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Question: If you know how, how do you do vibrato on a violin
i cannot for the life of me do vibrato on my violin and i really need to learn before school starts!. It's my senior year!. It could really help to have tips because everything people have told me to do does not work for meWww@QuestionHome@Com


Best Answer - Chosen by Asker:
Firtsly here is a video which may help:

http://www!.youtube!.com/watch!?v=QnGiPsCyh!.!.!.

1!.Understand how your wrist is supposed to move as you vibrate!. Don't hold your instrument, but hold your left hand in the air as if you are ready to play the instrument!.

2!.As you hold your left hand in this fashion, imagine that someone is holding a pencil just centimeters away from the side of your hand!. Try to move your wrist, but not your arm, so that your hand touches the imaginary pencil!. Keep in mind that, while you vibrate, the only thing you should be trying to move is your wrist, back and forth, as if there were two pencils on either side and you were trying to brush them as your hand moves!. This is the movement you shall use for vibrato!. While doing this movement, your left hand should remain extremely relaxed!.

3!.Try it with your instrument!. First you should try the vibrato movement without actually playing, and you should attempt to do it slowly!. Vibrato works best when only one finger is on the string!. You may try vibrato with any finger you would like!.

4!.Keep in mind that your finger should never slide on the string!. It rolls against the fingerboard, rather than slipping back and forth!. Again, keep in mind that your wrist should be moving, and not your arm!. You should also not have to put effort into rolling your finger against the string!. Because your wrist is in the vibrato motion, your finger should roll on its own!.

5!.Try bowing the string that your vibrating finger is on!. You will hear the pitch lowering!. That is because, as you vibrate, your finger should first be on the correct pitch, and then roll towards the scroll, which will lower the pitch!. After that, your finger should roll back towards the previous pitch!. This is what causes the shaky sound in vibrato!.

6!.Move very slowly when learning, to develop muscle memory!. Your finger should roll against the string so slowly that you can hear the lowering of pitch!. And then, after that, the raising of pitch!.

7!.Practice this slowly until you feel very comfortable!. Learning vibrato may take a lot of time, but it is very much worth it!.



Tips

1!.Use a shoulder rest to minimize the risk of shoulder injuries!. Shoulder rests are also preferred over sponges, since the sponge will make the violin/viola bounce as you vibrato, making it even harder!. Shoulder rests are as important as the bow you use to play your instrument!.

2!.Your arm should not move as you vibrate, only your wrist!. Sometimes it helps to have someone hold your arm still as you practice it!.

3!.The key to vibrating correctly is having your wrist extremely relaxed so that it can move quickly!.

4!.If you aren't sure that you're doing it correctly, you should definitely get some help from a teacher or another musician before proceeding with trying to learn!. Once you learn vibrato the WRONG way, it is terribly difficult to get out of those bad habits!.

5!.If you get extremely frustrated while practicing vibrato (I know I do!) then it would be best to not practice it very long, but to practice it every day!. The more frustration builds up, the tenser your wrist becomes and the more difficult it is to vibrate!.

6!.Please note that on the violin and viola, there are 3 types of vibrato- Arm, wrist, and finger!. This article describes the wrist vibrato, the most common type!. Some people cannot master a finger or wrist vibrato but can develop a very beautiful full arm vibrato!.
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The ideal thing would be to go to a private teacher and take some lessons!. It's just not possible to instruct someone over the internet by giving verbal instructions, since the person giving the instructions can't see you!. Doesn't that make sense!?

Having said that, here is a link that has some videos and other essays on vibrato which you may find helpful:

http://beststudentviolins!.com/PedagogyTe!.!.!.

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Well it really does take a while to learn but go to this teacher's YouTube profile:

http://www!.youtube!.com/user/professorV

He's good!. And he explains how to do things very well!.

By the way: There are two ways (I've heard of on how to do vibrato), WRIST and ARM!. Take your pick!.


Good Luck!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

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