When a violin student learns vibrato, they literally have the ability to create hundreds of shades in their playing. It is like handing an artist a tube of red, yellow, and blue paint….does every artist know how to create any color from the primary shades? No, but it can be learned!
To the right is a picture of an actual worksheet I give my students….and therefore, I replicated the vibrato chart 4 times on one page to save paper. This chart would be used for 4 different practice sessions.
Download a free printable PDF here.
Students must practice vibrato using every possible combination of speeds and widths by drawing a line from every item on the left side to every item on the right side, and practicing each combination represented by the line.
The idea is to expand the student’s thinking about vibrato by asking them to make a noticeable difference between their speeds and widths. As it turns out, this exercise gives us 9 different combinations. Simple and POWERFUL, this exercises will explode your expressive vocabulary and increase your color palette.
Happy painting!
Oh, I almost forgot: Did you know that I have video vibrato classes which teach beginner, intermediate, and advanced vibrato? More info here
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HI Lora,
I have learned so much from you regarding violin techniques. I somehow have lost my connections and is ready to start again. I have forgotten how to find my lessons etc. Could you please help me?
Thanks.
Marilyn,
YES! We can help you. I have forwarded your request to my tech manager, Beth. She’s AWESOME and will be more helpful than I am.
We’ll be in touch soon!
Lora
Haven’t looked through the vibrato lessons, so this maybe redundant. If so please forgive me for mentioning it again. It useful to learn arm vibrato and wrist vibrato separately.
Hi Flori
I think that is a question? Anyway, it is not required to learn wrist and arm vibrato separately. However, I like to teach wrist first (separately) for the following reasons:
1) It is harder to learn, so we get the tough part out of the way first.
2) It takes time to figure out whether a student will be best on arm or wrist vibrato
3) Most people who use arm vibrato employ a certain amount of wrist vibrato too….so by learning wrist first, we are preparing ALL STUDENTS for whatever their preference is.
Hope that helps!