How to control unintentional, natural vibrato in singing?

Question

So, I'm 14, going on 15. And by vibrato, I mean of the voice (vocal cords?). Anyway, a good description of it would be that it just came out of the blue. I was singing to myself one day, maybe a year ago, and it just happened. I noticed soon after developing vocal vibrato that I developed "humming" vibrato. That makes sense, I suppose.

My problem is, unless I really force it - and it doesn't feel "right" when I do - I can't not vibrate. In other words, I vibrate whether I want to or not. I recognize that it is (relatively) rare for someone to be born with unnoticed and undeveloped natural vibrato, let alone for someone who really doesn't sing that much at all. I'm in orchestra, not choir.

What I'd really like to do is to be able to control when I vibrate. I can stop just fine while I'm humming, but, again, if I'm singing I can't. Also, whether humming or singing, I cannot control the frequency of the vibrato - I'd really like to slow it down, because I clocked myself at 10-12 Hertz, and once at 16 Hz.

Just a note: this is not "artificial" vibrato. I've examined the sensations closely, and I can say for a fact that I am most definitely not moving my stomach or diaphragm to accomplish vibration, and I'm not moving my jaw either. It's a pure, natural, yet unconscious and uncontrollable vibration.

Answer 1

You can learn to control your vibrato with study with a professional voice teacher. You need feedback from a professional who can analyze what you are doing and help you control it.

I'm 49 years old, and my voice seems to be much like yours. I've always had a lot of natural vibrato. I sang in choirs all my teen years.

I went to music school and got a bachelor's degree in music with voice as my principal instrument. When I arrived at music school I intended to study jazz and pop singing, but a jazz vocal professor at my school took me aside and said, "You can't sing jazz and pop and I can't teach you to sing jazz and pop. You have a natural operatic voice. You must study opera singing." So I got assigned to an operatic voice professor and did that for four years. My professor did have to teach me how to "rein in" and control my vibrato, which was too wild and uncontrolled for proper classical singing. It did not take very long, but it did require working with a professional teacher.

To this day, classical musicians tell me that I have a light vibrato when it comes to operatic singing, something that's better-suited to Baroque music or Mozart on the one hand or the contemporary English choral tradition on the other. At the same time, jazz, rock and pop musicians tell me that I have too much vibrato, and why can't I stop singing that way?

I can belt out a hard rock song, without vibrato, but only for a short while. It always hurts my voice and causes problems. I can sing operatically or classically all day long, but five minutes of trying to sing in the rock or jazz style can cause me to hurt my voice and have a sore throat for the rest of the day.

Well, it seems I'm an unusual case. I am in fact a very good singer; I've worked hard at it. I've just had to concentrate on the styles of music that are naturally suited to my voice, and that means various styles of classical music and light opera.

Answer 2

As a professional voice instructor, I can assure you there's not much you need to worry about. Many times a natural vibrato (as long as it's variation in pitch, not air control - i.e. inconsistent breath support, and not laryngeal or "gospel jaw") is actually sign of proper singing technique. This includes things like proper diaphragmatic support, posture, open throat, soft-palate placement, tongue placement, and overall vowel placement. As long as you're completely sure you're using proper technique, you may be dealing with a healthy natural vibrato.

There are exercises, however, to help you gain control of your vibrato trills. It takes time and dedication (practicing daily for 6-9 months is usually the average turnaround for developing vibrato - however some get it in a matter of a couple months and some it takes years).

I suggest you hire a professional vocal coach to watch and listen to you sing. He/she can help determine what the reason for your vibrato is with more information. As well as provide the best exercises to help you correct the problem.

Answer 3

I just had to respond to a couple of points on here as absolute nonsense, and this is by no way intended to be an attack on the posters here but moreover what they have been taught or led to believe. I will give you one example:

"I arrived at music school I intended to study jazz and pop singing, but a jazz vocal professor at my school took me aside and said, "You can't sing jazz and pop and I can't teach you to sing jazz and pop. You have a natural operatic voice. You must study opera singing."

This is absolute nonsense. You may well have a natural tendency to sing in this style but to say you are restricted to singing opera because that what your base is defies belief.

Your voice only does what you train and teach your muscles to do - it's nothing more complicated than that. If you push too hard without being relaxed you will strain and things will become an effort and you'll become hoarse and croaky. If you're not warmed up before a show, whether it be by simple lip trills or sliders etc then you won't get the best out of your voice. You can alter the tone of your voice in the same way that you can sing using the soft palate or with the larynx lowered, raised or slap bang in the middle - and yes, you can also train your voice to produce an effortless vibrato at a speed that you wish (the average is around 6 oscillations per second). Anyone who tells you otherwise is lying - it's that simple! The only difference between singing with a faster vibrato and a slower one is that you need to do exercises at a slower pace - it's a bit more difficult than if someone has no vibrato whatsoever because bad habits are exactly those, but it's definitely not unachievable and you should start seeing results within a few weeks of 1 hour exercises every day :)

I have been a singer for long enough to not only benefit from improved techniques (no scales) and a more relaxed way of learning and expression that I decided to become a vocal coach and spread these techniques and processes to others.

I presumed that the voice I had was as good as I could be - my range was "OK" (or so I thought) at about 3 octaves.... within 6 months I am now on 5 octaves and heading for 6 - oh, and this range is in FULL voice, not chest and then falsetto (head voice).

Finally, just another myth - if you can sing a high note in Falsetto but not in Full voice then with training YOU CAN!! Any note you can sing in Falsetto you can sing in Full!

Answer 4

Speaking as a layman (not professional) when it comes to singing, I've always been interested in sacred choral music since grade school back in the early 1960s. I've done a lot of research about singing on my own and, have been fortunate enough to sing in school and church choirs. And a little bit of professional vocal coaching along the way as a student. For what it's worth, vibrato has been something which was elusive to me until about the 1990s. However, I've worked long and hard for it to finally kick in as a natural element of my singing. Meaning, that vibrato can only come about AFTER everything to produce a free tone is correctly in place. By default, the human voice has vibrato already and it requires correct technique for it to manifest itself naturally. Once that occurs, I would be the last person to suggest that it be removed entirely. It can't be done without harmful effects to the vibrant voice. Good luck to you as you endeavor to sing in years to come.

Answer 5

I think that 'vibrato' is something that is natural, like you said. I am a pop and soul singer and I struggled with my natural vibrato for about 3 years, however with careful techniques, I did overcome it. If you want to be a more classical singer, you should embrace it, because it is a really nice sound. However if it does seem to become a problem, you should seek help from a professional teacher. Obviously for me, as a pop/soul singer it did become a problem but as I am now Grade 5 pop/rock singer I think there are certain techniques. I'll give you one tip though, when singing a sentence.. Stop and sing it over and over again and REALLY listen and see if you are using vibrato, if you are, try again until you notice it's not there. If you can't detect it then try and notice how you sang without it, and try again using that technique. I hope I helped:)

Answer 6

I agree with previous answers about vibrato being natural when the singing technique is well-developed. Note also that some people have a wider vibrato than others because of different biology and physiology of the human body. Everybody's voice is different (that is why we have different voice types and fachs) so everybody's (natural) vibrato is also different.

It is possible to control your vibrato when your singing technique (=muscles) is well-developed but it is more difficult if your natural vibrato is wide. In that case you would be "fighting" against your natural big and wide vibrato (which e.g. dramatic operatic voices have, see

), and this requires more training compared to a situation where your natural vibrato is small and voice more straight (many pop singers like Michael Buble

or Ed Sheeran have good technique and naturally very small vibrato, you could also check for example this lesson

).