How to Sing Vibrato: 12 Easy Exercises

Introduction 0:00
What is vibrato 0:30
3 Parts to vibrato 1:40
Diaphragm pulse 02:35
Beggar's pulse 04:20
Jaws vibrato 05:50
Maroon 5 mmmm 07:40
Happy Birthday eeeee 09:30
Ghost ooooo 10:50
Scales 5 Tone heee 12:30
Scales 5 Tone feee 13:55
Octave Sustain sheee 15:00
Octave Sustain heeee 16:30
Octave Sustain feeee 17:00
Octave Sustain foooo 18:00

Many singers want to learn to sing with vibrato but aren't sure where to start.
In this video, I wanted to take a few minutes to show you 1) what actually causes vibrato, and 2) give you 12 different vocal techniques to find vibrato.

My goal is to help you start to learn to find that beautiful quaver and shimmer in your voice.

Ready to get started?

First of all, very few singing teachers and even fewer singers actually KNOW what causes this beautiful vocal effect.

But here's the secret:

All modern research points to the idea that vibrato is nothing more than a muscular tremor in your voice.

And just like any other muscular tremor, vibrato gets activated when the different muscles groups within the voice are pulling against each other.

You can think of these different muscle groups as the chest voice and the head voice muscles.

All the best vibrato exercises will have some combination of these two muscles groups pushing and pulling against each other to create that beautiful shaking in the voice.

Often, when you're first learning to sing with vibrato, you may find that it's difficult to get your voice to waver.

In the case that the voice is a bit tight, it's a great exercise to start by changing the breath pressure in the voice in order to "teach" the vocal cords how to quaver like in vibrato.

So, the two first vocal techniques to help you sing with vibrato are allowing the diaphragm pulse and the beggar's pulse.

In the diaphragm pulse, you'll be taking your fist, covering it with your other hand and gently pulsing the hands into your solar plexus. This pumping action will create a pulsing sound in the voice and is necessary to develop the oscillating breath pressure of vibrato.

The second exercise, the beggar's pulse requires that you wrap your hands together like you're praying and shake them in front of your body. This shaking will in turn, also shake the breath pressure in your body, creating a "vibrato" like sound.

The next 10 exercises all involve helping you achieve the changing pitch or wavering sound of vibrato.

There are several different ways you can stimulate the vibrato to start.

A few of my favorites involve working with different intervals and "allowing" the voice to shake or vibrate between the different notes.

To start off, try singing a minor second interval (like the "jaws" theme) and see if you can allow the pitch to waver between the two notes.

Next, try the same interval descending such as you find in the chorus of "she will be loved" by Maroon 5 in the lyric "spending ever-y". This descending minor second interval is also very helpful in letting your voice vibrate between two pitches.

Next, try a major second interval such as you would find in the opening notes of "Happy Birthday" and add the vowel "ee" in order to let the notes shake.

Now, as you begin to find the vibrato quavering between those notes, it's time to put them to use on scales.

I recommend starting off in your chest voice on shorter scales such as a 5-Tone major arpeggio. Try this exercise on the words "Hee", "Fee", "Shee" in order to let the vocal cords vibrato.

Then, as you begin to master these shorter scales, start using a scale with larger intervals such as an octave sustain on the same words: "Hee", "Fee", "Shee" and "Foo".

[MrNoUsername]

2:37 The Diaphragm Pulse
4:24 The Beggar's Pulse
5:55 The Jaws Vibrato
7:43 Maroon 5 Vibrato
9:29 Happy Birthday Vibrato
10:53 The Ghost Vibrato
12:37 5 Tone Hee
13:56 5 Tone Fee
15:44 Octave Sustain She
16:37 Octave Sustain Hee
17:11 Octave Sustain Fee
18:21 Octave Sustain Foo

[arvid_c.s.]

Dude, I don't know how you did that, but it actually WORKED FIRST TRY. And I'm anything but easily teachable - Thanks a lot man!

[vicheaou]

Me doing this at night :
My family thinking I'm tryna summon something

[Lianne-issa]

I think the part that people always miss is that you have to train your vocal chords over time to do vibrato. I used to get so frustrated with these YouTube videos because I would do all of the exercises and still couldn’t find vibrato and I mean none!!! But I never lost hope, I kept trying and I’ll never forget the first time a tiny bit of vibrato crept into my voice! I literally jumped for joy, it was only on my lower notes to begin with and over time it’s gradually spreading across my range. I’m still not where I want to be but having seen the progress I’ve made I now know it’s possible and will keep doing the exercises. Don’t give up people! Videos like this are fantastic, in fact this is one of the best ones I’ve seen. Keep practising.

[TexasFlyBoy]

OMG! The Ghost Vibrato @ 10:53 just *unlocked* my vibrato! Literally. I've always been able to "carry a tune", quite well, in fact (definitely better than the average karaoke crowd - haha). But this is the first time in my life I feel I've truly accomplished something in my singing voice. It's an epiphany that has opened my voice for greater things. I know I have much, *much* more learning and practicing before I can control it well, and I know it sounds ridiculous, but already I'm thrilled at what I've done in just the past few minutes of watching your video. I've tried it on a couple of my favorite songs. I feel so overwhelmed and liberated, and now tears have filled my eyes. Sincerely... Thank you!

[EYMmusic]

WOW. Your first exercise helped me so much I literally JUMPED in excitement. My vibrato has always been very fast and a little shaky this helped me have control thank

[albo]

Just want to thank you. I've been an amateur singer for all my life... I've always had a strong voice and a good sense for pitch, but I've never been able to sing genuine vibrato very well. This is literally the first video that enabled me to do it. Seriously, thank you! I still have to perfect it, but this is going to change my singing big time. Big thumbs up
!! :)

[weezyouttahere]

Practicising the "oOoOoOoO" at night and my mom's scared

[Mynelka]

The 1st NO NONSENSE video tutorial I`ve come across so far ... the guy can explain and demonstrate without super long useless intros and some super " secret " voodoo ... good job

[cwrocks]

I spent months doing vocal exercises for developing vibrato, but nothing seemed to work for me no matter how much I practiced. I watched countless YouTube videos on how to develop vibrato and tried the advice given by them to no avail.

However, I went for a run today (3 miles) for the first time in a few months and was out of breath when I was finished. It turns out that all the heavy breathing (I have exercise induced asthma) from running was exactly the warm up I needed to sing with vibrato.

I got in my car after the run and did a vocal exercise I’d been trying for vibrato and all of a sudden I could easily sing with vibrato seemingly out of nowhere. It took me by surprise and I couldn’t believe I could finally do it. I was so excited. Singing with vibrato felt so natural and easy and I’m still in shock that all I needed to do was run to get my lungs warmed up. I couldn’t get a single note with vibrato yesterday, but I’m easily singing Bohemian Rhapsody with vibrato today.

If anyone else just can’t seem to sing with vibrato no matter what they attempt, try running a few miles or however long you can until you’ve been breathing heavily for a while, drink some warm water, and then try singing with vibrato.

[HabitGat]

Let me take a moment to express how grateful I am for the way you teach dude, from having unique exercises, articulating yourself and keeping the objective clear. I’ve watched other videos on the same topic and your video has brought me the greatest progress, that first exercise had me laughing at myself and before I knew it, I became more comfortable and relaxed! shoutouts and big ups to you brother man, thank you! subscribed!

[UsualSuspectsHalifax]

Brilliant, thank you! Never too old to improve, I'm 72 been playing guitar for well over 50 years in bands and now play in an acoustic duo and need to improve my vocals, this has really helped. Cheers

[rubyo]

it’s 1AM nd i want to practise. probs not best for my parents

[scottihotti]

I feel like I’m forcing my vibrato, it doesn’t come naturally to me when I sing notes. I even try to let my vocals be loose, but then I sound flat and find myself tensing up and shaking my stomach to get something that sounds a little like vibrato.

[MandaJackson]

Thank you for this. I was a professional singer (rock, metal, musical theatre, opera) for a long time, but after 15 years no singing had lost confidence and am about to record some vocals for someone in a jazz style. These exercises really helped warm my voice back into it and give me confidence I can still sing ok :)

[juanantoniogonzalez]

I have tried the gee technique from your other videos and it helped me with the vibrato. The thing to understand is that it takes a while for one to see results. It's like working out any other muscle in your body. It takes time and dedication to the exercises he is teaching.

[kyarar]

“at this point you should be able to find some of that vibrato” NO NO I HAVE NOT FOUND IT

[sinkvenice]

I’ve been trying to learn vibrato for years, to no avail. Until I watched this video! This is incredibly helpful and actually worked, I’m amazed. Thank you so much!

[jaredini]

I can never ever get it purposefully. Occasionally it just happens and it's perfect but can never do it again. It's maddening.

[alyssa]

I’ve never seen anyone explain how to accomplish a vibrato so clearly and simply, thank you sm 😭💕✨