Vibrato Practice and Techniques

I am a young guitar player who loves the blues (bb, Clapton, Green, Bloomfield, Albert, Jimi, Kirwan, Otis rush) but i have trouble with getting good vibrato. Any good tips on practicing, learning or doing good blues vibrato

There are a few vibrato techniques I know of. One is to actually move the string up and down very slightly. Like a hardly noticeable bend. Another technique (the one I find a lot easier to do) is to slide your finger to the front and back of the fret which you want vibrato on. You have to do it pretty quick, and you have to be sure not to slide to a different fret. The vibrato I use is sort of a mixture of both. I just release all fingers (except the one in the fret I want vibrato on) from the fretboard, and shake my hand around like a maniac while keeping that one finger firmly on the string.

I found Vibrato a lot easier by increasing the pressure of my fingers - hurts at first though - also if you twist your wrist - it helps too

Here are some tips on getting the rock vibrato sound:

1.Keep your thumb over the neck and use your whole arm to do the vibrato not just the finger.

2. think of each pulse of the vibrato as a note of itself, which means keep it rhythmically even with the rest of the notes

3. for vibrato it helps if you don't press the string down with the actual tip of the finger but rather with the side of the tip so that you can move the string with greater control.

Hope this helps.

Mike.

I did a video lesson on it but it was aimed primarily at beginners:

http://www.guitartricks.com/lesson.php?input=9346

Eventually I'll go back and do an advanced version including all the various techniques but I probably won't be able to get to it until sometime next month.

I don't know if this applies to you, but when I first started, I was trying to do all my vibrato in the same direction (pulling the string down). It's possible your trying to do your vibrato by pulling the strings down. For the 4 smallest strings, at least, it's definately easiest to shake the string by pushing it towards the ceiling and shaking.
Hope thats not too confusing.

Mike's post is right on. One thing that I would like to add is that youshould practice vibrato with a metrenome. Practice bending to different notes to the beat of the metrenome. This will help out in keeping your vibrato under control and it will prevent from hitting "incorrect" pitchese during the vibrato.

Zack brings up a good point. To make sure that your vibrato is in tune.

I think one of the best things you can do is listen to players(or singers!) who's vibrato you admire. Then try to emulate it. Go back and forth, listening then emulating...record yourself and try and hear what needs improvement.
Try and define what it is you like about someone's vibrato. Is it fast and narrow like BB King? Or is it slow and wide like Yngwie Malmsteen?

First, like Mike_Philippov said, keep your thumb over the neck. If you don't, you have no control. This second thing sounds wierd at first and sounded wierd to me the first time I tried it too, but, for bending and vibrato, you allways have to use the same motion/muscles that you would use to turn a dial. Hope that helps.