Vibrato Practice: Tone Trainer

A model vibrato wave, sounding and drawn, at five waves per beat. Set the speed, the width, the shape — then match it by ear. Free. No account, no ads, no subscription.

A straight, motionless tone is a kind of death. Add vibrato and you breathe life into the note.

Vibrato Practice teaches vibrato as something you can actually study — not something you wait to arrive with maturity. Hear a tunable model wave at a steady 5 waves per beat, then match it: shape, depth, and speed.

Not a metronome. Not a tuner. Not a drone. A model vibrato wave you match — 5 waves per beat, across 69 instruments.

WHY FIVE Five waves per beat is the goal from the very beginning. It is difficult, and that is the point. At the default 45 BPM five waves a beat is 3.75 waves a second; the tempo slider moves that wherever the music and your teacher want it. The slower settings (2, 3, 4) build control on the way there. Don't let anything but 5 become your habit.

THE EXERCISE A base note alternates with a chromatic scale — base, note, base, note — climbing to the top of your range, then dropping below. Taught to Prof. Thomas Hornig by Alain Bouhey at the Ecole Normale de Musique de Paris, who insisted on the four low notes: on saxophone, F, E, E-flat, D. Start the note straight, then add the vibrato, the way a singer does.

Those four low notes are not hard-coded saxophone pitches. Every instrument carries its own low-register anchor group inside its own real range, so the method transposes — not just the pitch.

69 INSTRUMENTS, 13 FAMILIES Violin, viola, cello, double bass. Voice. Saxophones, flutes and recorders, clarinets, oboe and bassoon, sixteen brass, guitars and basses, mallets, percussion, harp, keyboard — and the oud (Arabic and Turkish), buzuq, qanun, nay and mizmar. Each with correct written-pitch transposition, and the concert pitch shown underneath.

WHAT'S IN IT

• Tempo 20-120 BPM, depth 1-10, and 2/3/4/5/6 waves per beat
• Four style presets: Standard (modern), Moderate, Warm & singing, Lush & wide
• Four tone colours: Soft, Warm, Reed, Mellow, each with its own volume
• Two wave shapes: Smooth is the goal; Even adds an angular dip, there so you can hear the difference
• Two modes: run the full exercise, or hold one note and just match the wave
• An optional click, four sounds, its own volume, switchable off
• A practice log counting reps and minutes, exportable as CSV to send your teacher

Free. No in-app purchases, no subscription, no advertising, no account, and nothing collected.

No connection needed to practise. The Recommended Gear page loads product photos from the retailers and links out to them, so that page needs a connection. Those Amazon links are affiliate links, and Thomas Hornig earns from qualifying purchases.

The note sets for saxophone and flute are research-grounded. The other instruments carry correct transposition and range, but their practice-note sets are provisional starting points. Refer to your teacher.

Thomas Hornig is a Henri Selmer Paris Artist, Professor at the Lebanese National Higher Conservatory of Music since 1994, and Principal Saxophonist of the Lebanese Philharmonic Orchestra.

thewholehorn.com/vibrato-studio