Quick Vibrato Fix (Thank you Oliver Steiner)

June 9, 2008 at 2:03 AM

I'm in the middle of my practice session and I decided to record myself a lot today. One thing that really annoyed me about my sound is my vibrato. I'm a junior undergraduate violin performance major and my vibrato hasn't really been discussed by anyone since 7th grade except that it needs to be faster. So I tried using a "faster" vibrato, but unfortunately it sounded even more wobbly and unfocused and even more obnoxious. So I found Oliver Steiner's post about finger tapping and applying the feel of relaxed finger tapping to vibrato. All of a sudden this application instantly made my vibrato more focused and beautiful instead of "Lutheran Church Lady-ish" I know, of course, this is not a permanent fix and it needs to be applied to the rest of my playing and I will need to use this technique frequently to retrain myself, but I can't believe how simple and genius this exercise was.

Thank you so much for your vibrato post, Oliver!!!!!!!!

From Tess Z
Posted on June 9, 2008 at 5:16 AM

And what is the problem with Lutheran Church ladies?

I laughed at your analogy because in the strict traditional Lutheran upbringing I come from...there was never anything but organ music in church. Certainly nothing so outrageous as a violin played in church.

And I wonder why I have tension when I play.

From Pauline Lerner
Posted on June 10, 2008 at 8:31 PM

Relaxing helps a lot of problems in playing violin. When you're trying hard to do something, your muscles often get tense, although you're not aware of it. Remember to keep your muscles relaxed. The more relaxed you are, the more control you have.

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Quick Vibrato Fix (Thank you Oliver Steiner)

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