Bend Vibrato - Will The Penny Ever Drop?

ryanverbena

I've been working on this for a good 4 or 5 years now. I've watched every youtube video I could find, read every thread I could search up (including a good 3 or 4 from TFB), and I STILL just can't get this to happen in a musical way.

I've tried adjusting my grip, pivot angle, thumb position, even which leg my guitar rests on. Most recently, I put 8's on my Strat to see if that helped. I've tried different guitars. No cigar.

What I end up doing is essentially shaking the entire guitar neck, to get minimal vibrato without much co-ordination. When I watch people, even relatively novice, who can do it, they seem to be able to isolate the neck whilst the strings are able move freely - I can't seem to decouple the two.

Further to this, I'm very comfortable with bending and vibrato in their own right, and my hand strength isn't an issue. It really is down to technique. 

I find the biggest issue with a lot of the advice and video instruction is that it clearly comes more naturally to the people, and hence they often describe it in such a way. At this stage all I can do is the basic starting exercise of bending up a whole step, then oscillating the string VERY slowly flat of that note and then back again (i.e. letting the string tension do the work - as they say). It's not musical at all, and almost sounds like several discrete bends in sequence, rather than one continuous vibrato. Whenever I try to speed up, or give it more feeling, I end up just shaking the whole guitar neck. 

I almost feel as though I wan't to reach down with my right hand and anchor the neck in place, if that gives any hint as to the cause of my problem. 

Has anyone else here overcome this struggle that could offer advice towards what that helped overcome it? 

In my entire life, I've genuinely never felt so defeated!

stickyfiddle

I've never got the hang of it either (21 years so far..). Admittedly I haven't tried very hard because I'm more into indie/alt/folk stuff where vibrato isn't a big thing. 

ryanverbena

stickyfiddle said:

I've never got the hang of it either (21 years so far..). Admittedly I haven't tried very hard because I'm more into indie/alt/folk stuff where vibrato isn't a big thing. 

I envy you for this! My favourite guitarists are Knopfler and Kossoff 

roberty

Are you doing a twisting motion with your arm/wrist to bend to pitch? Like turning a door knob. Once this bit is right you can start varying the pitch slowly to a metronome. The aim at this point is to have a controlled, consistent motion rather than to go for speed or intensity

ryanverbena

Yes, turning a door knob is exactly how I would describe it. And what you've described it precisely the point at which I cannot move past - I can control the vibrato, but only very slowly, without any feel to it. Nothing useful, it just sounds like a string bending exercise.

This is where I've been stuck for years now, looking to move past that point.

I appreciate this is weird, because it seems I have the basic mechanics of it, just falls apart when I try to implement it into something musical. 

stratman3142

If you've got the mechanics correct, have you tried thinking of it as more like applying and releasing pressure on the string, than moving the string? In the process, letting the tension of the string do the work on the release. Edit: Oops sorry I see you already mentioned that.

Another thought. I find it easier with higher frets.

If the neck is moving up and down a lot, I wonder whether you're applying too much pressure towards the fretboard and (in effect) grabbing the neck too much. The neck sometimes moves up and down a bit when I vibrato, but you don't want it to be so much that it cancels out the string bend and release.

Danny1969

You might know this already so excuse me if you do but here's how I go about it. 

I put my thumb behind the neck and use at least 2 fingers, sometimes 3 to all push together on the note. Then bend up slowish to pitch then drop and back up smoothly .... the vibrato comes from squeezing the distance between my fingers and my thumb rather than rotate my hand .... like squeezing a ball in your hand 

digitalkettle

It's not a 'door handle' movement...that's pronation/supination. Seems to me that the wrist isn't involved in the same way and it's mostly about reducing/restoring the 'finger effort' that you've put into the bend in the first place.

• Thumb stays in contact with the back of the neck
• Bend is supported by as many fingers as you can afford
• Let the bend breathe before you add the vibrato
• Make the vibrato's rhythm musical, i.e. relevant to the tempo in some way
• Don't overbend the vibrato and go sharp (yuk!)

There's a lot of help here already...can you post a vid?

CaseOfAce

Without seeing what you're doing, it's hard to offer advice in this case. Perhaps if you could post vid?

As Danny1969 mentioned, always support your bends with whatever fingers are behind the one doing the bending (obviously if bending up with first finger you can't!). This helps greatly with the control.

Other than that, don't overthink it(!). I think changing string gauges etc.. is a distraction here.
Good luck!

ryanverbena

Great idea chaps, I'll post a video of it tonight after work!

digitalkettle

ryanverbena said:

Great idea chaps, I'll post a video of it tonight after work!

Show us some non-bendy vibrato too...and some non-vibrato-y bends!

DefaultM

I would practice a regular vibrato on say the 15th fret B string, get the sound in your head. Then go to the 13th fret B string, pre bend it up to the same note and try vibrato it getting the same sound you did before.

axisus

I'm 100% with the original post! I've just never got anything musical out of bending vibrato. I just don't get how people do it? Been through loads of videos over the years, none have helped. 

What I would like to find is a video where someone just plays a bend with vibrato that I can just loop continuously and try to replicate. Most vids I have seen are endless talk and other stuff. A dead simple video!

personalnadir

Took me a while to work out whether I do vibrato, whether I am doing it right and how I even do it. Not super sure for all three, but I think in essence I've naturally landed some where like the Justin Guitar vid, but with a lot less poise and grace.

I think I actually used to just do it with a finger and not use my hand at all, and have gradually switched to pivoting with my hand out of laziness.

Perhaps start just moving the string just by pulling and pushing with a single finger, so you've got the motion, and then as that gets knackering try transitioning to rotating the hand instead?

CarpeDiem

Is it possible that you’re gripping the neck too tightly with your fretting hand? When I anchor my fretting hand with the thumb behind the neck, the palm of my fretting hand (particularly at the base of the fingers) is not gripping the neck tightly and is free to move. I’m wondering if too tight a grip on the neck is resulting in the neck moving with the vibrato motion.

roberty

CarpeDiem said:

Is it possible that you’re gripping the neck too tightly with your fretting hand? When I anchor my fretting hand with the thumb behind the neck, the palm of my fretting hand (particularly at the base of the fingers) is not gripping the neck tightly and is free to move. I’m wondering if too tight a grip on the neck is resulting in the neck moving with the vibrato motion.

That's a point. When I was learning the technique I had to actively concentrate on not pushing the string down into the fretboard, instead just sliding it up along the fret. Pressure is your enemy here (one of them)

LastMantra

I just treat it like multiple rapid bends, with a bit of refinement.
I like a wide vibrato though.

It "clicked" for me when I started looking at it that way. Ymmv.

ryanverbena

CarpeDiem said:

Is it possible that you’re gripping the neck too tightly with your fretting hand? When I anchor my fretting hand with the thumb behind the neck, the palm of my fretting hand (particularly at the base of the fingers) is not gripping the neck tightly and is free to move. I’m wondering if too tight a grip on the neck is resulting in the neck moving with the vibrato motion.

100% - I'm throttling the damn thing out of frustration. Will try to ease off!

CaseOfAce

Other's have said they have the thumb behind the neck when bending?
Not me (and I realise everyone has their own way of doing things!).

My thumb is bent round the top of the neck Hendrix style at the first joint allowing me to move left hand fingers up for the bend and thumb pressure down on the top of the neck - which allows complete control of the note. It's almost like a squeezing motion.
(Obviously at the dusty end my thumb has to slip down a little).
Here's the master at work and you see what I mean when he bends notes...

ryanverbena

Oh dear, I just logged in to upload the video my poor technique to see a bloody Hendrix video nested right above!!! 

ryanverbena