Here you’ll find a violin lesson on vibrato. There are 2 vibrato exercises that will help you find an effective gesture and vary the speed and extent of the movement!
Personally, I learned these exercises when I was studying in a professional violin class, at an already advanced level. But I find that these exercises adapt to any level: I tested it with students who have started vibrato, and good news, it works too!
Some important points about this violin lesson:
– If you are new to the violin, whether you take violin lessons or not, you can start playing vibrato with these exercises.
– These exercises will also help if you are already doing vibrato but feel stuck or can’t find the right movement.
– To get results, it’s necessary to practice these exercises every day for several weeks!
– This is not a specifically jazzy vibrato, it’s more of a general violin lesson, which can be used in all styles of music.
Here’s the violin lesson video with 2 vibrato exercises:
Exercise n°1: BACK AND FORTH ON THE NECK
Hold your violin with your right hand. Take the neck with your left hand and go back and forth, brushing the string with the fingers of your left hand. Tame the movement that comes from the forearm. Then, fix one of the fingers on the string, while continuing the same movement! You will only be able to do this if the joints of the hand and especially the finger remain flexible, like springs. The tip of the finger is as though glued, fixed to the string, and the joints of the finger are mobile, and move as a consequence of the impulse of the arm! Neither the fingers, nor the wrist, nor the hand give the starting impulse for the vibrato.
Exercise n°2: COUNT THE WAVES WITH THE METRONOME
Think that with each wave, the hand comes towards you. This basic gesture is really very important! On the video, the beat I took from the metronome is quarter note: so I play eighth notes, eighth note triplets, sixteenth notes, sixteenth note triplets, thirty-second notes. Even if you can’t quite get into the rhythm, it’s the act of trying to do the exercise that will allow you to vary the speeds of the vibrato!
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