Why do singers use vibrato?

Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports
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Some clarification on the use of the words “natural” and “trained”…

Professional singing in operatic or concert arenas (and, yes, I realize that the original posting was more geared towards popular singing, but the debate has taken its own course) is no more “natural” for a person than is running a ten-second 100-meter dash, or a four-minute mile. Both are extensions of the attributes of the human body–selectively “trained” to achieve specific goals. The singer’s goal is, ultimately, expression. With that goal come the subsequent requirements that a singer a) be heard in a room, often over other instruments and voices b) be able to sustain high levels of output over the course of an evening c) have a range of colors and qualities available to him/her and d) be able to do these things on a regular basis without causing long-term fatigue. Vocal “training” is geared toward these ends. So, while there is no standard of vocal beauty, there are standards of vocal ability, and the development of those abilities–in 99% of cases (afterall, there are always exceptions!)–leads to the presence of vibrato in singing. This–that vibrato is a consequent feature of highly trained singing–is what I meant in my earlier posting (can’t speak for anyone else) when i used the word “natural”.

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Yes, I would agree that the regular and even modulation of pitch we call “vibrato” usually emerges through vocal training (although, vibrato itself is not specifically trained). It is definitely true that untrained singers rarely exhibit the regularity, constancy and evenness of vibrato in trained singers. I also agree that classical singing, like any physical activity, depends in part on developing the natural attributes of the human body beyond where they would be without training.

That said, one of the points I have been making is that some modulation of pitch is a natural attribute of the human body. This is because modulation in muscle activity (as opposed to sustained tension) is natural to the human body. This is not to say that people don’t have chronic muscle tension, but it is to say that the body isn’t designed to work that way. Singers allow this specific attribute of the vocal musculature to become regular and even through training by eliminating various inhibiting tensions and regulating the source material. But, as I said before, it is not difficult to get a singer to produce an uneven, irregular and intermittent vibrato. IMO, one of the reasons so few untrained singers in America employ vibrato singing is that the modern pop aesthetic does not value this sound and therefore vibrato is routinely inhibited. In cultures where vibrato is a valued part of singing, most singers do seem to use vibrato. It is also not insignificant that the vast majority of singers who sing without electronic amplification (and, usually, electronic modification/improvement of tone) use vibrato.

The fact that vibrato is an innate attribute of the voice instrument makes it fundamentally different from vibrato on any other instrument. Variation in pitch is not an innate attribute of the violin, the trumpet or the clarinet. A cellist can develop his/her technique to the fullest, but the vibrato will never be there unless the cellist physically and consciously makes it happen. This is what I mean by “natural.”

As far as the sports analogy goes… it is true that a four minute mile is not exactly “natural.” However, I’m not sure this is a good comparison to vibrato. A better comparison to sprinting might be a tenor singing a full-voice high C. This is something that is not exactly unnatural, but it’s not exactly natural either. It depends on developing a natural ability of the body beyond what it would normally be. While the potential to produce a full-voice high C may be innate to certain voice instruments, the high C itself is not and must be developed. Vibrato, on the other hand, doesn’t work quite the same way. IMO, a better sports analogy to vibrato would be athletes who develop their running technique so that the body is working most efficiently for running. The body has a certain way that is best for running that depends on certain innate attributes of the human organism. The correct running motion isn’t something that has to be developed, it’s something that’s naturally there in the way the human body is put together.

Perhaps the best analogy that illustrates the difference would be to body building and Alexander technique. Body building is not exactly unnatural, but the human body really isn’t designed to carry that much muscle. It’s developing a natural attribute of the body beyond it’s natural state. In this way, body building is like sprinting and high note singing. Alexander technique, on the other hand, is learning to eliminate certain habits and develop others that together allow the body to function more efficiently according to how it is designed. This is allowing a natural attribute to work uninhibited in its natural state. In this way, Alexander technique is like running form and vibrato. One does not have to “build up” a vibrato or the correct way to lift a box the way one has to build up a high C or a sprinter’s legs.

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SLK–points well taken, but I think you misconstrued my posting (I didn’t express myself as clearly as I could). My sports analogy was not specific to the phenomenon of vibrato–rather, it was meant to illustrate that singing is a form of athletic activity and, as with sports a) requires training and muscular fitness to sustain it at a high level, and b) represents a selective enhancement of physical tendencies already within the body, rather than an arbitrary imposition of will upon nature. (This was a response to Ian’s earlier posting, which I quote: "Fine, you guys want to describe something that only emerges after years of practice and study as natural, I won’t complain.)

You are correct to re-emphasise the innate physiological tendency of the voice to exhibit vibrato, and to separate that physical “nature” from my points about the effects of vocal training. My comments, perhaps inappropriately, sidestepped the fact that the absence of vibrato in many (adult) untrained voices can arguably be traced to the influence of pop culture (which, at least for most of us, is our introduction to music and singing) and it’s prevailing vocal aesthetic. My point, however unclearly written, was that the study of voice (at least in the operatic sphere) involves the pursuit of sound qualities that cannot be achieved if vibrato is inhibited.

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Yep. Well said.

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A really interesting discussion–I learned a lot.
As an untrained listener, it does seem to me that both singers, operatic and pop, and instrumentalists vary the frequency of the vibrato so that it is some multiple of the time signature and tempo of the piece performed, as opposed to just letting it happen. In a chorus, it would seem especially important to “synchronize” vibratos, since otherwise the different natural frequencies would make the overall sound very “mushy.” (I know, not a scientific term) In fact, I just listened to my recording of the Robert Shaw Chorale performing some of Wagner’s operas, and to my admittedly untrained ear, that is just what they are doing.
Another observation, this from the pop world: I’ve noticed some songs have a tempo which is awkward for vibrato–based on the slower tempo, the available multiples result in vibrato choices which seem to be just on either side of the normal range slk mentioned (~5-7 Hz), so the singer has to either artificially slow down the vibrato, or speed it up, to make it fit the song’s tempo. I’ve even heard Chrissie Hynd (Pretenders) switch between slow and fast vibratos in the same recording of a song which had this awkward tempo.
Perhaps very experienced singers don’t consciously control their vibrato frequency, but I believe they must do it to some extent. If top opera singers really don’t control it at all, that may be why I find it difficult to listen to some performances with very pronounced vibrato.

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This has actually been studied quite extensively – probably because it is easy to take a spectral analysis direct from a CD recording and literally count the undulations per second. I did a bit of this myself during my college days. The vibrato rates of top-level opera singers are remarkably constant. Nicolai Gedda, for example, is always 5.7 no matter what. Sundberg remarks on this, saying that “the regularity of this modulation is considered a sign of the singer’s vocal skill.” Some opera singers do have vibratos that get notably faster, slower, narrower or wider on high notes, but this is considered a technical fault.

As I mentioed before, the “pop vibrato” is a totally different phenomenon in that it is consciously produced (usually by manipulation of the jaw, laryngeal position and/or airflow) and may be consciously manipulated in terms of rate and extent.

It is actually impossible for a chorus to synchronize vibrato so that all the voices are undulating at the same rate at the same time to the same extent. As far as I know, this is virtually impossible even for a string section in an orchestra (Ian? Yes? No?). What many chorus directors do in order to improve clarity is ask the choristers to suppress vibrato, especially in eariler music with smaller groups – one reason why choral singing isn’t all that good for the voice. That said, it is highly unlikely that Shaw had his singers suppress vibrato for a Wagner piece.

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I’d be very interested to see where Bach is “on record” as having used the vox humana (or any) stop along with “tremolo.” As far as I know, the organs of Bach’s day did not have that capability.

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I can’t recall just where it’s referred to – a letter or a diary entry by someone remarking on the subject, I think.

I can’t find when Organ tremolo was invented, but it is mentioned as an established fact by 1636.

John W. Kennedy
“Compact is becoming contract; man only earns and pays.”
– Charles Williams

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I am a classically-trained singer, and a pretty good one at that.

During my adolescence, as I was learning proper breath support technique (i.e. putting more air pressure behind my vocal folds/cords), I and several of my classmates noticed that a vibrato naturally “appeared” with a sufficiently loud, well-supported tone.

This jibes with the notion of the classical vibrato being unconscious or even unintentional.

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Utterly absorbing, this discussion. I do have a couple of questions on this topic.

My parents are/were classical musicians (Mom a keyboardist, Dad a vocalist), and so there was a lot of discussion of the phenom in my household growing up. None of the kids took it into their heads to follow in the parental footsteps, so a lot of this is rank amateurism. So, for the folks (and they are legion) who have experience with vocal technique:

1.) The Robert Shaw Chorale, justly one of the most famous classical voice ensembles on the planet, does seem to employ what my mom once called “pure tone”; voice without vibrato. This tended (to my untrained ears) to make the chorus sound much more together, almost like one voice, than we could manage in our vibrato-heavy church choir. When you get a bunch of singers together using vibrato, is there ever a mismatch? Do they cancel each other out?

2.) My theater prof in college used to draw a distinction between “true vibrato”, produced (she said) in the diaphragm, and “false vibrato”, which comes from the throat. She said that, among pop/theater singers, Julie Andrews was a good example of true vibrato, and Carol Burnett of the false variety. She said false vibrato could wreck a voice faster than anything except a mallet. This was over 20 years ago, and I bet I’m not remembering it correctly, but do the vocal production authorities agree with this notion?

3.) What on earth do you call that sound they do on “Mystere Des Voix Bulgares”? Is it vibrato? Tremolo? A breakthrough in being able to produce little fractionary slivers of pitch? How do they do it?

Thanks for an absorbing discussion, guys.

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The basic rule is that different singing styles have different proper practices. If Whitney Houston were to sing opera the way she sings pop, she’d probably lose her voice in a matter of days, if not hours. Opera singers attempting her repertoire would be more likely to sound bad than to hurt themselves, but the effect still wouldn’t be good.

Some people, of course, can produce more than one style.

That said, since we still don’t have 3-D X-ray movies with perfect resolution, a lot of this is still somewhat subjective, and singing technique has a parareligious quality comparable to the rival schools of, say, method acting or psychoanalysis. I have known professional singers who were fanatically loyal to teachers who were obviously destroying them.

John W. Kennedy
“Compact is becoming contract; man only earns and pays.”
– Charles Williams