Quick Tip: Vibrato for Guitar
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Quick Tip: Vibrato for Guitar

on Aug 2nd 2010 with 4 comments
Tutorial Details
  • Difficulty: Beginner/Intermediate
  • Time: 5 minutes
  • Requirements: A guitar
This entry is part 7 of 16 in the Creative Session: All About Playing Guitar Session
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In this video quick tip for guitarists, we will take a look at how to apply vibrato to your notes. While the technique is relatively simply, the use of vibrato can often be overlooked by beginners especially. With a little practice you can start to achieve some great vocal-like effects and add the feel and depth to your playing just as all the guitar gods do!

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Anthony Britton has been a professional guitarist for 14 years based in London, UK where I also graduated with an Honors degree from the Guitar Institute back in 2001. For the past seven years he has been working for the Hertfordshire County Music Service as a guitar teacher in schools and music colleges covering GCSE, B-Tec, A-Level and Rockschool examinations.He loves to help people get as much out of music as they can, and he honestly believes that anyone can achieve a certain level of musical proficiency with the right attitude and commitment to practicing.On the performing end of things he has played the role of rhythm and lead guitarist for numerous covers and originals bands throughout the UK and abroad since his first proper paid 'gig' at the age of 16, and has racked up more gigs than he'd like to admit to. He has also been lucky enough to work on some individual projects, including his role as Musical Director for Patti Boulaye at the Royal Albert Hall, guitarist and co-producer for Jon X (Kevin and Perry Go Large, The Morrighan) and he has also performed the guitar parts on some modest, but very enjoyable film scores.  

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  • ExtremRaym

    nice :P

  • http://adriantry.com Adrian Try

    Thanks Anthony for being the first to send in a guitar tutorial video. I hope this will be the first of many. I hope we get lots of comments about what guitar tutorials you’d like to see in future.

    • http://www.vaporizerkits.com Zephyr Ion

      Yea, it was a good tut. I’ve always done the side to side vibrato on my acoustic. Is there a difference in what type if vibrato to use depending on if you’re playing an electric or classical guitar?

      • Anthony

        Hi Zephyr Ion.

        You can use any approach to your vibrato regardless of whether you are playing an acoustic or electric guitar. The main decision to make is which technique will give you the desired results taking into account the style of music you are playing and also where on the guitar you are playing. Pulling ‘down’ on the 1st (E) string doesn’t work too well since you’re right on the edge of the guitar neck, so a side-to-side approach or the tremolo arm might be more suitable.

        If you are playing a ‘moody’ or ‘delicate’ piece of music, either of the first two techniques would be fine for achieving a nice, subtle vibrato. However, if you want the biggest, wildest vibrato known to man, you’re probably not likely to achieve that with the more classical ‘side-to-side’ approach and so pulling on the string or the use of the tremolo arm (electric guitar) would be better.

        Personally I adopt the first technique shown in this tutorial for at least 95% of the time as it allows a great deal of control over how little or how much vibrato you can achieve and is fine in most situations – for a subtle vibrato just pull on the string slightly and perhaps a little more slowly. For a more vigorous vibrato, pull down on the string more and perhaps try doing this a little faster so as not to let the listeners ear dwell for too long on the ‘off pitch’ part of the vibrato.

        As with many things, personal taste also goes a long way towards choosing your favored approach, so try them all out if you can. Copying what other people do and experimenting with trying to recreate that great sound you heard can teach you a lot. The more experience you have with creating different styles of vibrato for different pieces of music, the more you will develop a natural instinct for which approach is best.

        I hope this helps and thanks for checking out this quick tip!