In Part 3 of our series about the vibrato we mainly talked about the arm vibrato. Today we’ll have a deeper look into the hand vibrato.
I’m asked frequently which version is better. This cannot be answered generally. It depends on our personal preferences and, above all, which version we have learned first. We tend to stick to this version all life long. As long as we are able to create the tone that matches our intentions there is no need to change anything. So better leave your way of vibrato untouched unless your are not satisfied with the result.
Personally, I prefer the arm vibrato for beginners because most rookies seem to get along better with an arm movement than they do with a movement coming from the wrist. But there are many differences and many violinists develop some sort of mixture during their career.
But let’s get a bit more detailed. In part 3 we saw that our finger has to remain in position of our mean tone. It merely oscillates on the fingertip, thus creating the vibrating sound.
We managed this by moving the arm as if we wanted to perform a shift up and downwards, just smaller. The wrist had to be stable to pass this movement directly to the fingers and the fingertips as shown on the photo above.
We have a totally different approach to the hand vibrato. The fingers also remain in position, rolling over the fingertips, but this time the movement is developed in our wrist. This movement is comparable to waving goodbye to somebody while the arm remains in position.
Advantages and drawbacks depend entirely on the player and his preferences. We cannot tell which one is better. It’s a matter of taste. You have to try it out which one is better for you. Both versions a good when performed well.
In the next post we’ll see how we can practice the vibrato.
Have fun playing!
