Vibrato At The End Of A Phrase

In this lesson and the next, we’re using vibrato in the context of songs, rather than vocal exercises. Today, we’ll use the “Star Spangled Banner” and a jazz standard called “It Had to Be You”. 

We won’t sing the entire song, and I’ve chosen a key that puts our melody in a medium-low range so the majority of singers will be comfortable!

See if you can identify the first few phrases in the Star Spangled Banner:

F7   Bflat           F  Gm7  D7      gm       C7     F
Oh, say can you see  by the dawn's early light
                      Bflat       F      Eflat      Bflat      F       Bflat
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming?

The way most people sing this is in 4 phrases:
Oh, say can you see
By the dawn’s early light
What so proudly we hailed
At the twilight’s last gleaming

In reality, that’s one (long) sentence in the form of a question, but the melody and the built-in pauses give us 4 phrases. 

If you listen to any version of this song, chances are you’re going to hear vibrato at the end of most phrases. That would be on the words “see”, “light”, “hailed” and “gleaming”. Let’s give it a try! And if vibrato comes in other places too, we welcome that!

F7   Bflat           F  Gm7  D7      gm       C7     F
Oh, say can you see  by the dawn's early light
                    Bflat        F      Eflat    Bflat   F       Bflat
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming?

If you’d like vibrato but it’s not coming easily, recall a syllable that helped you earlier in the course, and use that in place of the lyrics.. You may also choose an exercise that has helped you, and sing that first, just to get things going!

Let’s try one more song, “It had to be you”. Here’s the melody of the very beginning:

G7        C   G7  C   C7        A7   Gm7   A7
It had to be you,    it  had to be you, 
  A7           E7         A7      E7         D7       G7     D7    G7
I wandered a – round, and finally found, the somebody who

Vibrato on “you”, “round”, “found” and “who”. Again, feel free to sing on a helpful syllable if needed!

Let’s try it together:

G7        C   G7  C   C7        A7   Gm7   A7
It had to be you,    it  had to be you, 
  A7           E7         A7      E7         D7       G7     D7    G7
I wandered a – round, and finally found, the somebody who;

Continue this practice with any song you’re currently working on!