Vibrato Part I — Control Before Release

The “royal wave” moment

A few days ago I was watching old videos of the British royalty (yes, those things the algorithm recommends at 1 am), and I kept watching that characteristic wave: the famous “royal wave”.

Tense hand, stiff wrist, controlled and calculated movement.

It looks so… fake!

That’s exactly how I DON’T want to look or sound… and it immediately made me think about vibrato.

Vibrato doesn’t start in the hand

Because a beautiful vibrato can’t come from tension. It can’t come from controlling every millimeter of the movement with stiffness.

It has to flow.

Like when you see a friend from far away and you wave without thinking. Your hand moves naturally, relaxed, with that wave that starts from the forearm and the wrist just… reacts.

That’s the key.

Vibrato is not “made” with the hand. It’s generated from the forearm and the hand reacts.

Think about opening a door knob. That rotation comes from the forearm, and the wrist and fingers just follow along.

When it starts in the forearm, you have natural strength behind the movement. But if you try to generate it from the wrist, you end up squeezing to compensate for the lack of power —and that’s where tension begins.

If you try to generate vibrato from the wrist or from the fingers, you end up with that musical “royal wave”: stiff, fake, lifeless.

Control first, then release

But if you understand that the movement starts earlier, and you let the hand react freely… everything changes.

It’s the perfect balance between control and release.

You control where the movement comes from (forearm).

You release everything else (wrist, fingers).

And the result is a vibrato that not only sounds good, but doesn’t tire you out when you produce it.

There are many ways to approach vibrato, but what works best for me with my students is learning to control first and then release.

A simple exercise to start

Here I share a short exercise to learn how to control the movement.

And when you practice it, remember what we’ve talked about in the last few weeks about relaxation: tension is always the enemy.

Be careful, controlling the movement is not the same as playing tense.

Next week we’ll continue with step 2: releasing the movement.

Emilse