A simple exercise to boost your vibrato technique by enhancing your control over the speed of your vibrato. Best for intermediate level or above.

This vibrato exercise can be done with or without the bow. If you’re shy about making weird sounds with your violin, then it’s best to do this without the bow (in other words, silently) – at least at first.

1. Place any one finger on a string (usually 2 or 3 on the A string is a good place to start).

2. Begin with your normal vibrato motion. Note how wide the motion is. You can use the feeling of how far your finger rocks forward onto the tip and back onto the pad, and/or how much your hand moves forward and back to gauge the width.

3. While keeping the width about the same, gradually reduce the speed. There’s not really a limit to how slow you could go, but for me it’s not helpful to go any slower than about 1 second per cycle (back and forth). But make this exercise your own, and take it to as slow as you find interesting!

4. Check the width of your motion, and keep it about where you started.

5. Now gradually increase the speed back to your starting speed ... then go past it until you max out. Again, keep checking that your width remains about the same.

If you’ve tried this out, leave a comment below to let me know how it went!

NOTE:

Above all else, keep the motion relaxed throughout this exercise. It’s easy to tighten up in an effort to control the speed or width of your vibrato motion. But this is counter-productive.

If you focus on keeping your motions relaxed while doing this, even if your width varies or you don’t get much of a change in speed, your efforts are still working toward a relaxed, expressive vibrato.

So give yourself permission to “fail” with this. Especially at first. Each failed – but relaxed – attempt is a step toward that first success.