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Hi everybody!
My name is Justin Stoney and I'm the founder of
New York Vocal Coaching here in New York City.
Welcome to episode 74 of Voice Lessons To The World,
the show where we want to help you as singers
by answering your questions from all over.
And I'll give you a chance to ask questions later
but our question for this week comes from
Rodrigo M. in Salvador, Brazil.
And Rodrigo writes, "Dear Justin
I'm a classical singer who loves to sing jazz.
How can I sing with straight tone instead of vibrato?
Now Rodrigo that's a spectacular question.
Because we work very hard on our vibrato.
We've talked about it in lessons in the past
and I know we're gonna talk about it more in the future.
Vibrato is very important.
But, what if you want to sing without it?
To sing with straight tone?
It's actually a very important skill
and something that you're really going to want
for your voice overall.
So the very first thing we should look at is
what's the difference between straight tone and vibrato?
The difference between straight tone and vibrato
is actually quite simple.
Straight tone can be defined as-
singing a pitch without any variation or fluctuation to that pitch.
So if I sing a straight tone note...
♪ Ah ♪
It doesn't have any movement to the pitch itself.
A vibrato note, however, does.
Take a listen...
♪ Ah ♪
Those are small little pitch bends.
Not...
♪ Ah ♪
Not enough to move the pitch away from its fundamental note.
♪ Ah ♪
But, little baby pitch movements within that note.
Straight tone though...
♪ Ah ♪
No movement.
Vibrato...
♪ Ah ♪
Movement to the pitch.
And we want to be able to control our voices like that.
To say I'm choosing to do straight tone
or I'm choosing to do vibrato.
This gives us a lot of control not just technically
but also stylistically.
So let's answer the question though that sometimes comes up
which is, which one is more natural?
Straight tone or vibrato?
It's very interesting to me that in the world of voice
somehow people started getting the notion
that vibrato is the natural way to sing
and straight tone is not natural
and sometimes people even
think that it's unhealthy for the voice,
that it's damaging for the voice,
and it's simply not true.
Actually straight tone is the "natural" way to sing
and vibrato is simply just a really cool
stylistic nuance that has developed
in singing throughout the ages.
To kind of prove this all you have to do
is think about how a kid would
sing their abc's.
If you listen to a kid you don't hear...
♪ A B C D E F ♪ [with vibrato]
You don't hear vibrato.
You hear...
♪ A B C D E F G ♪ [with straight tone]
You hear straight tone.
Now it's pretty obvious that classical singers
sing with a lot of vibrato.
They sing with it on basically every note.
But this not to suggest that vibrato is
a kind of thing of the past
and straight tone is something of the present
and contemporary styles.
In fact straight tone dates back hundreds
if not thousands of years.
You hear it in a lot of world music
and folks music, emerging from different cultures.
You hear it in things like Gregorian chants.
And even in the classical world,
things like baroque and the choral tradition.
They all have straight tone present in the sound.
Now, modern examples would be things like
pop, rock, R&B, musical theatre, bluegrass,
and Rodrigo, you mentioned jazz!
Which is definitely a style
that uses a lot of straight tone.
In fact, jazz would be a style where
sometimes singers sing exclusively with straight tone.
And I want to show you in a song example
kind of what that would sound like.
The song I'm gonna look at today is
"Autumn Leaves".
On of my very, very favorite jazz songs.
So what I'm gonna do here with this song
is try my very best to sing with
all straight tone, no vibrato at all for the entire piece.
Just to give us a sense of what that would sound like
to sing with literally zero vibrato.
Now jazz is a good style to do that with.
And this song "Autumn leaves"
is one of the most beautiful in all of jazz.
So here we go with zero vibrato on a song...
♪ The falling leaves drift by my window ♪
♪ The autumn leaves of red and gold ♪
♪
♪ I see your kips and summer kisses ♪
♪
♪ The sunburned hands I used to hold ♪
♪
♪ Since you went away the days grow long ♪
♪
♪ And soon I'll hear ol' winter's song ♪
♪
♪ But I miss you ♪
♪ Most of all ♪
♪ My darling ♪
♪
♪ When autumn leaves ♪
♪ Start to ♪
♪ Fall ♪
♪
And it gives it that sort of really pure,
really intimate, almost innocent
kind of quality.
And it's a really cool effect.
Now you don't have to do it for an entire song.
But it's a coordination that's super nice to have
in your technique overall.
So next I'm going to give you some tips
on how to sing with straight tone.
And then we're gonna look at an exercise.
There's gonna be two kinds of singers
watching this video.
Those like you, Rodrigo, who've been doing vibrato
for so long that straight tone has actually
become difficult to do.
And then there's also going to be those
who find straight tone rather easy
but would like to improve their control
over that straight tone.
First let's look at those who find straight tone hard.
For you the answer is going to be- difference.
What do I mean?
I mean you want to get yourself into
a different circumstance.
If for example you've been singing classically,
♪ Ah ♪
with a lot of low larynx space
and that's where you're finding the vibrato,
get yourself into a foreign circumstance.
Maybe that's playing a character.
Like a kid doing his abc's.
That can trick the voice into a foreign circumstance
where you can discover your straight tone.
You could also try changing
your larynx position to a foreign circumstance.
You could change your embouchure
to a foreign circumstance.
You could sing a style that you're not familiar with
to change the circumstance.
You could even change the register.
Sometimes people can do a straight tone
in falsetto but not chest voice.
Or, vice versa, they can do it in chest voice
but not head voice and falsetto.
Try changing the circumstances so that you're not in
the same place where vibrato is present in your voice.
Learn it in the foreign circumstance
and then bring it back to where
you're used to singing.
That's for those who find straight tone difficult.
For those who'd like to
improve their straight tone- sameness is actually
going to be the answer.
We need to have sameness of breath.
With straight tone breath support becomes
even more important.
Taking that low breath, and then
letting it out slowly but also steadily.
Blasts of air, changes of air,
will affect the pitch.
We really have to master that
small steady breath even more for straight tone.
Other elements of sameness are going to be-
larynx postion.
Doesn't matter which larynx you pick,
but you're going to have to keep it relatively the same
or else straight tone becomes quite difficult to do.
Same thing is true of compression,
how strong of a sound you're doing.
And, of resonance.
How resonant it is up here
versus here, or here.
You want to have sameness.
Doesn't mean you can't change it.
But it's much easier to master your straight tone
if you're keeping things the same.
Next we're gonna do an exercise
that helps you to take your straight tone
to the next level.
This is going to be- zoon.
Z-Z-O-O-N, zoon.
It goes like this...
♪ Zz-Zoon ♪
And the point of this is that Z is giving us
the sameness that we're looking for.
Sameness of breath, sameness of compression,
sameness of resonance.
Then the OO is also quite similar.
Because the OO embouchure stays consistent
through the tone, so it's really gonna help
you build a better straight tone.
So here we go, guys are gonna be down here...
♪ Zz-Zoon ♪
And ladies up here...
♪ Zz-Zoon ♪
And here we go!
♪ Zz-Zoon ♪
♪
So nice.
♪
That's right.
♪
Lovely.
♪
Good for you.
♪
That's it, steady...
♪
♪ Zz-Zoon ♪
♪
Great job.
♪
Excellent.
♪
And breathe...
♪
That's right.
♪
Good for you.
♪
Awesome.
♪ Zz-Zoon ♪
♪
So good.
♪
A few more...
♪
Right on...
♪
That's it.
♪
Last one...
♪ Zz-Zoon ♪
♪
Awesome job with that smooth, steady straight tone.
And I really hope that Rodrigo and all,
that's awakened new possibilities for your voice
with taking your straight tone to the next level.
If you've got questions that you'd like to
see us answer on the show
you can send an email to Questions@VoiceLessonsToTheWorld.com.
So I just encourage you, don't lost that joy,
don't lost that passion, don't let people tell you
that you can't sing you and I both know
it's simply not true, false.
Get with a great voice teacher in your area. [♪]
Or if you're in the New York City area [♪]
or you'd like to Skype with one of our staff [♪]
you can visit us at www.NewYorkVocalCoaching.com. [♪]
Or if you like these videos you can [♪]
download our free app for iPad, iPhone, [♪]
and hopefully more in the future. [♪]
Or visit www.VoiceLessonsToTheWorld.com. [♪]
There's so many great resources, articles, [♪]
tips, videos, things to help you [♪]
improve as a singer. [♪]
I'm Justin Stoney. [♪]
Until next time, make a joyful noise. [♪]
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