Why do old singers use so much vibrato?

The key to vibrato (which comes from the Italian ‘vibrare’ – ‘to vibrate’) is about warming your voice up and helping it carry. It also makes a singer sound more human, and helps you identify with what they are singing. String players liked the sound of it so much that they copied it from singers shortly after…

How do opera singers vibrate their voice?

In both speech and singing, we produce sustained vowel sounds by using vibrations of our vocal folds—small flaps of mucous membrane in our voice box (or Adams apple)—that periodically interrupt the airflow from the lungs. The folds vibrate at a fundamental frequency, fo, which determines the pitch of the sound.

What is vibrato and why is it so important?

Around the end of the 16th century, singer suddenly needed to be able to project over an orchestra in an opera house – and a whole range of colours and textures were required from the singing voice. The key to vibrato (which comes from the Italian ‘vibrare’ – ‘to vibrate’) is about warming your voice up and helping it carry.

Can you imitate an opera singer with excessive vibrato?

If you ask someone to imitate an opera singer, you can guarantee that they will do so with a humorously excessive amount of vibrato. We asked professional soprano and Classic FM presenter Catherine Bott to explain why…

Why do string players use vibrato?

When vibrato was a ‘new’ thing in music, it was deployed as a colour, something you put in to warm a note up when you were singing about love and emotion. String players liked the sound of it so much that they copied it from singers shortly after…

What is the history of opera?

Then, opera was invented. Around the end of the 16th century, singer suddenly needed to be able to project over an orchestra in an opera house – and a whole range of colours and textures were required from the singing voice.