From: Cynthia S Donnell
To: VOCALIST <vocalist>
Subject: Re: Chin vibrato - Observations
Send reply to: VOCALIST <vocalist>

Hi, Barry,

In my experience the movement of the jaw in conjunction with either pitch
change or vibrato is the visible manifestation of excess muscle tension.
It usually is some combination of tongue/jaw tension and poor breath
management. Additionally, I've never noted these problems in a singer
whose body alignment is good - even though they may have minor problems
with breath/jaw/tongue. The more coordinated the singer becomes the less
chin wobble there will be.

Cindy Donnell



On Thu, 16 Dec 1999, Barry Bounous wrote:

> exams) to those singers who evidenced jaw movement during sustained
> notes and vowels. I listened to around 200 singers and about 10% had
> noticeable jaw movement (only 1 being male, the rest female) I noticed
> that they tended to fall into two catagories:
> 1) Those who couldn't seem to produce any vibrato without the
> assistance of the jaw.> 2) Those who could but who periodically added
jaw movement (usually on> loud and/or high pitches).
>
> In the former case, the vibrato sometimes had a 'normal' sound (when I
> closed my eyes) and sometimes did not. (About 50/50)
> In the latter case, I noticed a definite degradation in the periodicity
> and balance of the vibrato as the singers "added" jaw movement to "help"
> the vibrato or at least to help their sense of vocal freedom.