Vibrato while bending?

tekbow

Anybody got some good structured exercises to develop this?

Mine is rubbish.

JohnCordy

this may help? There is some discussion of vibrato whilst bending in there!

tekbow

JohnCordy said:

this may help? There is some discussion of vibrato whilst bending in there!

Great, thanks, will check it out

roberty

^^ structured practice like that does work  get the metronome out and focus on making the right movements  

stickyfiddle

Am I the only one who thinks heavy mid-bend vibrato is utterly horrible?

Roland

Yep. It sounds like the player can’t bend accurately. It’s one thing making a note sing, which often involves gradually increasing vibrato, but wobbling in the general area of the right note sounds amateur to my ears.

JohnCordy

There's a fix to that @stickyfiddle and @Roland - accurate bending, and consistent vibrato (i.e. you bend to your target note, and you slightly release the bend and return to target) this way it doesn't sound like just bending sharp! 

stickyfiddle

JohnCordy said:

There's a fix to that @stickyfiddle and @Roland - accurate bending, and consistent vibrato (i.e. you bend to your target note, and you slightly release the bend and return to target) this way it doesn't sound like just bending sharp! 

Nah, it's not that. I don't like it when guitar masters do it either.

I think it just bring up visions of Zakk Wylde et al shredding and making faces. I'm not a fan of general vibrato in general. It's way overused and seen as a marker of a "good" guitarist, which I don't think it necessarily is.

tekbow

Hey, I'd settle for even a subtle mid bend vibrato.. I'm fine with non bent notes (just fine, not great) but I just can't make a bent note work. It sounds like my finger is about to give way.

roberty

Another tip is focus on not applying too much downward pressure on the string. Press down as gently as you would for a normal fretted note and then just move the string across the fret when you bend. Then work your vibrato from here. I used to press down way too hard when I bent up which made it impossible to control

soma1975

JD Simo in his truefire course does a great thing on bending/finger strength/vibrato and basically bemoans how few people can hold a bent note to pitch any more. It's very interesting. 

Essentially you can't have nice vibrato if it's not controlled vibrato and it's not controlled vibrato if you don't have the finger strength to make it do what you want. So work on holding bends to certain pitches for a bit. 

gringopig

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fastonebaz

Angus young is the master of this. 

sweepy

The best way to learn to Ben accurarately and develop a decent vibrato is to turn your guitar down to zero and bend a note to target, bringing the volume up you should be at the target note, if not then ask yourself why not. Decent musical vibrato is best accomplished acoustically and with a very relaxed hand and wrist, too tense and it tends to sound unmusical 

tekbow

I have to say, bending and holding a string to pitch isnt nearly as much an issue as vibrato.

The whole reason I'm trying to work on vibrato is that I'm at the point where my bent notes need something interesting added to them.

fastonebaz

When doing vibrato,  make sure it aligns to the tempo of the song in some way.  Sounds really odd when people do it against thr tempo. 

stratman3142

Not sure if it's of any use to you but I posted some stuff on the thread at the link below a while ago
https://www.thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/173044/ok-about-time-i-tried-to-learn-vibrato#latest

soma1975

tekbow said:

I have to say, bending and holding a string to pitch isnt nearly as much an issue as vibrato.

The whole reason I'm trying to work on vibrato is that I'm at the point where my bent notes need something interesting added to them.

The idea is that holding it at pitch for a sustained period is going to build the finger strength to have the control to work your vibrato how you want it. 

In terms of interest to bent notes I'm a fan of over bends and intentional underbends and overbending an already bent note up a semitone. It's pretty much the only bit of technique I have so rinse it repeatedly. 

axisus

I still don't get it. I can bend notes and hold pitch well enough, but any attempt at vibrato just sounds terrible. Musicians make it sing, mine just sounds all kinds of wrong. 

soma1975

Have you recorded it and listened back to it to decide in what way it sounds wrong? 

tekbow

axisus said:

I still don't get it. I can bend notes and hold pitch well enough, but any attempt at vibrato just sounds terrible. Musicians make it sing, mine just sounds all kinds of wrong. 

Yup, this is me.

soma1975 said:

Have you recorded it and listened back to it to decide in what way it sounds wrong? 

Its just not musical in anyway. The modulation in pitch is inconsistent and all over the place