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Guitar Tutorial

Vibrato 101: How to "Wiggle" the Strings

Instructor: Richard Lundmark
Topic: Exercises
Style: Any Style
Level: Beginner
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  • Instructor: Richard Lundmark Level: Beginner Topic: Exercises Style: Any Style

    Excerpt: Welcome to this tutorial on Vibrato! In this video I've put emphasis on the "show & tell" principle rather than tons of text for you to read, and enforced my video examples with the graphs below. So I won't be ranting too much in the text in this tutorial, but rather encourage you to watch it through. However, some words might of course be in order. Fo...

    Media Length: 6:23

  • Instructor: Richard Lundmark Level: Beginner Topic: Exercises Style: Any Style

    Excerpt: So, the first vibrato technique we will look into is what I call the "door knob" vibrato. The term refers to the rotation of the hand, rather than the fingers creating movement and exacting force. In this case there are two main things to always keep in mind; 1.) That you anchor your left hand index finger knuckle against the neck (the high E-side), an...

    Media Length: 5:45

  • Instructor: Richard Lundmark Level: Beginner Topic: Exercises Style: Any Style

    Excerpt: So, probably he most common type of vibrato is what I have labelled the "push/pull" vibrato. This is the vibrato that most of us learn from the get go. Grouping several fingers together (often) and pushing the strings by manner of extending your fingers (how much depends on the pitch of the vibrato, and the desired effect). You call also "pull" todwards the...

    Media Length: 4:15

  • Instructor: Richard Lundmark Level: Beginner Topic: Exercises Style: Any Style

    Excerpt: This vibrato that I call the "open hand" vibrato, IS what it's called. You're using a open hand around the neck, to facilitate greater, quicker, and more aggressive movement of the fingers and hand, and thus increasing the impact of the vibrato. This type of vibrato is most often seen (and heard of course) amongst texas blues players, but can benefit you gre...

    Media Length: 3:32

  • Instructor: Richard Lundmark Level: Beginner Topic: Exercises Style: Any Style

    Excerpt: The violin or classical vibrato is not something you'll find many players using these days, Holdsworth being one noteable exception. As mentioned in the vid, and exemplified below, it entails pulling and pushing the string along the length of the fretboard, thus lengthening and shortening the string. This will cause the pitch to either rise or drop in r...

    Media Length: 5:07

  • Instructor: Richard Lundmark Level: Beginner Topic: Exercises Style: Any Style

    Excerpt: The circular vibrato is one of these things that looks cooler than it actually is. What it is, is a combination of the violin vibrato and the regular doorknob vibrato. You should try to move your finger in an elliptical movement along the string, creating a pitch that goes both above and below starting pitch. Used regularly by Vai (but I recon more for show ...

    Media Length: 4:03

  • Instructor: Richard Lundmark Level: Beginner Topic: Exercises Style: Any Style

    Excerpt: CAREFUL here! You do NOT want to take these examples too far. Pushing the neck of the guitar back and forth in relation to the body has been a way to do chord vibrato without a tremolo for ages. Doesn't mean you should do it forcefully and all time though. It is however, quite pleasant and effective as a vibrato tool, so please check out the video and try it...

    Media Length: 4:01

  • Instructor: Richard Lundmark Level: Beginner Topic: Exercises Style: Any Style

    Excerpt: Bending and vibrato are pretty much like Love and Marriage, you don't see one without the other (to quote Sinatra). And having a good, stable, controlled and IN PITCH vibrato when bending is of course essential! In this first graph you see how a proper bend and vibrato should look (seems similar to the first one in part 1 right?)  It should sound the sa...

    Media Length: 8:16

  • Instructor: Richard Lundmark Level: Beginner Topic: Exercises Style: Any Style

    Excerpt: So, what are these so called "professional secrets"?? Well, what unites most players that have a reputation for excellence in vibrato (such as Gilmour) it is the "vocal" quality of their vibrato that is most prominent. Just as with a singer you do not want them to use 100% vibrato on every note, or they would sound like Jim Carrey in the Cable Guy movie! How...

    Media Length: 5:12