Shake it baby

[calling card]

Yeah hold that note & shake it good, vibrato has never been easy for me to develop.

Something I saw right from the start all those years ago seeing a real live blues player, these were some local guys I knew when first getting into guitar. In fact the memory comes flooding back of those two playing, he used vibrato to good effect & a bic lighter got used as a slide, thinking about it those guys had some good advise for me starting out.

Anyway there are so many ways or moves to achieve vibrato, mine kind of looked a bit like the violinist way & sort of lacked guts so I've been focussing on various ways of shaking it up.
Particularly the heavy strings, fretting the note & exerting up/down movement getting the string physically moving up & down, the neck gets a lot of movement with it but I'm finding you can feed that counter movement back into the vibrato & get a good modulation, when the feedback builds... how happy could one man be!
Having strong fingers has to be a bonus & having spent a lifetime with nuts & bolts and mechanicing (probably why my style is crude & primitive). I feel my hands are strong enough but it's getting it into technique or harnessing finger hand strength is the hard part.
Anyway it's one of those features that defines so many great player styles and so worthwhile practicing, but hey ya-all know that I guess.

Anyone got some tips on vibrato technique?
You could devote an entire workshop to this one & go home with sore hands & bruised ego.

[RuBear]

I don't know HEAPS of ways, but check out the difference between one finger on the note and the rest off the fingerboard whilst shaking that neck, and using your ring finger to play the note while supporting it with index and middle finger just behind it, kinda more stable compared to the first way. Also a good technique for bending, makes large bends more accurate and controlled.

By violin do you mean you move your finger perpendicular to the fret? Thats a volume vibrato, varies the volume for the effect, different to the above methods which are pitch vibrato (not sure if these are the technical terms, just how I describe them.

People like Steve Vai and I'm sure many others do both at the same time, kinda like moving your finger in a circular motion, gets both volume and pitch vibrato. You'd be real good if you could do one at twice the frequency of the other, imagine basically playing two different vibratos at the same time! That wouldn't be circular though, some crazy little pattern your fingers would follow, might have to try that some day (or now ^^)

You will notice that volume vibrato technique will create a pitch vibrato on nylon strings (used a lot in classical guitar music) due to the lower tension, you can actually pull the strings changing the tension and therefore frequency, happens on a higher tension guitar as well, but less noticeable that the volume change to my ear.

Whammy bar and neck bending also can be used for vibrato-ish style effects, if thats what your into.

What other techniques or variations on pitch vibrato techniques are there? maybe try playing a note and using vibrato on a note lower than it with another finger? Kinda hard to do though.

[calling card]

By violin do you mean you move your finger perpendicular to the fret? Thats a volume vibrato, varies the volume for the effect, different to the above methods which are pitch vibrato (not sure if these are the technical terms, just how I describe them.

You got me trying to think how I am doing it: it's more so on the light strings - finger tip fretted & kind of alternating/rotating my wrist not really seeing much string side to side movement but more modulating pressure behind the fret - more a hint of vibrato.
I love it how BB King gets that 'sting' in his sound, Buddy Guy does some great string bending vibrato on the heavy strings.

[critter01]

also Albert King, his string bending and vibrato is unique to him in that he played lefty and upside down his technique is more a "pulling down on the string and then releasing the tension to produce a truly expressive and soulful vibrato" (Andy Aledort - How to play Blues Guitar) Albert King - one of the greatest Blues lead riff inventors of all time IMHO.cheers

[szukalski]

I tend to use the following:

1 - Blues style, parallel to the frets, usually in the thumb-hooked-over-neck hand position. Easy to execute on a bend. Pitch based.
2 - Classical style, perpendicular to the frets, usually in thumb-behind-neck hand position. Volume based.
3 - Circular style, combination of the above resulting in a circular pattern, usually in thumb-behind-neck position. Can't put as much into it as the "purer" styles but a crazy vibrato isn't required too often.. and that's what the blues style is all about
4 - Lover style, pressing into the fretboard with the fingertip and releasing then repeating, creating a vibrato which is pitch based but retains the smoother classical approach. It can be quite subtle and you can't really do it with low fret wire. Easy to execute on a bend.

Then there are the combinations of the above which come out naturally as you play, classical + lover is nice (a classical lover mayhap?).

But most of all, the secret to mastering vibrato is keeping those left hand fingernails nice and short! You never know where your finger tips are going to end up..

[Ears]

I disagree with previous posts. Parallel (classical stlye) to the string movement does not alter volume, I would argue that thinking it volume based is a misconception. All guitar vibrato is pitch vibrato, they vary in speed, depth and in this case (classical vs electric style, for lack of better term) classical vibtato varies pitch above and BELOW the fretted note, electric style across the fret can only raise the pitch from that determined by the fret, however, it can vary an already bent note in both directions.
edited perpendicular to parallel.

[ash]

Vibrato is all pitch oscillation (unless you're talking to Leo Fender about amp effects).

Tremolo is volume oscillation and you can't do it with your fingers unless you're widdling the volume knob. Any volume you take out of the string mechanically won't be coming back.

[B45-12]

How about when you push the strings down after the head nut or before the bridge Ash - that seems to alter the volume (also the pitch a bit) and if you use the wang bar AND push down after the nut weird things start to happen - especially if you do it immediately after hitting a harmonic on a strat - I use little finger across the strings at 12 fret then dive for the other bits.

[Ears]

How about when you push the strings down after the head nut or before the bridge Ash - that seems to alter the volume (also the pitch a bit) and if you use the wang bar AND push down after the nut weird things start to happen - especially if you do it immediately after hitting a harmonic on a strat - I use little finger across the strings at 12 fret then dive for the other bits.

It may add or take away some energy from the system but it's not an oscillation of volume in the sense used here of a vibrato.
Vibrato techniques can add some energy to the vibrating system or reduce rate of energy loss from the system as a whole. However this is in an average manner over time and is not periodic over each period of the vibrato.
Post edited: this addition of energy is is easily demonstrable: Take an initially static cable fixed at one end (the bridge) and pulled taut over point acting as a fulcrum (the fret). If impulse force (sudden tension or tug on the cable) is applied to the loose end the system will then exhibit damped oscillation, provided that initially the cable has some displacement from the straight line between the fulcrum and fixed end (otherwise the energy is only disipated internally along the axis of the cable). As with most physics the more you analyse it the more complicated it can become .

[Some Bozo]

You can get a dumb form of volume vibrato by playing two notes in unison and bending one a bit sharp so the waves beat, but it mostly sounds out of tune...

[Ears]

Reminds me of a trick to get vibrato on a open string, say for example you require vibrato on the open first string and for whatever reason you don't want to play the "e" on another string. Sound the open e but finger the same pitch on 2nd or 3rd string and apply the vibrato to these (unplucked) notes. This results in a vibrato being heard on the sound of the open string due to sympathetic vibration effects. It works on nylon, I've used it in performance but haven't tried it on steel-string or electric.

[calling card]

Vibrato techniques can add some energy to the vibrating system or reduce rate of energy loss from the system as a whole. However this is in an average manner over time and is not periodic over each period of the vibrato.
Post edited: this addition of energy is is easily demonstrable: Take an initially static cable fixed at one end (the bridge) and pulled taut over point acting as a fulcrum (the fret). If impulse force (sudden tension or tug on the cable) is applied to the loose end the system will then exhibit damped oscillation, provided that initially the cable has some displacement from the straight line between the fulcrum and fixed end (otherwise the energy is only disipated internally along the axis of the cable). As with most physics the more you analyse it the more complicated it can become .

The thought emerged from the alcohol laced recesses of my mind last night but this morning still may be of value:
The model of a cable strung out & how when a note is sounded it is a wave traveling up & down the length of the cable. When vibrato is added a secondary wave of lower frequency merging with the fretted note or wave - get that secondary wave (vibrato) at the right harmonic phase & the dynamic will build.
...just an idea.

[Ears]

...just an idea.

a similar thing famously happened with a large suspension bridge in the US a few decades ago. The oscillation grew until the bridge was vibrating like a guitar string and flew apart.

[TmcB]

...and also mythbusters

[Ears]

...and also mythbusters

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galloping_Gertie