Am I ready for vibrato?
Vibrato is not the be-all, end-all of violin playing!
This statement is not meant to disregard the importance of vibrato. It is an important skill to learn and greatly enhances one’s playing. However, vibrato is an ornament meant to escalate already beautiful playing.
Think about it this way: vibrato is like the icing on the cake. Would you want to eat a big ball of icing by itself, or a disgusting cake with good icing on top? Probably not. A scrumptious cake with the right amount of delicious icing tastes best, just as a solid technical foundation with the appropriate amount of vibrato sounds best.
Here are the five skills violin students should master before beginning to learn vibrato.
Posture. This includes being able to hold the violin easily and freely, a good left-hand setup, and a correct, relaxed, flexible bow hold.
Tone. Producing a full, pleasing tone means that your bow stays straight (most of the time) and at a good contact point-ideally halfway between the fingerboard and the bridge.
Accurate intonation. Intonation refers to the pitch of the notes and left-hand placement. When learning vibrato for the first time, expect your intonation to be affected. To use vibrato, the hand position slightly changes and the fingers are now actively moving as a note is played, both of which have an effect on intonation. Thus, before beginning to learn vibrato, players must have developed reasonably reliable intonation and have worked to develop the ear, so they can quickly identify an out-of-tune note and adjust accordingly.
Note reading. There are two ways to learn music: by reading notes or by playing by ear. Playing by ear is a great skill, but can only get you so far. In order to learn longer and more complex pieces, note reading must be developed. Reading music is like learning a second language and must be practiced often. When adding vibrato into the equation, that should be the player’s only focus: not struggling to figure out the notes.
Shifting. In my opinion, shifting should be learned before vibrato. Shifting allows the player to play a broader range of notes and therefore drastically increases the pieces they are able to play. Vibrato, while a beautiful and important part of playing, does not increase the player’s repertoire like shifting does. Plus, the basic shifting motion is the same as the basic vibrato motion, so you’re already practicing vibrato without realizing it 😉
These skills do not need to be 100% perfect before starting vibrato. However, the player should be relatively comfortable with them so as to not have to think about or work on them too hard at the same time as learning vibrato. That’s tough enough on its own!
