How To Get Top-Tier Guitar Vibrato Technique
No one doubts this fact:
Vibrato technique is the most important technique to work on in order to make your playing sound great.
Why?
Because notes that have no vibrato quickly becoming boring and lifeless.
I discovered this many years ago, when I began learning how to shred on guitar.
I knew how to play guitar with good speed, but I didn’t know how to translate my technical skills into my playing to make it sound expressive and emotional.
How did I solve the problem? I did these two things:
I started taking lessons with a guitar teacher who had great experience and used the sound of my favorite singers’ voices to inspire my vibrato style.
I determined ten steps anyone can take to master vibrato technique.
Watch this video to learn them:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGlBBxOvZa8
Now that you understand the fundamentals, here is how to take your vibrato to the highest tier:
Advanced Guitar Vibrato Tip #1: Use Multiple Vibrato Styles
Quick way to improve the quality of any guitar solo or lick:
Change up the way you use vibrato technique.
Use vibrato instantly after the string is picked. Delay your vibrato. Delay vibrato then re-articulate the string. Use wide vibrato (1 step or more). Slow vibrato. Vibrato together with rubato. And combinations of everything mentioned here.
It’s fun and easy.
See how this tip improved a guitar solo by watching this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vldw7EFT12s&feature=emb_title
Advanced Guitar Vibrato Tip #2: Study Your Favorite Singers’ Phrases
This improved my vibrato technique more than anything.
What you do is the following:
Transcribe your favorite vocal melodies to guitar and use your technique to emulate the singer’s sound as best as you can.
Don’t worry about the placement of your hand here. Focus on getting the very best sounding vibrato.
(Your ears will tell your hands what movements to make.)
Want to see what this looks like in video form?
My favorite vocalist is Fabio Lione.
See this video where Fabio and I create melodic ideas together:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yS-odcHleqM&feature=emb_title
Advanced Guitar Vibrato Tip #3: Practice Bent-Note Vibrato
Playing vibrato on bent strings is more difficult than playing it on unbent ones.
But when you perform it correctly…
…it makes your guitar sing like an angel!
What is the hardest part about playing bent-note vibrato?
Maintaining the bent note as the target pitch.
Plus, you have three different ways to play bent note vibrato:
1. raising the pitch higher than the bent note.
2. lowering the pitch lower than the bent note (you need a guitar with a floating bridge to do this).
3. moving the vibrato both above AND below the bent note.
The 3rd type of vibrato is by far the most difficult and most impressive to listen to.
Watch this video to see what I’m talking about:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2SZKNsuEOVY&feature=emb_title
Want to get more bent-note vibrato advice? Check out this guitar vibrato licks video by Mike Philippov.
Advanced Guitar Vibrato Tip #4: Use Vibrato On Chords
A lot of guitar players prefer to play lead guitar parts over rhythm guitar parts.
But why is this exactly?
People often struggle to play chords in a way that sound expressive and interesting.
This is a big reason why playing lead guitar is often thought of as cooler than rhythm guitar.
But what if you could use vibrato to enhance the chords you play? Is that even something you can do?
Yes.
Bonus idea: you can add vibrato to make your double stops sound cool also (using a floating bridge is the best approach here).
Watch this video to see cool examples of double stops with vibrato:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iBkYMlZX3HA&feature=emb_title
Now that you understand what to do to master vibrato, it’s time to overcome your hardest guitar playing challenges.
How do you do this?
Get started playing guitar like you’ve always wanted by taking online electric guitar lessons.
About The Author:
Tom Hess is a highly successful guitar teacher, touring musician and composer. He teaches electric guitar online lessons to guitarists around the world. Follow Tom Hess on Facebook for daily guitar playing tips and links to free guitar resources.
