Hi, my name is Maxine and I`m a first chair violinist in my Orchestra.
I`m a great player but the only thing that`s not so great is that I don`t know how to do vibrato. I know that your supposed to wiggle your fingers but I don`t understand how your supposed to do it.
If someone could please give me some pointers and show me how, I`d really appreciate it. Thanks for listening.

Hi Maxine,

I know what you mean. Learning vibrato is pretty difficult. I started playing two years ago (Im now 18) and learned vibrato a year ago. I am still improving it. Ill try to explain how I learned it.
The best thing to start with is to put your fingers in the normal position (you dont use your bow in this exercise). Its the most easiest to start of with the thirth or the second finger, just find out what suits you the best. Slowly move your hand towards you while keeping your finger on the string. Then move back again. Try to move out of your wrist, and dont move the rest of the arm. In the beginning this feels impossible, but just keep trying. This exercise should be repeated until it goes naturally, until it feels a normal thing to do. With me this took about two days. Dont forget to take breaks and DONT OVEREXERCISE!! Slowly you can start trying to move a little faster. I did this exercise in front of the television: watching tv, and sometimes paying attention if I did the movement correct, switching fingers and strings.
After this, when it feels `normal`, you can try to play. In the beginning you should only play long notes, thats easier. It will sound very strange, because you are moving your finger over the string. Just keep exercising this until it feels a normal thing to do.
Then you can start to make the movement smaller. Do this very slow! Keep doing this until your finger stays on the same place. When you`ve practiced enough you will vibrate as you should be.
As I said, learning vibrato takes a lot of time. I learned it in two months. But I am still improving it. Most people have a very fast vibrato in the beginning, wich isn`t nice to hear. When you have this too, you should start over again with exercising: moving whidely again, until you get a whider vibrato when you actually play. This takes a lot of time, but pays off in the end.

I hope this will be of help to you, and wish you good luck!

greetz,

Frida

ps. I advise you to show your progress to someone who plays for a long time now and then, to see if you are doing it right.

Hey Frida,
You probably got my e-mail thanking you for the help but just in case you didn`t, I really appreciate your help that you have given me.
Now that you explained it to me, I think I`m ready to give it another try.Thanks.
oh yeah, if you ever want to talk, here`s me e-mail:
maximarticutie@cs.com