How to Condition a Vibrato

Unfortunately, you can’t condition a vibrato with your favorite hair conditioner.

Further, it’s an activity more akin to threading a needle and dribbling a basketball simultaneously, than just about anything else. That is to say, its quite an extraordinary and specialized one.

So, how do you train it.

You spend 5 minutes of dedicated time on it several days a week. That’s what you do. Now here are some things to know.

Recognize that a vibrato is not just one thing. What you put toward it, and what energy, or lack of, it conveys will vary. That is, the music will inspire you to hear a specific quality of vibrato, and you must then find the secret to produce it.

To rivet a listener, however, you must have a sound with ‘focus’.

If your hand easily cramps up when you try to vibrate there is good news. You’re going to transform yourself into a master of relaxation with those five minutes. Quite a good thing, if you ask me.

And if yours is continually on the lethargic side, you’re going to spend that five minutes acquiring the focus of a ‘laser.’ Also a good thing.

Some may get to do both!

Now, the specifics of how the hand, forearm, and fingers move is something I can’t illustrate here. I do demonstrate and explain what I consider to be the finest type of basic vibrato motion out there on Vol. 3 of ‘Kreutzer for Violin Mastery.’

So you see, even if you’re a ‘beginner’ the Kreutzer course is a tremendous resource to have in to your DVD player. All you have to do is take out your fiddle, take a few good belly breathes, calm and focus your mind, and hit ‘play’. There isn’t one frame in the entire program that can’t teach you something worthy of your time.

All the best,

Clayton Haslop

P.S. My vibrato has been particularly ramped up this week playing ‘cabaret’ style solos for the film ‘Ratatouille’. Found out yesterday it with be released on June 29. That means, if you’re at the ”Secrets of Effortless Playing Masterclass/Seminar” that week you may be in for a little treat. That’s after I’ve transformed your playing of the violin.