Let's talk about vocal vibrato

jane siberry talking about kd lang's vibrato and stuff:

We were in separate booths, but something wasn't quite happening, so we stood together in the middle of the room. It was that physical-presence thing. She has a wide vibrato, and as we stood close we could see into each other's eyes as we sang. Looking at someone while you work has that feeling about it as with lovers. Finally, the engineer said, "Cool it with the vibrato! We're starting to feel seasick in here." About two weeks later, I was singing on my own and my vibrato started to get really wide. I think just by standing near her, her whole system was teaching me something that I needed to know.

That's a pretty common thing to have happen, particularly when dealing with singers who listen and blend; there's really nothing quite like matching vibratos with someone.

how come you know all this stuff?

he smart, educated.

there's nothing like matching vibratos is RIGHT

I'm assuming their talking about Calling all angels?

it's because he has sung with vince gill

and martina fuckin mcbride

Also, I'm really interested in this now, like I don't really get the physics of how it makes your voice louder or even where it originates from in the voice.

its not the loudness of your voice, its the width of your vibrato

http://www.pollstar.com/filestorage/CommunityServer.Blogs.Components.WeblogFiles/pollstar/0811090438076721480_2496_v1.jpg

http://www.smithmag.net/wp-content/uploads/2007/ElvisC.jpg

http://cache.daylife.com/imageserve/02QMbmo6cFdIj/340x.jpg

I don't really get the physics of how it makes your voice louder or even where it originates from in the voice.

as I understand it, the sound is resonating in a larger space inside your mouth/throat, thus more sound is produced. Sometimes it ends up picking up or being influenced by the harmonics of the room, at least it does/did for me, before I started smoking a pack a day and quit singing.

That's pretty much it, from what I know; more space = more amplitude = more volume.

how come you know all this stuff?

I've been singing professionally since 1991. (Note that really the only enduring thing of note that I've done is sing in a chorus on the "Mystic River" soundtrack on songs where you can't actually tell a 60-voice chorus is singing along with the orchestra; this was the same group who did "Saving Private Ryan" the year before I joined.)

keep thinking about this thread whilst listening to the Dirty Projectors, like the guy is this weird mix of indie shoutiness and strangely skilled, on those opening lines of rise above where the vibrato suddenly swings out of straight notes esp.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9IL4nX5r71M

dunno if this is the right thread for this, I think it is, but looking for more instances of this thing bobby caldwell does sometimes like in this track where he sort of...emulates a delay I guess? but manually, with his voice

like there is absolutely straight up delay on the vocal as well, but particularly on the second verse it sounds he is just doing it himself like some kind of rare genius

may also be mixing up delay and reverb? I dunno I'm a drummer

No it’s delay! Horace Andy does this too

Jacob Miller too...

yes thank you that's pretty much exactly what I mean, I know very little about reggae but is this basically the invention of dub? like oh wait, we could just feed everything thru a delay pedal

No. Sounds like he's mostly trying for a Barry Gibb thing but the last line of the song he definitely mimics delay.

yes! barry gibb absolutely, to be clear not advancing the theory that bobby caldwell invented dub, was in reference to horace andy, like was dub something that emerged from some reggae singers doing this in the 70s and then guitar players wanted to do that too

The other way round.

That reminds me that I was listening to Moby Grape recently and Peter Lewis does a kind of tremeloed thing with his voice on some songs...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adF3Lc-g5Ac

... tremolo or vibrato or whatever. Seems like something singers did in the 60s? I don't know if Donovan did it first but I associate it most with him...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JR8k8jpT3tw

love that the cat. # of the bobby caldwell LP in the youtube embed is POOP 20240