Learning and teaching vibrato

The video outlines the three types of vibrato on the violin and viola

Violin and viola

Comparatively rare and often left to chance are concrete exercises and methodological-didactic principles on the subject of "vibrato" learning and practising. This is a pity, as vibrato is one of the most important means of musical expression. The greatest challenges for a conscious and well-executed vibrato are:

the continuous development of mobility in the arm, wrist and finger joints
improving independence from left and right
and the "flexible" regulation of finger pressure with simultaneous stability.

Our ideas on the subject of vibrato are aimed at both practitioners and teachers. The focus here is on the many ways in which you can, for example, develop your own vibrato or how you can teach vibrato in tuitions.

Events, Publikationen und Helfer

Events, publications and helpers

Vibrato: That's what keeps us busy

We focus intensively on the question of which movement complexes should actually be activated when vibrating, which exercises are suitable for this and how ingrained movement patterns in particular can be specifically and consciously changed, and much more. We always have the practitioners and teachers in mind. You can find our interim results in the form of events or other offers.

The probably two biggest challenges with vibrato

So if the vibrato is to be more than a random wobble, it must also be practised consciously. In addition to basic mobility in the wrist, shoulder (arm) and finger joints, two areas are of great importance.

FINGER PRESSURE: The regulation and balancing of the finger pressure provide the necessary flexibility when vibrating. At the same time, good stability and flexibility of the finger on the string is required. The finger must therefore be stable and flexible on the string at the same time, otherwise the intonation will fluctuate greatly. Being able to actively create this balance and constantly adjust it when vibrating is a prerequisite for consciously using vibrato.

INDEPENDENCE: It should also be possible to consciously control the speed of the vibrato in order to create exactly the sound colour you want for your interpretation. A steadily increasing independence between the bow speed and the vibrato movements is helpful for this. If this independence does not exist, a faster bow stroke automatically produces a faster vibrato movement (and vice versa).

Approach to stability and simultaneous flexibility

Resounding Fingerboard für Geige, Bratsche, Cello und Kontrabass

Flexibility in connection with stability can be practised well with the fingerboard attachment. All types of vibrato benefit from it: It makes it much easier to regulate finger pressure. A chain of relaxation is set in motion, which also has an effect on the arms and wrists. The opportunities that come with it:

We achieve relaxation while doing a movement where we normally don't relax (so easily).
We reduce the finger pressure to what is necessary.
The shape and construction of the noduls then provides the balance between stability and mobility.

You can try out the following steps. What you need is a fingerboard attachment. You can find further exercises in the booklet Best Pratice.

Attach the fingerboard attachment at the preferred position: for wrist and arm vibrato at about the 3rd/4th position, for finger vibrato a little further towards the bridge.

Start without using the bow: place a finger of your choice on a nodule of your chioce and (very!) slowly begin to try out the mobility of the noduls for yourself by simply executiong the vibrato movement(applies to arm and wrist vibrato). With finger vibrato, the mobility of the finger end joint is crucial. Therefore: Simply place the finger of choice on a nodule and begin (very!) slowly to firstly push down the joint and then bring it back to the starting position. Do not squeeze while doing so!

Once you feel comfortable doing this, you can experiment with the speed of the movements. To understand the movements, we recommend ‘crawling into’ the movement itself and feeling exactly how it feels. At this point it often happens that the attachment detaches from the fingerboard. Unless there are other reasons for it [see: Bad-Fingerboard-Day], the reason often is that there is too much "skidding". Efforts can therefore be made to ensure that the fingerboard attachment moves as little as possible in the process. The interplay between finger pressure and direction of movement is crucial here!

Once you feel comfortable add the bow. Here we refer to the booklet "Arm vibrato" resp. the details on the topic "independence".

Approach to increasing independency

Arm vibrato violin and viola

The video focuses on independence and gives an insight into the print edition ‘Armvibrato’

Independence between right and left is one of the fundamental prerequisites for acquiring a good playing technique. If you want to use your vibrato consciously and, above all, shape it, the continuous improvement of independence and regular training can bring great developmental progress.

Erdmute Hohage, author of the booklet "Arm vibrato", deliberately focuses on the increasing independence between the two sides in connection with all applications of the vibrato and thematises in particular:

vibrating through notes
vibrato and shifting
double grip vibrato
changings fingers and vibrato

Many of the ideas can easily be transferred to other types of vibrato (and also to other playing techniques).