From the first lesson I teach children to sing chant "straight as an arrow" (make straight arm gesture). I prefer chanting to sound completely unified. Hymns, anthems and such can be a little more soloistic, for my taste.

O jeesh... don't get me started on vibrato... I am going to develop a tool called a vibratoextractor. Pushing vibrato for many is about being heard... when one looses him/her self into the sonority of a single sound, that is when true harmonics begin to appear. [A group that does this well (and although I wouldn't model sacred music after them) is the Dale Warland singers]. I always tell my choristers that if they can hear themself then they are singing too loud. You must congeal into the mix. A little vibrato doesn't hurt here and there, but when you have a straight tone choir and that single soloist is riding the wave of the sound, that is when I want the extractor.

I find that children on the other hand, are natural blenders. The trick with them is getting pitch. I think one of my favorite choirs of all time is the Rundfunkchor of Berlin. You can hear a lot of their stuff on grooveshark if you can't afford their recordings.

Mark, I agree. It's a stylistic decision, not a dogmatic one.

Without mentioning straight tone to volunteer singers, I just try to concentrate on agreement of pure vowel sounds,
good breathing habits, listening and blending in tune with the ensemble.

Straight tone just sounds better in most sacred music. I'm not sure that, historically, it was an ideal...consider phenomena like folks layclerking for 50 years, or the voce da chiesa vs. voce da camera distinction. Particularly in the upper register, an absolutely straight tone can sound "tubular". You can overcontrol. What you DON'T want is the "church lady wobble". I once wrote an English Nunc Dimmittis for a choir with rancid-toned sopranos. I kept them out until "to be a light" and for "Glory be" until "as it was". And I divided them

David Pedersen's comments are spot-on and healthy from a pedagogical view. I use similar fixes with vowel uniformity and dynamics.
Many, many directors harm or ruin voices because they force strait tone without knowing how to help singers produce a healthy minimal vibrato.
When directors can't distinguish between a wobble and normal vibrato, it's a red flag that they need rudimentary knowledge of how the voice works.

This is further evidence that singer directors are needed and undervalued.

Many directors seek for a 'pure straight tone' and damage the voices entrusted to them.
We directors need to know principles of healthy singing and solid pedagogy before imposing any particular stylistic preference on singers. Straight tone and healthy singing are not necessarily at odds, but we need to know what we're doing, and not only act out of blind preference based on our favorite recordings.
I know this sounds stern, but we must remember that we are custodians of other people's God-given instruments-
and tread carefully.

SkirpR is right to observe the difficulty of discussing this topic without the benefit of examples. This one is by Nick Gale's gentlemen at Southwark Note the sense of line, and the the richness of tone (part of which is down to a controlled vibrato), which suits Southwark's acoustic admirably.

On the other hand, it's not exactly the parish schola that we're actually discussing here.

Jam

Here is one link I found. I do not claim that it is all true, so be careful what you read and what you employ.

http://www.voiceteacher.com/vibrato.html

Sing like a pig? We should get together- my voice teachers all told me I sing like Kermit the Frog.

My wife told me tonight that I'm sounding less like Kermit than I did when we were teenagers, so I guess that's probably important.

I think the consensus kind of coalesced around keeping vibrato to a minimum--rather than eliminating it altogher--along with working with what you've got. I don't think eliminating vibrato is healthy in mature voices (children are another matter). Maybe others have a different take on things.

I agree with the amount of vibrato found in my posts on the Dale Warland Singers and on the Rundfunkchor of Berlin. Go listen.

SkirpR

A 'dead acoustic' or 'pro verses amateur status' does not change the parameters surrounding the foundation for performing well executed sacred music. Sacred music demands that a schola or a choir achieves a homogeneous blend. Period. That has nothing to do with the environment around them OR the expertise of the individual members. I will also go so far as to agree with my colleagues here when they say that different 'styles' of music demand more or less vibrato. That is because there is confusion in the ranks about which composers belong to the category of the sacred music 'style'. That is simply because the likes of Mozart and Beethoven do not. It is a well known fact that neither of them were admirable models to the realm of Roman Catholic sacred music. They were mainly composers of entertainment and/or virtuosic (showy or acrobatic) musical feats. Haydn less so, but is still a borderline to the observation.

What has been entirely lost about the art of sacred music composition is what occurs in the relationship of concurring polyphonic voices both in the intervalic relationships over a given amount of time which is bound up in the mastery of creating dissonance and consonance, suspension and resolution (both in the prelude and postlude of musical phraseology) that elicit the desired and proper spiritual effects. Although the Classical composers mentioned above were straddling the two worlds of secular and sacred, the Romantic composers for the most part, abandoned that foundation of composition in favor of the 'show' factor and emotional appeal. To put it bluntly, from a spiritual music to a fleshly music.

When I came to my most recent position, the 'blend' did not exist. Most of the reason for this was because they were 'singing tunes' and not producing spiritual music. It took them about two years to "discover the ethos". That only occurs from losing the sense of self, and becoming one with the communal sound of 'the choir'.

Harmonics can only 'appear' after a measured moment of time when the choral blend has been achieved. If too much vibrato is introduced, the harmonics will never materialize.

I can most likely find for you recordings of the Dale Warland singers which they made in a recording studio, which has NO acoustics at all. The amount of vibrato is exactly the same. They (and their director) understood the finesse of creating excellent choral sonorities. What is more important than vibrato (by tenfold) are those very harmonics produced by straight-tone, or as I prefer to call it, choral-tone singing. I reject the concept of straight-tone because then everyone seems to argue about the point of how much or how little vibrato belongs where and when. Well, to me, that is nonsense. Vocal harmonics can occur in a vaccuum or in the reverberant ambiance of the Notre Dame Cathedral. Neither environment makes the difference. Choral-tone singing is the natural blend of voices found when individual egos are set at bay, and made to become part of the whole. Ego is very much tied up in the "rooster crow" of excessive vibrato. The concern is that "I am being heard" rather than the "we that is being heard". This also applies to the crooning cantors found hogging microphones.

The rise in operatic style has muddied the waters significantly, and is a cloaked assault on the nature of sacred music, without saying so. Part of the battle of winning the Church back to her sacred music roots is based in this highly misunderstood, but very important rule of thumb.

quia omnis qui se exaltat humiliabitur et qui se humiliat exaltabitur

And now I will add to this comment the fact that a dead acoustic environment in church architecture is contrary to the very nature of church architecture and to sacred music, (especially in the Roman Catholic and Russian Orthodox and perhaps Greek Orthodox traditions) and also destroys the 'true focus' of the liturgy. Putting choirs low in the sanctuary in front of the congregation is about as bad a mistake as the erroneous practice of putting Communion in the hand. Just because you can doesn't mean it is favorable. Here is an extreme comparison. (e.g., Satanists will glady take the host in their hand and run off to desecrate Jesus in their black masses... but will never receive Jesus on the tongue. In contrast, observe those that do.)

(for Charles.... hoot... hoot...)

Francis,

Some key points to consider: control; degree; acoustic; culture. Vibrato is not a single thing to be labelled good or bad. It can be controlled, uncontrolled or somewhere on the spectrum between the two, according to training and experience. It can vary in degree according to the size and acoustic of the building - assuming control, a richer, focused sound will carry better in a large church than a straight, off-the voice sound, while a small church will call for greater reserve. And one culture's rich, focused sound will be another's distraction (conpare, for example, the Russian Orthodox and the Anglicans).

Skip - BEAUTIFUL, vibrato or not! Bravo! The blend IS wonderful.

What other techniques can a conductor use to help amateurs control vibrato

I'm surprised that so many people seem to be running into this problem. Do you find a lot of amateurs that know how to sing with vibrato at all, even if it's a poorly executed one with lots of wobble? Just from my own experience, I would have guessed that it'd be the -achieving- of vibrato that would take some coaxing for amateurs like me.

SkirpR

Nice job! Excellent performance.

The vibrato is not offensive (to me) in this performance but here is my reflection on the work itself and a bit about the performance (after hearing it two time through).

It kind of lilts along and most of my attention goes to the piano and the voice seems to embelish the piano part... This is mainly because of the percussive nature of the instrument. I find myself wanting to hear it the other way around... I think the strings would make a huge dif. Another way to perform this would be with an 8' flute on the organ, do you think? (I don't really like using string stops with the choir as I find that the celeste competes with the choral sonority.) You were probably in a concert hall or a smaller less live space (at least I am guessing that is what it is from the acoustic).

As for the writing, it's a nice piece. It really is a concert piece. I personally would never program this for liturgical use (because of the pauses in the vocal parts), but that is not the issue we are discussing here.

The final Kyrie is gorgeous! I personally wanted to hear more of the choir when I heard that! To me, they found the ethos in their choral sound right there. If that is what you have to work with, you are quite lucky and blessed! What is the name of your ensemble?

I have found that if you tell singers who cherish their vibrato not to sing with vibrato, they tend to think that this will be unnatural and they sing in an unnatural fashion. I have found that in addition to matching vowels a good exercise is tuning, particularly in perfect intervals. I have them sing an octave in parallel fifths on a succession of vowels. In the effort to tune well, they achieve an amelioration of the vibrato without necessarily suppressing it entirely. It seems to me that the principal reason for "straight tone" is tuning, though timbre and clarity are important also, so if this is achieved, then there need be no mention of straight tone.

Concerning Westminster Cathedral, it was better under James O'Donnell; now the adult men are not being controlled, and they are singing with more vibrato that they used to do, with the effect that the men's parts in polyphony are a bit muddy. It goes without saying that in that enormous church, they have to sing quite loudly, still, the issue there is the control of vibrato, not necessarily its elimination.