Every week I send out emails where I break down the mistakes that are stalling your progress on the double bass. They're so obvious they sound silly, but they're so common you might be making them every single day — without knowing it.
Types of Vibrato on the Double Bass: How to Know Where and How to Vibrate
Today I’m bringing you an exercise. Homework, a challenge, call it whatever you like — the goal is the same: to make you more aware of the vibrato you use. And of how you use it.
But first, let me tell you a story.
Talking with a colleague this week, he was telling me that no matter how much he studies vibrato, he can’t move forward. Well, he can, but he can’t.
I mean, according to him, the exercises keep coming out better and better.
But… when he puts it into practice in a piece, he doesn’t always know exactly where to vibrate, or how.
And when he tries to sustain it, his hand gets really tense. In other words, he can vibrate a quarter note, a half note, but connecting several bars is super hard for him and his hand goes rigid.
I’ll talk about that last part in the next email. Today I’m focusing on the “I don’t know where to vibrate” part.
So, since I’m a freaky fan of giving advice nobody asks for, I told him:
“You don’t know where to vibrate because you don’t have the story in your head.”
If you have a phrase, you have a chance to say something. And when you decide what you want to say, you automatically know where to put the vibrato.
How do I know this?
Because when I was writing the script for the videos of the course, I sat down and thought soooo much about the exact moment it clicked for me. I remember my vibrato was really nervous, and I also remember that at some point it stopped being a problem.
It’s not that I turned into Emilse the super bassist, not at all. But vibrato was never a problem again, so I could use my practice time to work on other things.
And to know how to structure the course, I needed to pin down what made me take that step, so that vibrato became one of my tools for interpreting music and not a headache I couldn’t solve.
That’s how I found that moment. The click that changed everything. Which, by the way, isn’t some instant where a higher being enlightens you and bam, from then on everything sounds beautiful. Nothing like that (I wish).
You simply change the way you see something, and with practice you make it yours.
So…
Thinking about the story automatically gives you the vibrato you use, and when you use it.
BEAU TI FUL.
The exercise:
Pick a phrase. Just one. Any one you like. It can be a fragment of a piece you’re playing — and the rule is: the easier, the better. Any piece from Suzuki would work for this. Easy, so you can focus on what you want to say and you’re not fighting the notes.
This phrase, just one, 8 bars max: play it, record it, in 2 different versions, using only vibrato. In other words, what will make them different is where you vibrate and, of course, how you vibrate.
This exercise is for yesterday!!!
Why? Because you need to understand that vibrato is your tool for telling something.
If you want to send me the videos, great. I’ll enjoy watching them. And if I have time during the week, I’ll most likely give you feedback.
Emilse
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P.S. 2: When you sign up you get a welcome email with a video. It’s an exercise where I explain one concept that’s going to change the way you produce sound. The video runs 4:04 and you almost certainly know the exercise — there isn’t a bass player alive who hasn’t practiced it. But 90% do it wrong, HA! Hardly anyone knows where that movement actually comes from. You won’t be in that 90% though. Not you. Not after you watch the video. You’ll have to let me know.