A vibrato you can hear before you play it.

Vibrato Practice plays a tunable model vibrato wave and you match it by ear — at a stated target of five waves per beat. Violin, voice, cello, saxophone, flute and 64 more, each in its own written pitch.

Why five, and why it is not a round number

Five waves per beat is the goal from the very beginning. It is difficult, and it 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, two through four, are there to build control. Do not let anything but five become the habit.

Other apps click at you. This one sings the note.

There are two familiar approaches to practising vibrato with software. A metronome gives you the beat and leaves the inside of it to guesswork. A pitch analyser records what you played and draws you a graph — useful, but it is a rear-view mirror: it grades the note after it is gone.

Vibrato Practice generates the model itself. You hear the shaped wave at the rate you set, and you match it while you are playing. That is a difference in kind, not in degree, and it is the whole argument of the app.

The method transposes — not just the pitch

This is the part that is genuinely unusual. The exercise is not a generic subdivision applied to any instrument. It is a specific conservatoire method, and the app re-derives that method into each instrument's own range.

The exercise was taught to Prof. Hornig by Alain Bouhey at the École Normale de Musique de Paris: a base note alternating with a chromatic scale — base, note, base, note — climbing to the top of the range, then dropping below. Bouhey insisted on the four low notes; on saxophone, F, E, E♭, D. Start the note straight, then add the vibrato, the way a singer does.

When you play the low notes you want the clarity of the high notes, and when you play the high notes you want the depth of the low notes — and the depth is the greater prize.
— Alain Bouhey

Those four low notes are not hard-coded saxophone pitches. Every one of the 69 instruments carries its own low-register anchor group, derived inside its own real range, so a cellist and a nay player each practise the same method at the notes where it actually works for them. The saxophone and flute note sets are research-grounded; the rest are provisional starting points. Refer to your teacher.

The wave is universal. The production is not.

Whatever your instrument, the wave is the same study — its shape, its depth, and its speed. How you produce it differs: breath and voicing on a wind instrument, the left hand on a string. Evening out those three is the goal for everyone.

Which is why vibrato differs mostly in depth, not speed. Pick a character — Standard (modern), Moderate, Warm & singing, or Lush & wide — and the speed stays a constant five waves per beat.

69 instruments, 13 families

• Violin
• Viola
• Cello
• Double bass
• Voice
• Alto sax
• Tenor sax
• Baritone sax
• Soprano sax
• Flute
• Piccolo
• Alto flute
• Bass flute
• Recorder ×4
• Clarinet ×6
• Oboe
• Bassoon
• English horn
• Oboe d'amore
• Trumpet
• Horn
• Trombone
• Euphonium
• Tuba
• Flugelhorn
• Guitar ×4
• Bass ×4
• Harp
• Mallets ×4
• Timpani
• Oud (Arabic & Turkish)
• Buzuq
• Qanun
• Nay
• Mizmar
• Piano
• Celesta
• Organ

Each carries its own transposition and range, so you read the note as you would write it — and the app shows you the concert pitch underneath, for when you are with a pianist.

What is in it

The golden rule, which is counterintuitive

A straight, motionless tone is a kind of death — picture an EKG, and the instant the line goes flat. Vibrato fattens the note and, less obviously, it helps you play in tune: a thin straight sound has to match another almost perfectly or the two beat against each other, while a harmonically rich sound with vibrato is far more forgiving — a thinner pitch can settle within it.

From which the golden rule follows: in unison, do not use vibrato — unless you can match it exactly to the player beside you. Two independent vibratos that do not agree will fight.

How it compares

Vibrato trainers exist, and some of them are good. What none of them does is play the wave. A metronome hands you the beat; an analyser hands you a graph of the note you have already played. Vibrato Practice hands you the sound you are trying to make, while you are trying to make it — carrying a named conservatoire method, re-derived into 69 instruments' own ranges. Every clause of that is checkable, which is the point.

Common questions

How fast should vibrato be?

Most wind and vocal methods aim for four to six oscillations per beat. Cycles per second follows from your tempo: at five waves per beat, 60 BPM gives 5 Hz and 72 BPM gives 6 Hz. Vibrato Practice fixes the musical target — five per beat — and lets you set the tempo from 20 to 120 BPM, because a rate that is right at one tempo is wrong at another.

Why is my vibrato slow?

Usually because the wave has no fixed reference and drifts to whatever the body defaults to. Practise against a model you can hear. Start at two or three waves per beat to build control, then move up — but do not let anything except five become the habit.

How do I practise violin vibrato speed?

Choose Violin, set your tempo, and play along with the model wave so your own oscillation lines up with it. You are matching a target in real time rather than reading a graph afterwards. The left hand produces it instead of the breath, but the shape, depth and speed are the same study.

What is a vibrato trainer?

A tool for practising vibrato rate and evenness directly. Most are metronomes that click a subdivision, or analysers that record you and draw a graph. This one generates the model vibrato itself as a wave you match by ear.

Can I use a metronome for vibrato practice?

You can, and many players do. The limitation is that a click marks the edges of the beat and gives you nothing to match inside it, so shape and evenness are guesswork. Vibrato Practice plays the wave, and includes an optional click if you still want the pulse underneath.

What does five waves per beat mean?

Five complete vibrato oscillations inside one beat. At the default 45 BPM, five waves a beat is 3.75 waves a second, and the tempo slider moves that wherever the music asks.

Does it work for cello, viola and double bass?

Yes — strings are one of thirteen families, alongside voice, the saxophones, flutes and recorders, clarinets, oboe and bassoon, brass, guitar and bass, mallets, percussion, harp, keyboard, and traditional instruments including the Arabic and Turkish oud, buzuq, qanun, nay and mizmar.

How do I practise vibrato on saxophone?

A base note alternates with a chromatic scale — base, note, base, note — climbing to the top of the range, then dropping below, on the four low notes F, E, E♭ and D. Start each note straight, then add the vibrato. The wave is carried by diaphragmatic breath support, with fine control from a very small motion at the back of the tongue — the syllable "EEE".

Is vocal vibrato practised the same way?

The study is the same — shape, depth, speed. Voice is one of the instruments in the app, and the instruction given to wind players is explicitly to breathe the wave the way a singer does.

Is it free?

Yes. No in-app purchases, no subscription, no advertising, no account, nothing collected. It opens straight onto the trainer.

Does it work offline?

No connection is needed to practise — the wave, the click and all 69 transpositions run on the device. One screen is the exception: the Recommended Gear page loads product photographs from retailers and links out to them, so that page needs a connection.

Who made it?

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

Part of The Whole Horn

Vibrato Practice is the free standalone companion to The Whole Horn, which carries the same 69 instruments through the twelve major scales, arpeggios, long tones, overtones, ear training, the Tuning Room and Arabic maqam theory. If you came here for the vibrato, start here; the rest is waiting when you want it.

▶ Get Vibrato Practice — free