5 Amateur Blues Guitar Vibrato Mistakes (Don’t make these!)

Want to know the secret to making your guitar really sing?

Well, you won’t find the answer to this by learning a million pentatonic scale patterns – or cramming your head with theory. But you can start to unlock it by mastering string bending and vibrato. 

This is particularly important if you want to become a competent blues guitar player and develop your own voice. Vibrato is unique to every guitar player. Each one of us has what I call a “sound concept” inside our minds that is unique to us. In this post, I want to share with you 5 blues guitar vibrato mistakes I hear all the time starting with…

1. The nervous vibrato

The nervous vibrato is something that exposes an insecure beginner player right away. It comes about almost as an involuntary reflex. They hit a note, and are holding it. But then suddenly become extremely unconfident in this note. Almost as if they were caught naked in public and immediately began to shake the note. Often in an overly wide vibrato that sounds nervous, and is not locked into the groove. It’s out of place.

2. Thinking shaking the neck is vibrato

Shaking the neck is not a proper way to add vibrato to a single note. I’m not talking about neck bends like the way many guitarist do with chords, where you are actually moving the neck position. I’m talking about frantic shaking of the fretting hand I see with beginners trying to ring some oscillation out of their instrument. This does nothing other they shake your guitar around. It’s pointless and is not a musical effect. Nor is it a trainable, controllable, approach.

3. Not returning to pitch

When it comes to adding vibrato on guitar it’s important to understand where you’re goal note is. Because the guitar is fretted, this means you’ll oscillate notes only above the fretted note. Unlike a human voice, or many other instruments where you can go above and below the fundamental note.

The mistake I hear often is not returning back to pitch with the vibrato. This can make your pitch sound out of tune. It’s an immediate giveaway that a player’s ear is not trained enough to hear the pitch. 

It’s no different than playing a guitar horribly out of tune. It doesn’t matter how fast you can play, or how good your tone is. Out of tune is out of tune, and this is going to bother anyone with a trained ear. 

If you’ve struggled with this, then get your hands on my free ear training cheat sheet right here:

Ear training is a musician's superpower and your ear is your most valuable musical asset. If you haven’t practiced training your ear, I would recommend starting now.

Not returning to pitch is an awful problem, and a big mistake that goes right along with this is vibrato that is…

4. Too wide

If a player’s vibrato is too wide, they can easily sound like a drunken sailor. This does relate closely to the previous point of not returning to pitch. But wide vibrato can return to pitch. The problem occurs if it blurs in the mind which pitch the note should actually be. Or doesn’t fit the style. Now, if you play metal music. Wide vibrato is a part of the style. But for most other styles, you don’t want to go too wide or you can lose the listener. You’ll throw them off their sense of key. 

B.B. King had a very shallow vibrato, as do most blues players. However, rock players tend to often go wider – think Angus Young. And then metal can get pretty wide – just have a listen to Yngwie Malmsteen. 

Again, if you’re playing metal and want a wider vibrato go for it. But blues players tend to be more refined in this area.

And now, for the worst, deadliest, most cringe vibrato mistake almost everyone amateur makes and that is… 

5. Not “locking in” to the feel and groove of the song

Despite what many fake online guitar goo-roos may say. Vibrato should always lock into the feel and groove of the song. It’s not random. I’ve never heard anyone I wanted to sound like that didn’t flow with the beat, and make their vibrato have some cool rhythmic flare to it that melted into the groove. 

It’s just a more complex rhythm. For example, triplets or sextuplets over a slow blues.

So there ya have it – 5 blues guitar vibrato mistakes!

If you want to make sure your ear can tell when your vibrato is right in tune and right where it’s supposed to be, so you can sound pro every time. Get your hands on my free ear training cheat sheet right here:

Jon MacLennan