Why You Shouldn't Use Vibrato

My first experience hearing a vibrato noticeable enough for me to ask, "What's that?" was when I attended a program for music studies in my state. The staff consisted of a number of people who I am sure had excellent credentials and were considered true professionals, if not experts in their respective fields. Among these was a soprano who was to sing the soprano solo in the oratorio we would perform at the end of the program.

Some of you may be aware of the practice of rehearsing the soloists and chorus separately until it is close to the time of the performance, and that is what happened in this case. It was our first full rehearsal, and I was anxious to see what the entire piece sounded like, so I paid close attention to the soloists when it was time for them to sing. The soprano rose to her feet, and at the conductor's direction began her solo. As she sang, sustaining note after note, I noticed something I considered very odd: her mouth was opening and closing, and I was not at all pleased with the sound that came out of it. After being chastised for being flat on numerous occasions over the course of a month, I was now hypersensitive to notes that were less than stellar. I recall thinking, "What's wrong with her voice?" though I don't recall if I asked anyone. In either case, I didn't get an answer until a few years later in a book I was reading on singing--"It's vibrato, it totally natural, and not to use it will harm your voice."

Vibrato in singers, as I'm sure some of you are aware, is the word used to describe the sound that emanates from a singer's mouth that is literally a going up and down in pitch and volume when a given note is being held. Vibrato also occurs in other instruments as well, but must be forced by the instrumental player, and unlike singing, there is usually no variation in the pitch, though there is one in the volume. But, how does the singer produce this and what causes this to happen?

Van A. Christy's Foundations in Singing and Lillie Lehmann's How to Sing present opposing views on this particular point. (I have provided links to the respective sections of their books to your left.) Christy states that it is "one of the qualities we listen for in a voice", and "when we hear it, we feel that a voice is free and relaxed, warm and expressive." Christy believes that vibrato is the natural result of vocal maturity, that is can be controlled, and encourages the use of it.

On the other hand, Lehmann believed that it is caused by uncontrolled pressure of the breath against the vocal cords, that it is damaging in that it gradually grows wider, it is uncontrollable, and she discouraged the use of it.

The question that has been asked of me since I posted my 50 Tips page is "What makes you believe one set of information over the other, particularly since the warnings against the use of vibrato come from such ancient and obviously wrong sources?"

Lehmann's book presented me with something I had not considered before: that certain acts may be harmful to my voice, and also detrimental to my sound. Her description is striking: air pushing against the vocal cords causes this effect. This causes these two little folds to work harder than they have to, eventually losing their elasticity the way a rubber band does after is has been stretched too many times, resulting in the characteristic wide wobbling up and down of the tremolo, a sound which has been described by both Christy and Lehmann's books.

Let's take a look at the elasticity issue for a moment: String players, when producing vibrato, must physically pull on the same string in order to produce this effect. When I asked a violinist if the string went out of tune faster when this was done, I was told, "yes". (In order to give you an idea of how quickly stringed instruments go out of tune, consider that an orchestra generally tunes its instruments twice during a performance, and pianos are tuned before every performance.)

As in the case of the overused rubber band, an overused string must eventually be replaced in order for the instrumentalist to produce the kinds of sounds that only new strings can. Until one of the world's countries approves cloning, the singer only has one pair of strings to work with.

Another issue that has been brought up is that of clarity. What exactly is clarity anyway? My dictionary wasn't much help, because it defines "clarity" as "clearness", a form of the word "clear" which has a large number of definitions. Of these. the 4th definition seemed to best suit our purposes: "easily seen, heard, or understood; not confused; plain; distinct." Like I said, not the greatest explanation in the world, but workable. We should ignore distinct for these purposes, as sounds with and without vibrato can make a claim of being distinct. "Seen," "understood", and "not confused" also are not what we are looking for here. That leaves us with "plain" and "easily heard". Many people throughout the years have considered it, vibrato, to be nothing more than ornamentation or embellishment, and though I am sure you can find a great number of people who will take the opposite view, perhaps it would be best to think of the term "clarity" in the terms of a coronet player who is playing a reveille or "taps". All of these notes would be described as "clear".

Christy stated that vibrato is "one of the qualities we look for in a voice, whether we know it or not." Recognizing that my musical tastes have changed as my level of skill has increased, I truly can't say what I felt about vibrato before I knew what it was. I was merely trying to reproduce the sounds, styles, and voices of my favorite singers, much to the chagrin of my teachers and choral directors, who encouraged me to "be myself." As I gained experience, and began to be able to distinguish between a variety of sounds, I recall finding myself more drawn to notes sung without vibrato: I liked the voices that were clear like the bell or trumpet, as a young child's voice often is. In this, my taste agreed with the taste of those persons recorded in Grove's Singing who wrote music "to be performed by singers with voices 'high, sweet and strong'."

In addition to this, I found it refreshing to have a good example available of clarity: the doo-wop style. On PBS (American Public Television) a special aired, titled Doo-Wop 51, showcasing a number of acts from the doo-wop era. Many of these singers, years removed from their teens, still had voices that, if you were not looking at them, you would believe the singer was, in fact, a teenager. I had never heard that before: no vibrato, and voices youthful and childlike from singers who have been performing for 30-40 years. Not from opera, rock, or jazz have I ever heard this, and I find the sound, clear, with no vibrato, sung over a well-written melody, a joy to listen to.

Perhaps I wasn't thinking along the same lines as the musicians and writers or earlier centuries, it is nice to know I am not alone in my sense of taste.

A statement made by Gaffunus, recorded in Grove's Singing leads me to my next point: The statement was:

Singers should not produce musical tones with a voice gaping wide in a distorted fashion or with an absurdly powerful bellowing, especially when singing at the divine mysteries; moreover they should avoid tones having a wide and ringing vibrato, since these tones do not maintain a true pitch and because of their continuous wobble cannot form a balanced concord with other voices.

Recording technology allows us to view changes over time, especially in one of our favorite voices. It is now easy to compare a singer's voice at different stages of his career and notice the differences as the creep up. Furthermore, if you know something about that person's life, as many people know intimate details about the life of his favorite celebrity, you can judge to some extent, how activities you know or merely speculate that singer to have engaged in have affected his or her voice. It may be interesting for you to listen for and to notice effects like an increase in the size of the vibrato or the older sound associated with smoking.

There is no way to deny the fact that people who do not spend years training in any given field have a different sense of what is and isn't good than the person who does, and this case is no different. I recognize the fact that something that may be harmful to your voice may actually improve your career. Indeed, if you decide to take vibrato out of or put it into your voice, it changes your style and quality, and your audience may prefer your vibrato to your notes without them. Therefore, I leave the choice up to you, the reader of this article, because you should have the best idea of what exactly you want out of yourself, your voice, and your career.

If, after reading this article, you still wish to produce vibrato, one way I know of (as stated earlier) is to add pressure to your vocal cords and to loosen your jaw. If you don't want to produce it, concentrate on the note, direct your breath toward your chest and the sound on virtually anything other than the vocal cords.