Vibrato

Musette

Hi,
I think vibrato is one of the most important things in music and gypsy jazz is'nt the exception but it is sometimes an aspect many of us don't give the importance it deserves.
I've been struggling to improve my vibrato for a while...and I really like Stochelo's one, because it is one of the fastest i've heard in gypsy jazz and it is like really "wide".

But I have'nt seen any improvement at all, even after I've been playing Stochelo's solos over and over, watching videos of him playing, etc.

Do you have any suggestions to practice vibrato and to be able to play really fast and wide vibrato?

Where does the movement come from? is it the wrist? the finger? the whole hand? the arm?

How is it supposed to feel?


Hope you can help me.


Thanks




David.

Elliot

Well, there are 3 types of guitar vibrato: the 'butterfly', typified by B. B. King where you grip the neck and rotate your wrist around the index finger, the 'violin' type where you keep your wrist stiff and move up and down the neck from the elbow, and the type Stochelo uses, which can be the most dramatic, by moving one of the first 3 fingers across the neck. This one takes a bit more strength as you keep your arm and elbow still but quickly push the string (don't pull) across the neck with a reflexive hand motion. The key is not to grip the back of the neck with the palm of your hand using only a light touch from your thumb to keep it in place, and to make sure you are actually moving the string parallel to the frets so you're getting the full motion and not just doing a modified butterfly. I usually save it for the higher strings at the upper part of the neck where it is easiest and revert to the butterfly for the lower side near the head, American that I am.

Good luck, hope that helps

E

Ken Bloom

When I do vibrato I do it with just the finger. If you consider the string a spring, you simply pull the string out of line and let it come back by itself. The tricky part is maintaining your pressure while doing this. Higher frets work much better. Using this method I can control the speed and the width of the vibrato. This is one part of playing my Les Paul that transferred perfectly to a lightly strung acoustic. It does take practice. I did the same exercises to develop this that my sax teacher had me do to develop my vibrato on that instument. I used a metronome and played a note with four vibrations per note. I did this at a wide range of speeds and varied the width of the vibrato a lot. Nothing fancy. Just pull the string out of line and allow it to come back. No weirdatude with wrist, arm etc. Just plain old fashion practice (oyyyyy!)

Ken Bloom