After a bit of a hiatus involving other projects, I felt it was important to address the issue of vibrato as many cellists find themselves with vibrato insecurities and questions when learning this skill.
If you have seen the meme stating that vibrato on everything is like putting ketchup on all your food; that is a matter of opinion. Some types of musical styles and requests from composers/conductors require that no vibrato be used or minimized; such as baroque styles and early classical, however a cellist must also understand that part of the beauty of a cello is the similarity to the human voice. Vibrato is a necessary skill to possess as it warms up the tone, helps to alleviate minor intonation issues (occasionally), and helps to keep the left hand relaxed. It can also provide character to musical phrasing as vibrato can be varied in speed and width of movement.
It is critical, however, that your hand and arm technique is correct before learning the skill of vibrato. For instance, if you are still tucking your left arm next to your body when you play, you will not learn the appropriate technique and deal with tension and elbow issues.
How Do I Begin to Learn Vibrato?
Vibrato is a skill that can start to be learned once first position techniques are learned and intonation is generally established, which also includes extended hand positions. I have seen demonstrations of vibrato instruction ranging from a round fruit placed underneath the palm of the left hand to simulate the correct hand movement, the “turning of the doorknob” technique, and also a wide shifting of the hand up and down on the fingerboard and narrowing it down into a smaller movement which can also be applied to the technique that will be described below and also in the video at the bottom of this page.
My preferred method for teaching vibrato is the understanding that it is reciprocal motion; a bouncing effect that brings the hand back to a starting position. As an example, consider bouncing a basketball. Your downward movement causes the ball to move toward the floor. When the ball changes direction to bounce upward, the energy in the ball in the downward motion transfers to upward energy which in turn causes your hand to move upward to reverse the direction of the ball. It is rhythmic, and the closer your hand gets to the ground, the faster the ball bounces; the faster the rhythm.
This same movement teaches the correct feel of vibrato as a reverberational (is that a word?) like dribbling a basketball. Try this…
Hold your left arm to the side in the same way you would hold a cello by the neck with your left arm perpendicular to your body and the elbow bent and palm facing down.
Pretend to bounce the basketball with your left hand and arm in the position described. Concentrate on the downward motion and then imagine the returned energy lifting your hand upward in a rhythmic motion; large at first as if you are actually bouncing the ball from that height. This motion is felt in the forearm and bicep counterbalancing.
Pretend that the floor is coming up to meet you as you feel the ball bouncing at a smaller distance, causing the rhythm to become faster. When you feel the ball bouncing at about 4 to 5 bounces per second, keep the same rhythm and turn your left hand from palm down to palm toward the imaginary cello or palm inward with the same motion. By understanding this feeling of reciprocation, you will find that vibrato is not so much a deliberate motion, but a response to energy transfer.
Your thumb under the neck of the instrument is a sort of a fulcrum that keeps the hand steady and anchored. It is easiest to try this motion with the first three fingers individually, most likely the 2nd finger. Each finger will eventually pick up the vibrato motion but start with the middle finger and try this motion; eventually trying on every finger. Save the pinky for last as it is farthest from your thumb fulcrum and the weakest, but with repetition, it will pick vibrato up.
Once you can get a vibrato on each finger on each string, pick an easy scale and play the scale with vibrato; one note per bow. Why choose an easy scale? Because tension in the left hand makes the vibrato labored and too fast/tight sounding. Keep things relaxed. This also gives an opportunity to transfer from note to note and finger to finger to keep the vibrato motion going with the least amount of stoppage.
Start applying the vibrato to a preplanned long note in a piece and mark it in the music so you don’t forget to try it. As you get more proficient, add more notes in the piece to do a planned vibrato. Try playing easy pieces you have done before that have long notes and apply vibrato.
With time, vibrato will become an automatic motion that starts to show up in the pieces that you play without being deliberate. As a matter of fact, not using vibrato can become a harder task. You will be able to even do a little vibrato wiggle with a shorter note like an eighth note, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Follow the steps.
Vibrato in Higher Positions Including Thumb Position
The reason I do not teach the “turning the doorknob” technique is because a wide rotation of the hand can make the vibrato too wide thus changing the pitch of the note and making it sound warbly. Vibrato should NEVER move higher than the actual pitch; it is at the pitch or below. Doorknob technique makes it difficult to control rolling above the pitch. Additionally, when one plays in thumb position, the rolling or turning motion doesn’t work because your thumb/fulcrum moves up on top of the fingerboard and it has to be an up and down motion parallel to the fingerboard using the thumb and finger as equal stabilizers. This is when I would use the motion mentioned earlier of sliding up and down the fingerboard at larger intervals and reducing the motion to a vibrato on a single note with a basketball reverberation using each finger, yes, even the pinky. As you will note, the basketball technique is more of an up and down motion, similar to the way you would vibrato in thumb position and is therefore easier to generalize.
Last Tips
I would like to refer back to vibrato assisting in correcting intonation, which it is not; it is momentarily hiding incorrect intonation. Vibrato can be used in a pinch when you suddenly realize on a note that your intonation is slightly off and so using a wider vibrato momentarily can hide the fact that the note is out of tune while you move on to a new note or make a minute adjustment to where your finger landed for longer notes. However, note that some of the professionals will not try to correct the note once it has landed. It is to be used sparingly. Vibrato is not a fix to bad intonation as a general rule. You must always strive to work on intonation at every level of playing and performing.
Generally speaking, a wide vibrato is used for slow, melodic pieces where a slower, more expressive vibrato is required while a fast vibrato is for more robust, faster, and intense pieces. The key to control of vibrato is always relaxation and managing tension in the left arm/hand. This will give you the professional vibrato sound that you have wanted.
Lastly, because our right and left hands want to do the same motions, understand that learning vibrato may cause issues with the smoothness of drawing the bow across the string. Just be aware when it happens and tackle that problem at some point by shifting focus from vibrato to right arm in intervals during practice. Tension in the left hand can also clamp down on the neck of the instrument, causing the instrument to shake with the vibrato motion and also cause bow instability and unwanted bounce in the bow.
Vibrato makes an incredible difference in the maturity of sound in the cello and other instruments. Be patient and understand that vibrato mastery takes time. Soon, you will feel the beauty in your playing with a lovely vibrato.
Special Thanks to Luthier Christopher Dungey and teacher Samuel W. Smith!!!