Vibrato Techniques for Beginner Violinists

Video Transcript

"Ladies and gentlemen, I’m J-Adam Smith of Violin from the Heart and Fiddle Team USA, and as you can see, I was showing you vibrato. The vibrato, of course, is a popular topic with violinists, especially violinists who are playing a little while. You’ll notice a little accent to your music is going to make it sound a little bit more richer, more listened too. Vibrato is really interesting. I have some methods that I teach in my school. One of the methods I would like to use is called tornado vibrato. Vibrato, an easy way to understand it, is that you have a pitch that is right. That’s without vibrato, you play that note is in tune. Vibrato is a waver of that pitch but in a fashion that it looks like a tornado. You’ve got to make sure there is a middle point and that you are going to go flat and sharp, equal distance. If you are going to have tight vibrato, which is demonstrated like this…very, very tight. Then you have a really crazy vibrato…lot more movement. They all have something in common. They have a central position and then they equally go flat and sharp in a tornado function. Demonstrating on the chart here, you will notice that depending if you want tight vibrato here is the point of origin. That’s your correct pitch. Here, you have a tight vibrato. You’re going to go flat and you’re going to go sharp. Then here you can really have a wide one, if you really want to get crazy with it. But ultimately, you want to have a balance in both sides. Over here, you will notice this is the point of origin. Here is the correct note but if you are vibrating so much that you are on the flat side of the note and is therefore is not a good vibrato. This gives you a little bit idea of what you are going off. Now back to me, there are 3 types of vibratos that you are going to be dealing with. You’ve got vibratos that are dealing with your fingers, called finger vibrato. It’s all dealing with just your little tip, just little bit, your finger doing the work going back and forth evenly. You do not want to move your whole hand; you just want to use your finger. Then you have the wrist vibrato. Then you have the third vibrato, which is going to be your arm vibrato. Ultimately, any violinist, who is a really good violinist, will have a mixture of all 3 of those in different forms. That’s what makes you individual, just like you have different fingerprints. Every violin is going to have a different fingerprint of vibrato and sound. Catch you again on vibrato."