Guitar Vibrato Lesson

In this guitar vibrato lesson you will see why the left hand has a very important role to play in creating great sound on the guitar. There are certain guitar vibrato techniques you can learn that will help produce a better sound from left hand.

The dictionary definition of a vibrato is moving the strings side to side when playing the guitar to enhance the movement of the strings and add resonance. The word vibrato comes from the Latin word vibrare which literally means ‘to shake’.

It a guitar players world it means wiggling the strings with your fingers to make the strings growl and sing.

The word ‘sing’ is intentionally used here because that is a great metaphor. Imagine the resonance of a singer’s voice wavering as they are singing. This is almost what is being achieved by a guitar vibrato.

Vibratos add life to sustained or held notes that otherwise would sound dead and dry. They intensify the impact and the emotion of the music that you are playing on the guitar.

The best time to apply a vibrato is when the note is going to be held for a period of time.

Here a different ways to produce a guitar vibrato:

1). Bend and Release

This involves bending and releasing the note over and over again. To perform this technique, move your finger back and forth while being perpendicular to the string. This will create a fluctuation in the pitch. This is the most commonly used type if vibrato that is used.

2). Classical Guitar Vibrato – Sliding Your Finger

As the name suggests this involves sliding your finger backwards and forwards along the string within one fret of the guitar. Even though the finger is not sliding or moving outside of the fret, the sound becomes slightly sharper when you move it towards the nut of the guitar and flattens when you slide your finger towards the bridge of the guitar.
This type of vibrato is best done on classical acoustic guitar which have nylon strings.

Guitar Vibrato Exercise

Play the 3rd string on the 7th fret and play this with your 3rd finger with your 1st and 2nd fingers on the same string behind the 3rd finger to give it support.
Release any tension in your hand when holding the neck of the guitar as this will stop your hand moving freely.

Now use the combined movements of pulling the string towards the ground and towards the ceiling. Don’t slide or move your hand from left to right (this is the classical guitar vibrato).

The vibrato is helped by the combined movement of the wrist and the forearm which is similar to turning a door handle. Remember to remove any unnecessary tension that may be present in the hand.

Guitar vibratos are performed at different speeds. When learning this technique start out slowly at first. When you become more familiar with this you can work on increasing the speed.

The distance you allow the string to move in either direction is completely up to how it sounds to your ears and not how your eyes evaluate the movement. You will become aware of how good the vibrato sounds when it begins to sound right.

If you start out practicing this guitar vibrato technique with an amplifier, you will have a false perception of how good your guitar vibrato technique really is. Amplifiers tend to make the vibratos sound better than when they are when played acoustically or without the amplifier.