How To Play Guitar Vibrato Technique With Excellent Rhythmic Timing
Written by Tom Hess
Do you have great vibrato technique?
Here is a way to quickly assess yourself:
Grab your guitar.
Put a backing track on in the background at a speed of 100+.
Play a single note and add vibrato to it in strict eighth notes – maintaining perfect sync with the beat.
Next, try to perform eighth note triplets using the same idea.
How did you do?
If you didn’t do too well, don't worry – you're about to do a lot better.
Watch this video to learn how to play amazing vibrato:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JAdXDZXLREw
These vibrato playing tips help you play vibrato in perfect sync with the music you are playing over:
Guitar Vibrato Tip #1. Balance Your Vibrato’s Speed & Depth
When you play with fast vibrato, it needs to have wide depth to sound really good.
How come?
Having fast and narrow vibrato sounds really amateur and mediocre.
When your vibrato is fast and narrow in depth, it sounds more like a slow bend than actual vibrato.
This video shows you how to match up your vibrato speed and depth to make it sound great:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohOBetjb4jY&feature=emb_title
Additionally: pay close attention to how singers sing with vibrato. They excel with this technique and there is a lot you can learn from them as a guitarist.
My favorite singers to listen to for vibrato insight are: Fabio Lione of Rhapsody and King Diamond.
Guitar Vibrato Tip #2. Use Vibrato With Unique Timing
So many people begin using vibrato as soon as the note sounds.
This sounds cool, but:
If you are just now beginning to improve your vibrato – it is less difficult to apply it to the beat as you saw in the video.
Using unique timing helps you play guitar more creatively while improving your vibrato:
Play the note and allow it to sound for a beat. Apply vibrato to the note after this slight delay.
Watch this video to see a demonstration:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=99fdscYeUkg&feature=emb_imp_woyt
This style of vibrato helps make your vibrato technique more dramatic.
This makes it much easier to use vibrato with precise timing in music.
Guitar Vibrato Tip #3: Practice For Fast Speed
You can see how fast your vibrato technique is by using a metronome to track it just like how you’d track your speed in other areas of your guitar playing.
Start at a slow tempo with the metronome and apply vibrato to a note in eighth note rhythms until you can do it with precise timing.
Once your vibrato sounds good at a slower tempo, raise the speed.
Keep doing this to improve your ability to play with vibrato at faster and faster speeds.
If you can do this over 100 beats per minute, you are already in the upper % of most guitar players.
Over 120, and you're part of the very best!
Remember though: Vibrato is just one technique of many at your disposal as a lead guitarist.
Learn how to better use different techniques to add emotion into your guitar playing using this free resource: How To Easily Add Fire & Emotion To Any Guitar Lick. Download it today and start playing amazing guitar licks.
Article author
About the Author
Tom Hess is a highly successful guitar teacher, recording artist and composer. He teaches guitar players from all over the world in his online guitar lessons. Learn more on the Tom Hess Wikipedia page.
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