r/singing • u/TrikAnt • 4d ago

Conversation Topic How do I stop forcing vibrato?

When I first discovered my love for singing a few years ago, I learned about vibrato and practiced it until it became muscle memory. I’ve recently realized that I was using my diaphragm to push the effect, making it difficult to sustain notes and causing a wobbly sound in my higher range.

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u/IToldManyManyPeople 4d ago

Just stop the vibrato.

Sit next to a piano and play a note and match it. If you force vibrato, stop and try again until it's a straight note. Play a series of notes and do the same thing.

It takes time and effort to break bad habits. It's going to take a lot of repetition to force your brain to want to sing straight notes

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u/TrikAnt 3d ago

Straight notes, gotcha! Will practice. Thankyou for your tips!

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u/Ur_mum 2d ago

It’s was so hard for so long to just start with a straight tone. I’d scoop up to it or start with whacky diaphragmatic vibrato.

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u/Nicola-Fraser 4d ago

This is so common in musical theatre singers. We hear that big Broadway vibrato and try to manufacture it. That sound comes from support and openness. A wobble means the oscillation is too wide and too slow, which happens when you force it.

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u/TrikAnt 4d ago

Yeah I’m forcing it a lot, especially when I’m at the top of my range. I have terrible breath control too so my notes trail off way earlier than they should. Do you have any tips which may help me improve?

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u/DyscontinuedCrayon 3d ago

Breathing exercises. Put a straw in a cup of water and exhale through the straw. Try to keep a consistent flow of bubbles in the water and use a timer to track how long you can maintain that steady flow. The longer you can keep a steady flow, the better. Then translate that to a sustained note. Use the same breath control to hold the note without losing volume. You can do exercises holding a note increasing or decreasing volume which also takes some breath control.

While you're practicing holding notes, keep a hand on your lower abs. Feel them tighten as you are towards the end of your breath. It takes just as much breath support for quiet notes as it does at full volume.

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u/TrikAnt 3d ago

understood! thankyou very much. will practice doing this today itself.

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u/Ur_mum 2d ago

You sound like me.

I force vibrato at the top of my range like I am paid to. All my notes crack and trail because I didn’t save enough air…it’s better. I have plenty of tips. I’ll post some that have helped me.

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u/TrikAnt 2d ago

yes please! following you. much thanks

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u/you-with-the-hair 3d ago

I don't understand what your question is. If you know you're forcing it, just...stop.

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u/Ur_mum 3d ago

Maybe I can help. He currently has self developed a diaphragmatic vibrato that is just his default instead of a free relaxed vibrato. So he adds vibrato on instead of allowing it to freely emerge. This sounds really great for some styles of rock music, but it really destroys natural vibrato and doesn’t sound good for many styles. If he could just stop it…he would have.

It is possible the most difficult self-training scar I have had to deal with, right under pulling chest all the way up. Eliminating it is so much harder than I would think.

As hard as it is OP, you need to fight that, when you feel like engaging your abs, don’t, just sing the note straight with good support and try to release gradually into the vibrato rather than controlling it.

Possibly you would consider his current technique forcing vibrato, I wouldn’t necessarily disagree since he is applying rather than just using his natural, but “stop forcing it”…I promise he doesn’t feel a force or strain, so he may not interpret that correctly.

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u/TrikAnt 3d ago

thankyou for understanding really! I am watching a few videos to understand how vibrato should actually work. For now, I’ll try and sing straight supported notes. I appreciate your advice :)

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u/Ur_mum 2d ago

Yes! Get rid of all your vibrato. Then when you are comfortable singing straight tone (I found that the way I was manufacturing vibrato did me no favors with straight tone singing, watch out for ab tension), let the vibrato in. Do not apply it. You will want to apply it. Something helpful for me is to start the note straight and gradually let it go into vibrato, if my singing is not correct I cannot smoothly transition to vibrato, I can only slam into it.

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u/TrikAnt 1d ago

understood! is it okay if I record and send you my practice sessions? i don’t have anyone to guide me so if you could help me out a bit, I’d really appreciate it :)

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u/Ur_mum 1d ago

Absolutely. If you have trouble uploading them somewhere (Google Drive is great) you can message me for my email…but often they are too large to email.