ok maybe you should tell me what is supposed to move and what isn't when you do vibrato... like wrist, finger joints... what??

Hiya
i m also learning vibrato at the moment...
my teacher teach me to relax the left hand...
she told me not to think about doing it right...
just to enjoy it.
Until you get use to the movement and you can do it naturally
i have only learnt it for 1 week and i got how to do it

Anyway good luck and don't give up

Is vibrato on a violin achieved by a rocking of the finger tip or an actual sliding on the string?


Don

vibrato is done because the vibrating part of the string is shortened or lengthened.

Its done by rocking your finger, if you slide your finger you'll get a glissando.

practice makes perfect!

that sadly is the case

I can't do vibrato properly either - I end up doing arm vibrato and it's really annoying me now. I can't do the correct movement off the violin, but can't do it with the violin!

My teacher told me that you tend to use arm vibrato if you are more relaxed, so you have to be slightly more tense or something to do wrist vibrato.

it's actually the movement of movement with two fingers only^^
virbato is all about the thumb and the finger of the note^^
kinda easy

QUOTE (pianist_1210 @ Nov 23 2004, 01:50 AM)

kinda easy

y'think? it took me 9 years to get it to how it is now... even now it's still not perfect...

you have to take into account the fact that down low on the G string it's a wide slow vibrato and up high on the E it's a narrow fast vibrato... this takes a lifetime to perfect...

QUOTE (pianist_1210 @ Nov 23 2004, 01:50 AM)

it's actually the movement of movement with two fingers only^^ virbato is all about the thumb and the finger of the note^^ kinda easy

Hah, everything's easy with you.

I couldn't get vibrato until I'd learned how to do it on the electric guitar then the action was obvious. But you still need to support the violin (viola in my case) well to get it. Dead easy to do a lot of finger waggling with little or no vibrato. I tend to accept the Menuhin vibrato mechanics now.

So tell me, 1210...how did you fare with Nick's Caprices? Sight read them, note perfect?

I guess you are all aware of this site: Violin Masterclass There is a great lesson on vibrato. I have been doing a little every day, really slowly, I can see some progress but I think I too will be taking a LONG time to perfect it

Don

QUOTE (cheeble @ Nov 23 2004, 10:21 AM)

QUOTE (pianist_1210 @ Nov 23 2004, 01:50 AM) kinda easy y'think? it took me 9 years to get it to how it is now... even now it's still not perfect... you have to take into account the fact that down low on the G string it's a wide slow vibrato and up high on the E it's a narrow fast vibrato... this takes a lifetime to perfect...

i'll agree it take a life time to be perfect....
but it's easy to understand how to do it at first

QUOTE (pianist_1210 @ Nov 25 2004, 03:21 AM)

i'll agree it take a life time to be perfect.... but it's easy to understand how to do it at first

for you, maybe... i think it's quite a tricky thing to understand. here's why:

I agree the concept is simple, wiggling one finger from side to side... but there's all the technical detail - no tension, the correct angle for the fingers to be at, the precision of the quarter-tone measurement, keeping the thumb still, making sure the movement is free and relaxed, and coming from the wrist... there's the expressive detail - when to use it, how to use it, why it is used, when you shouldn't use it, what type of vibrato to use when, for what string, at what dynamic, at what speed...

you can't understand how to do a perfect vibrato first go. well, OK maybe YOU can. please enlighten me how, oh great genius.

Hmm...

He/she'll never make a teacher. People who encounter no problems never do as they can't analyse the problems us mere mortals suffer! Getting a smooth natural vibrato is not perfected in a week.

Ambi

Vibrato? Easy??

Not in a million years. The basic movement, sure some of us may be able to get that, but then there is all the factors cheeble said. I really can't see how anyone could get perfect vibrato immediately. And I find keeping the vibrato going difficult!

Was anyone else taught arm vibrato it seems im one of the only ones!
jess

No, how do you do it?

Well... you sort of have to move your arm from the elbow rather than the wrist. It's sort of wrist vibrato on a bigger scale! I was given a tic-tac box and told to shake it until I got a regular rhythm going, then sort of try it on the viola (without the tic tacs!) I'm getting there but it seems so much easier on a violin (probably because it's smaller). Hope this sort of makes sense!
jess

wow... what a great explanation of vibrato.

I think I tend towards arm vibrato in that the movement comes from the elbow, but it's hard to tell doing it on my hand. I was never "taught" how to do it as such though, so it's always been a bit hit and miss. but since my violin has recently come back from the violin doctor (after a year and 9 months... don't ask!!!), and my new shoulder rest should soon follow, when I finally get back to the thing maybe I will be able to do vibrato well... now, how cool would that be??

Hmmm... I was taught finger vibrato... arm vibrato sounds really hard but thanks for the explanation jess!

How do you do finger vibrato I've never quite understood it!
jess

QUOTE

How do you do finger vibrato I've never quite understood it! jess

Hmmm
Start by putting your finger on the string and moving it towards you and away from you and gradually speed it up. A good exercise is to do this in 3rd position using every finger on every string. Another good exercise is to move your finger along the string very fast from the nut to as far as you can reach. It makes a racing car noise but I strongly recommend trying it without the bow...
I hope this helps. I just read it through and it doesn't make much sense! It would be a lot easier to show you using a virtual web-cam or something

No that does make sense thanks very much! Don't know if I could do it but there's no harm in having a go...
jess

Yay! Happy playing