HEALTHY MINIMIZATION OF VIBRATO: AN EXPLORATION OF “STRAIGHT TONE”

Amid all the straight tone singing I do as a professional choral singer, I practice technical concepts such as resonance production, vowel placement, and breath support that I then apply to my vibrant singing outside of the choir. A casual remark such as "drop the jaw," often aimed at increasing resonance, can be misconstrued by the young singer who may hyperextend the jaw instead of letting it release freely, resulting in tension and fatigue.3 In the end, however, choirs cannot carry all the blame.4 Johan Sundberg astutely suggests, "If. ..the student... has a hard time learning two slightly differing types of voice use at the same time, it seems wiser to concentrate on one thing at a time. Sonance is a physiological and psychological phenomenon wherein the oscillating pitches of vibrato fuse into one vibrant tone.7 Vibrato is quantified in two ways: "rate" (also called rhythm or frequency) and "extent" (also called amplitude).8 Rate is defined as the speed of the vibrato and quantifi ed as the number of oscillations per second. In his article, "Vocal Vibrato: New Directions," Nicholas Isherwood defines bel canto vibrato as having a rate of five to seven and a half cycles per second.10 This range includes vibrato rates that achieve sonance and those that do not, a fair reflection of the vibratos typical in today's classical singing world, where even professionals do not always achieve this acoustical ideal.