How do you sing with vibrato?

I never knew how to do it. If anyone here is a singer, please let me know. Thanks.

The proper way: it will come naturally as you strengthen your voice, singing from the diaphram - vibrato happens when your vocal folds in your throat vibrate naturally - a sign of good control and breathing technique.

Thanks, but can you please explain how one would go about in doing that?

Again, it really is an end-result of good vocal technique - in other words, you can't make the vocal folds vibrate without having smooth, controlled breathing, keeping the vocal passage open and relaxed, jaws relaxed, etc in the first place. When those things happen and your voice becomes stronger, the vibrato will come naturally - trust me on this. You know when you hear good vibrato (fast or slow vibrato) - the tone is full, smooth, controlled and steady - and doesn't sound like your voice is hicupping or that your 'forcing' it.

Breathing technique: think of your diaphram/stomach as a valve or accordion - when you inhale, your stomach expands (not your chest) like you're trying to show how fat you are - this is not how people normally breathe in everyday life, but how you breath when you are sleeping; when you exhale, squeeze your stomach like you're taking a dump (or the feeling when you're doing situps) to let the air out.

Humming: combine the breathing technique above with humming a melody (pick anything; yankee doodle dandy). As you exhale, hum the melody - you should feel the tone vibrate near your mouth and nose.

Singing: Now combine the breathing technique, with tone generation (humming) and open mouth. Keep the jaw and tongue relaxed - if they are not relaxed, you'll constrict the vocal passages. Use your jaw to enunciate, not your tongue (harder than you think). A way to open up the vocal passages is to sing with a big grin on your face - those cheekbone muscles you use to smile should stay up. After a while you should be able to sing without that grin, but with the cheekbone muscles lifted.

Vibrato: comes naturally when you strengthen your breathing, tone generation, and singing with open vocal passages.

There are a lot of specific exercises to improve the above that are much better explained in real time. If you are serious about improving your voice (like I was and am now), I would seriously consider getting a decent voice teacher - it is worth the money.

You can also cheat at your own peril - try moving your jaw, or varying your tonal pitch/strength - chances are it'll sound contrived, uneven and/or just plain bad. The time it takes to master this cheating technique, you can get better vibrato practicing the proper technique above.

oh yeah, for real-world examples of great vocal technique in the rock/pop world, freddie mercury, jeff buckley and elton john come to mind - they have a baritone to tenor range with rich tones even at the high notes that comes from good technique, while still having a tone/vibrato unique to each of them. Off the top of my head, bad examples (put the musical considerations aside) are Paul McCartney and Billy Corgan from the Smashing Pumpkins.

Vibrato is the healthy byproduct of s properly produced tone. To sing with a vibrato, one needs to first sing from the diaphragm. Try this: lie on the floor and breathe from your abdomen. Then try singing. It's virtually impossible to breathe incorrectly (meaning from the chest, as opposed to from the abdomen) for singing purposes, while lying on the floor.

Once you've gotten the hang of that, try it upright. Don't expect instant results, It takes practice and time to get it right. The voice is every bit, if not more, as complicated and difficult an instrument to learn as a cello, or piano. If singing with a good vibrato still eludes you, try talking to a vocal instructor, or a choral director of a local church--especially if the choir is a good one. He/she might either be able to help you or recommend someone who can.

Originally posted by lyonsshare Vibrato is the healthy byproduct of s properly produced tone. To sing with a vibrato, one needs to first sing from the diaphragm. Try this: lie on the floor and breathe from your abdomen. Then try singing. It's virtually impossible to breathe incorrectly (meaning from the chest, as opposed to from the abdomen) for singing purposes, while lying on the floor. Once you've gotten the hang of that, try it upright. Don't expect instant results, It takes practice and time to get it right. The voice is every bit, if not more, as complicated and difficult an instrument to learn as a cello, or piano. If singing with a good vibrato still eludes you, try talking to a vocal instructor, or a choral director of a local church--especially if the choir is a good one. He/she might either be able to help you or recommend someone who can.

I'd also add that when it comes to singing, it's FAR more important to get good singing habits (musically and for one's vocal cords long-term) than just focusing on vibrato.

Whether singing is harder or easier than other instruments, it is definitely less forgiving - if you hit a wrong note on the guitar, it's easier to wing it without the audience noticing or caring. If you sing even 1/4 step out of pitch in a few phrases here and there, audiences will think you're a crappy singer. It can be frustrating at times because it's the easiest thing for audiences to criticize - since everyone has a voice, it's not hard to be a good singer, right?

Add Billy Joel to that list. Just listen to "I've Loved These Days" off Songs in the Attic to hear what I mean.

i have never studied singing, and i dont know much terminology for it... but some people can just naturally sing vibrato i think... because i havent sung much, but i can do it easily.

i agree, elton john has very good vocal control especially for someone who sits down mostly when playing and singing, i find it much harder to sing sitting down as you cant control your breathing as much and is restricted, but elton can still belt it out. billy corgan does seem to have bad technique even though hes had singing lessons (imagine what he used to be like!) but the pumpkins are my favorite band of all time so his songwriting genius kinda makes up for it. its wierd though you probably couldnt make a pumkins song sound good without his {censored}ty nasal voice. our singer is very good and when we play pumpkins songs in rehersal he just can pull it off. but thats music.

In trying to "manufacture" vibrato, you also run the risk of injuring your vocal folds. Proper technique isn't so important for hobbyists and karaoke wannabes, but if you want to have a lifetime of singing, learn the right ways.

I have learned (but sometimes, of course, I fail) to use as little "effort" as possible to produce tones. Especially on high notes at the top of your range, if you try to force them it will come out sounding forced, and you will feel the tightness in your vocal folds the next day, like a strained muscle.

Thanks for all your help. I printed this post out and I'm going to see what I could do.

Definitely dont force anyhting. I used to try real hard and srain whne singing and often hit the notes but something felt off. WE didnt have much of a PA to speak of at the time... consisted of a Shure SM58 and a Marshall MG15R amp...now that we have a real PA i soften up my singing, take out some of the dirt in my voice, and just let it go soft. I hit a larger range with a much more please sound the before. Just a suggestion. Vibrato in vocals also seems to come pretty natural to me...i just kinda "shake" my voice...

Someone may have already mentioned this, but a lot of singers will use a false vibrato. That pretty much means they'll purposely push out the vibrato through their throat and lung muscles. This is NOT the way to do it, and probaby 90% of the "singers" you'll see on TV or hear on the radio do this. Madonna? False vibrato. I can't stand her anyway.

The physiology of laughing and sobbing is very similar to natural vibrato, but more intense and violent. Proper vibrato comes from the diaphragm, as has been stated here before. Try and segue gradually from laughing to singing a vowel sound. As an alternate, try and "crack" your voice into an intermittent falsetto, ala a country singer. When you do this, your voice will tend to move to the top of your throat. This effect has nothing to do with vibrato, per se, but when you drop out of the "crack," your voice will tend to naturally drop right down to the diaphagm, where the vibrato occurs. You may achieve it then without even trying. Once you get it, it will start to become intuitive. also, try singing in the lowest register you can, you will probably catch some vibrato once your range bottoms out, as your vocal architecture will start to sort of spasm. If you can lock onto that, you should be able to bring your voice up into more useable range while maintaining the vibrato. cheers.

P.S. this is a little off topic for this forum...

Thank you soo much man!Thats the best advice I've ever read!

I've been struggling with my vocal vibrato for a long time now.

I'm kinda the 'ugly duckling' in my family.......the only one who can't sing that well. My cousin can pick up an acoustic and sing anything and women will melt. Hes got a beautiful, vintage warm voice with smooth, silky vibrato.

I try and force one out and I wind up sounding like James Labrie from Dream Theater(someone oughta tell him how bad he sounds one of these days)

Thank you all for the advice.That was very helpful.

Freddie Mercury had the best vibrato ever

All else fails, shake your head up and down while you sing. Works like a charm

Great stuff in this thread. Here's a short cut to good technique. Pretend you're an opera singer. Just make fun and pretend you are Pavarotti. Figaro, Figaro... Fi-iiiiiii-garo!

Go for some real good over the top opera tone and vibrato.

The thing I don't see very often and I totally agree with here, is vibrato is a result of good technique. Of course, opera is way to much for pop/rock. So we get to a point where we can understand that vibrato then control it. Turn it off and on at will.

1) Great breath control.

2) Relaxed shoulders.

3) Lifted sterum (counter-intuitive to 2)

4) Relaxed and open soft palette.

By pretending and joking the opera thing, we get a glimpse into how those 4 points happen.

It walks among the living...

I'm moving this newly reinvigorated thread (with its excellent suggestions) to the Singers' forum -- which didn't exist back in 2002 when this thread was started.

Since we here in the Songwriting forum helped prod The Powers That Be to create the Singer's forum, we like to feel we have a special relationship with that forum. Perhaps ironically, since so many songwriters are not known for their world class singing.

Freddy Mercury didn't have a good technique, he had a good voice (he suffered from nodules)

One should be able to control the vibrato... it is ultimately a fluctuation between notes.

Great thread.^_^.

I read somewhere that a relaxed larynx is also very important. It's apparently very to produce virbrato when your larynx rises, maybe why I dnt have any.

I'll put in my 2 cents.

Ive always been under the impression that anyone could do vibratto, and that there was no real technique to learning it.

However... Im learning that there are certain people who simply CANT do it, even if they have a fairly good singing technique. Brett Manning and others actually suggest to these people, to sing a very very slow trill between 2 notes, and slowly speed up the trill a little each day, until it starts to sound like viratto.

I have NO IDEA if this works, Im just putting it out there.

Mercury DOESNT have good technique? Wow, you have pretty high standards.

BTW, Pavorotti also had nodules, and so did Elton John.