How To Balance Out Fast Guitar Solos With Melodic Vibrato

Focusing too much on playing guitar solos as fast as possible quickly presents the problem of “everything sounding like a mess.”

This is because there are no spaces for the listener to stop and process the music they’ve heard. There is not a great sense of balance between tension and release.

Solution:

Give your guitar solos more emotional expression while releasing musical tension with vibrato technique.

Vibrato technique is an amazing technique for adding intensity to your guitar playing along with the sound a singer’s voice.

Here are some ideas to help you:

Practice Adding Vibrato To Every Final Note

Adding vibrato at the end of your musical phrase gives it more intensity and emotional expression.

This ends your metal guitar licks with a bang, leaving listeners amazed.

Play a guitar lick by adding vibrato to whatever notes you want, but make sure to hold the very last note of the idea momentarily before applying the vibrato.

This makes a massive difference in the amount of expression produced.

This is the beginning towards using vibrato guitar technique to improve any metal lick.

Improve Your Vibrato Technique Using A Rapid-Fire Practice Approach

It’s surprisingly common for guitarists to want to improve their vibrato while rarely actually working on it. Good news is, you are able to very quickly acquire killer vibrato guitar technique by spending just 5 minutes a day on it.

This is done by simply practicing adding vibrato to each note of a given guitar phrase.

Concentrate on making every vibrato perfectly in tune while adding the technique to every note.

Repeat this for several minutes while using every possible combination of fingers to play the notes. This helps you develop awesome vibrato for all your fingers, not just your index or second fingers (easily the most frequently used fingers for playing vibrato).

Master The Ability To Express Specific Emotions Using Different Kinds Of Vibrato

Using the same type of approach to vibrato every time becomes boring over time. It’s essential to have the power to mix it up when soloing and adjust based on different musical circumstances.

The following are some samples of different kinds of vibrato and ideas for when to use them:

Play vibrato that is either a half or full step wide and is applied at a fast rate.

This adds tons of emotional power to a phrase. This is also great when you want to release the tension accumulated by a fast metal guitar lick on a note that is held out for several measures.

Make your vibrato slow and narrow in scope

This is typically applied by merely fretting a note and moving your finger side to side inside the fret. This is good for slow or quiet parts of a guitar solo.

Use each type of vibrato while working on the rapid-fire approach above to quickly master the ability to express yourself using this technique.

Make Bends For Intense Using Vibrato Technique

Adding vibrato to your bends gives them additional life, making them sound MUCH more powerful and expressive. This technique is a must for playing killer metal guitar solos that demand attention!

Alternate using a bend with and without vibrato applied at the peak.

The difference in musical expression is considerable!

Keep in mind: it may take you a long time to get good with this strategy.

Make this a top priority in your practice to learn it quickly and begin playing expressive and badass metal guitar solos.

Finally, it is essential to know that you do not need to apply vibrato immediately to all notes you play. This is something many guitarists never consider (making it worth repeating several times).

Understanding this basic principle already puts you miles ahead of most players.

Instead of applying vibrato the instant you strike a string, you also have the alternative to delay the application of vibrato.

This is done like so:

Attack the string for the note you are fretting and let it sound on its own for a second or two.

After a moment, this is when you add the vibrato.

This very short delay creates a sense of anticipation that makes the vibrato even more powerful!

Now you know how to make fast guitar solos sound much more expressive and emotional. Learn more ways to play kickass solos while keeping your playing sparkling clean using this free guitar shred resource.