Lesson: The Perfect Vibrato

You'll often hear guitarist claim that "Tone is in the fingers" and to an extent that really is true. You can have all of the best gear in the world, but if your technique is suffering then you won't sound anywhere near as good as you could.

Another example: I like Joe Satriani, If I collected every piece of gear Joe has and I played through it, I would still sound like myself! One technique that can greatly improve your tone is practicing you vibrato. Vibrato is the swelling of a note due to lateral movement of the strings. Okay put simply, vibrato is when you are slightly bending the string back and forth to achieve a nice smooth pulsating pitch. This creates a much more expressive sound. So how do you get this perfect Vibrato? By practicing!

I've seen some of the fastest guitar players shred at blazing fast speeds but when they go for that last note, their vibrato is awful. It sounds like they had just kicked a cat... or something, you get the picture! The point I'm trying to make is, you need to be in control of your instrument. When you are you can really make your guitar scream! You are in control and you can freely express yourself in your music. A great vibrato separates the amateurs from the seasoned guitarists!

The vibrato technique is fairly simple and often overlooked. Many guitarist perform vibrato using their fingers to manipulate the note. This is wrong. You need to use your wrist, you will gain much more control using this method. Another very popular question is: How far should you bend the string during vibrato?

Well the answer to that varies quite a bit. Try not to think about it, just practice and let your ears guide you, practice your vibrato until you are happy with the results and you enjoy what you are hearing. When performing vibrato I normally bend the notes a half step, but it may be different for each song. You need to learn to vary the pitch and speed fo your vibrato to suit the mood of whichever song you are playing.

My favorite type of vibrato is slow and wide, but many prefer a more aggressive style. A common mistake many guitarist make is trying to perform the vibrato too fast, the bend is way too narrow and performed too quickly. This kind of vibrato can sound really annoying, especially if done throughout a song. When performing vibrato try ti di si at an even rate and an even change of pitch, this will create a more uniform vibrato that is much mroe pleasing to the ears.

Once you have mastered the art of vibrato, practice adding vibrato to your bends. This will add a whole new dimension to your playing!

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