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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 six of
Voice Lessons To The World.
The show where we want to help you guys as singers
by answering your questions from all over the world.
I'll give you a chance to ask questions later.
But for now the question for the week comes from
Kyle C. in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
And Kyle writes, "Dear Justin, I've always been told
my vibrato is too slow.
Was I just born this way or is there something I can do to fix it?"
Well Kyle, that's an awesome question.
And I'll answer that in three parts.
First of all, what is vibrato?
Second of all, do I need vibrato?
And third of all, can I change the speed of my vibrato?
So first of all, what is vibrato?
Now I know a lot of you guys know this,
but there's some people out there that might not.
Vibrato is a stylistic effect that's used in the voice.
It's essentially a small pitch bend of any given note.
It's a fast oscillation or vibration of the note,
and that's why it's called vibrato.
So it flutters or bends quickly as the note is sustained.
The bend is not enough to actually change
the feel of the pitch,
but the note actually does move up and down.
So let me show you what that sounds like.
If I use no vibrato it sounds like this.
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On a "Me".
♪ Me Me Me Me Me ♪
That's no vibrato or "straight tone".
Now with vibrato it sounds like this...
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♪ Me Me Me Me Me ♪
And you can hear that little flutter or vibration...
[ Sings with vibrato ]
That's vibrato.
Now the next question is, do I need vibrato?
And if you're a classical or traditional singer
you use vibrato all the time.
And that's great.
So you do definitely need vibrato.
For pop rock and R&B, contemporary music singers,
you actually need it too.
And the big misconception out there is that vibrato is
only for classical singers.
But contemporary singers, I want you to know that
you really should be working on your vibrato as well.
Because many pop rock songs,
actually most pop rock songs and R&B songs, do use vibrato.
So let me just show you an example of this.
If I just take a song like "Ordinary People" by John Legend,
and I sing...
♪ Cuz we're ordinary people ♪
♪ We don't know which way to go ♪
That sounds a little strange without vibrato.
But if I throw it back in...
♪ Cuz we're ordinary people ♪
♪ Maybe we should take it slow ♪
The vibrato at the ends of those phrases
actually makes the pop sound, sound better.
So in pop rock, R&B, country, contemporary music,
you do actually use vibrato as well.
So I would work on that.
But then the next question is, can we change the speed of it?
That's a great question Kyle, because a lot of people think,
"Well I can sing with vibrato but my vibrato is my vibrato I can't change it".
And that's not actually true.
If your vibrato is too slow, Kyle,
I want to just show you what the rate of vibrato is
that our ear really accepts.
And show you kind of what it sounds like as
I move from too slow, to right on.
So, our ear, it's been determined,
likes the sound of six hertz per second
when we hear vibrato.
So that's six of those little flips,
six hertz of those little pitch bends per second.
So I'm gonna take my voice from one hertz to six hertz
so that you can see the difference as I shift
my voice in terms of its rate.
So let's take an "A" vowel.
If I do one hertz...
♪ A ♪
Now two hertz...
♪ A ♪
Now three hertz...
♪ A ♪
Now four...
♪ A ♪
Now five...
♪ A ♪
And now six...
♪ A ♪
And when I'm on six...
♪ A ♪
Now it's starting to sound like the vibrato that I'm used to hearing.
So, clearly Kyle, if I can just
change the rate of my vibrato, the amount of hertz or flips per second
then clearly vibrato is something that can be manipulated or changed.
Now you don't need to be able to do something
crazy like that of changing the hertz of your vibrato at home.
That's not necessary.
But the point is, yes you can change it.
And so if you know that you can change it
and then you go to mess with it and to play with it
you're going to find out that you can do faster
or slower vibrato depending on the situation.
A couple reasons why your vibrato might be too slow Kyle,
it might be a depressed larynx, might be too much air,
maybe you imitated somebody that had a
really slow vibrato in the past.
Sometimes it's due to a lack of resonance in the voice.
It could actually be a lot of things.
But I just want you to know that your
vibrato speed is not stuck, it's not set in stone.
You weren't born that way, you can change it.
And, just knowing that you can change it hopefully will
inspire you to go and play with that on your own and find a vibrato
that's closer to what our ear really loves to hear.
So I hope that's been helpful for you guys as singers.
If you have questions that you'd like to see answered on the show
you can send an email to
Questions@VoiceLessonsToTheWorld.com [♪]
We just encourage you not to lose the joy, [♪]
don't lose the passion, [♪]
never let anybody tell you that you can't sing [♪]
because you and I know that's just not true. [♪]
Just keep practicing and working hard every day. [♪]
If you guys are in New York City, check us out at [♪]
www.NewYorkVocalCoaching.com [♪]
And if you like these videos you can visit [♪]
www.VoiceLessonsToTheWorld.com [♪]
I'm Justin Stoney. [♪]
We'll see you next time. [♪]
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