Hey there, this is John Henny and today I want to talk about developing your vibrato.
Now vibrato is that little undulation in your pitch, rather than singing a straight tone, we get that the little up and down. And what it does is it goes about a quarter tone up that’s half of a half step, and then a little quarter tone below and it moves up. If it goes too wide and a little too slow. We get a wobble, which we don’t want makes this sound old. But usually with singers that can’t find a vibrato, if you’re struggling to find your vibrato, there’s probably excess tension, excess muscle. Think of it this way.
If I asked you to shake your hand, that’s much like a vibrato. It’s not this. It’s not back and forth. It’s this little quaver. But if you add tension to your hand and then try and do it, it’s harder. You won’t get that Nice quaver. So if we have too much tension in the vocal folds, we’re not going to get the vibrato. So I encourage you to try it on a lower note first, because high notes have more tension naturally. So try it on a comfortable pitch. Let’s take a nice narrow vowel like an oboe. And what I want you to do is start feeling emotion like you’re getting a little upset, like you might cry or you’re a little nervous, and on a little short scale, go, go, go, go go and just feel that little shake.
Now you can also try and trick it in by pressing on your tummy. And that’s a way to force it. But if you can start to find that emotion in the voice, go, go, go and you’ll start to get little shakes in the voice. And eventually you’ll be able to take that up higher and higher into your range but for a little while, just stay in the lower register. Stay on the comfortable notes, start getting that little emotional shake in your voice. And you just might find your vibrato start appearing when you’re saying.
Hey, for more information and singing tips, go to my website johnhenny.com and please check out my podcast the intelligent vocalist wherever you subscribe to podcasts.
Thank you talk soon.