There are lots of things that I believe are necessary conditions for good singing that are not sufficient; this is one of them. When I’m singing well, I feel gentle vibrations in my throat—just a light rumbling. This might not be true for everyone; I’ve never asked opera singer friends about it, but it’s true for me.

That said, there are a lot of ways of singing that are TERRIBLE but that create vibrations in my throat. Just because I feel vibrations doesn’t mean I’m singing well, and I find that when I focus on rubrics like this I mostly end up singing terribly. I wouldn’t stress. There are lots of better things to focus on.

You won't necessarily feel vibrations in your face when you are singing well. You might, but not necessarily.

Try humming. You probably feel vibrations around your nose while humming, hmm? The air (and sound) pass through your nose, and vibration can be more noticeable there. When you're singing with an open mouth, though, the air should not flow through your nose; the nose is a poor resonator. So I've known some vocal coaches to use vibration around the nose as a cue that the singer is using the nose too much and should raise the soft palate.

There is a lot of mythology built up around "voice placement" in singing -- much of it being useful mythology, because imagining the sound in a particular part of the head can prompt us to sing with more resonance and produce stronger, clearer harmonic overtones. If you feel vibrations in a particular place when your coach says you're singing well (or when you sound best on recordings), great; you can use that as a reminder. If not, no big deal. The vibrations aren't something to chase after for their own sake.

I have to disagree with some of the other answers. Here’s what I tell my students: “Vibrato is a natural, inevitable (but controllable) phenomenon produced by a relaxed, breath-supported tone. If you’re not producing vibrato, you’re not doing one or both of those two things correctly.” This is a doctrine held by classical musicians for centuries, and science has borne this out.

If your style is “crooning,” appoggio (breath support) in the classical sense may not be necessary, and so vibrato can be employed as an effect or interpretive device. But any technique that requires projection without conscious manifestation of vibrato is a dangerous one, for it is asking the voice to work in a way inconsistent with its design.

The voice is the transmission, not the engine. Air coming from the lungs has a pulsated shape (kind of like a corkscrew), and the brain sends activation signals to the larynx to keep the desired pitch. There is a refresh rate that, for a healthfully relaxed voice, does not keep the voice fully engaged 100% of the time—it lets you take a very brief rest, which results in a pitch dip, before reactivating and starting the process over.

If you don’t have vibrato, your voice is invariably doing work other parts of the body are supposed to be doing… or you are doing without some crucial aspect in singing (such as power, like in crooning as mentioned above).

Vibrato isn’t a goal in and of itself; with respect to technique, it’s an early-level “achievement,” then an interpretive device; beyond that, just a diagnostic tool. But its presence is basic and indispensable to your technique. If you don’t use it, your singing is too tense or you’re singing without classically-defined breath support. The former is always bad for you; the latter is tolerable if the singing has a lower power engagement.

I do feel vibrations in the throat, but mostly in the lower to middle range. Once I get past my second break (F5 or so), the vibrations shift more to the top of my head, not in the throat really. In that part of my voice, I can feel the vibrations behind my upper molars/back roof of my mouth, and it feels as though the sound is coming out of the top of my head near the very top of my range (Bb5 to the high C).

I'm a soprano, so for mezzos, it might be different, I don't know. As David said, I don't think it is the most important indicator-rather, I think it is a byproduct when you are doing the other more important stuff right.

Q: What are the things that help in singing?

Have in-person singing lessons if you can. That’s the best way to learn good techniques.

Be realistic about any goals you have for your voice. For instance, if you want to extend your vocal range, which a lot of people do, remember that it’s not going to extend overnight and it’s not going to suddenly extend by a lot all at once. It takes time to gain each individual new note. Another thing to bear in mind is that everyone’s voice has its limits. This doesn’t just apply to expanding your vocal range, but everything about your voice. Try not to be disappointed if you’ve reached your voice’s limits in regards to something.

Sing what you enjoy. If you sing songs you know and like, you’ll have more fun than if you’re not. Singing is a good musical skill to have, but learning to sing should be fun as well.

There’s not a lot of literature on this subject, but I think I can make a strong case that moving your hand (and other gestures often called “studioisms”) are helpful for singing. Basically this breaks down both consciously and unconsciously:

1. Consciously, it can be a challenge to manifest a number of internal physical actions without the use of external body direction. The most common example of this is with airflow: lots of people will use a hand to mime their airflow, which reminds them at all times where the air is going. It’s actually pretty easy to see how useful this can be even for a non-singer: even in absolute beginners, if you ask them to move their hand at a slow, constant rate as they sing, either they’ll struggle mightily and their hand will stop and start (or shake) or they’ll sing with relatively consistent, easy flow. In my own technique work, I’ll use hand (and sometimes full-body) motions for more complex stuff than breath flow, like tongue shape and angle, resonance, etc., but it’s basically the same principle. It’s all about externalizing stuff that normally happens internally, and that can thus be confusing.
2. There’s also an unconscious component here, which is maybe more interesting and surprising: arm tension correlates to laryngeal tension. This is pretty easy to test for yourself, also: while singing a phrase, tense and relax your bicep and see how much easier it is to sing gently with your bicep released. It also works the opposite way: if you try to sing tensely with a loose arm, it’s actually pretty hard to do. When you do a studioism properly, you’re preventing your arm from stiffening, which cuts down on laryngeal tension, though obviously not entirely.

Of course, studioisms come in various forms, some of which are less obvious than others. My teacher is really fond of demonstrating this through the example of this video of Callas singing Casta Diva:

Her hands are on her arms gently, and you can see her almost petting the side of her arm slightly. She sings almost the whole aria with her arms crossed like this, but with absolutely no arm tension. It’s one of the most beautiful recordings of her singing, and a great example of how you can use studioisms in extremely subtle ways.

Hi! I am a singer and singing coach - what you are looking at is where are you placing your sound when you sing? It is true that when one is singing from the face (or the mask as it would be called) - you can feel vibrations. I wonder if you are presently singing deeper notes that are coming from your chest. Or perhaps you are singing from your throat (which is not the best placement health wise). When you sing from your mask and allow the sounds to really come forward and out of you, you will probably feel more buzzy and tingly...it is not imperative that you do in order to sing well, but it certainly will inform you where the sound is coming from so that you can have more control over it. You can experiment by humming...and specifically imagining the humming sound to come forward and out of your lips, cheeks and nose. See if that causes vibrations for you...
Good luck and enjoy your voice - vibrating or not!! :)

You can easily test this out yourself. You need to do 2 recordings of you singing the same song (just a simple recording on a phone will do) One with a vibrato applied at what appears to be the correct places (every now and then) and as soulful as possible without forcing it. The other where vibrato is applied to every single syllable. When you listen over to them on playback, one of them is going to sound a bit (very) silly and the other one isn’t. Although I will add, more modern soul fuelled singers tend to make their ooh, ahh, whoa wo wo wahhhh-HhHhHhHhHhs (⬅️ that is vibrato in letter form) way to long and drawn out that it’s almost like a parody and rather ridiculous anyway. :(

I feel a little awkward answering, since I see now there are answers from people a lot more qualified than me here :) But since I have a draft that I started when there were no answers, I’ll still post it and add my few cents here:)
As a rule no, or at least not too much, definitely not as much as you would singing solo. But it also depends on a lot of things: the style of music you are singing, for example there is a ton on beautiful music coming from the Orthodox church that is usually sung with vibrato, or many other songs from that russian part of the world, just listen to the Alexandrov’s choir for example. You should check also the time period and composers of the piece, for example singing in a choir for a Wagner’s opera would justify more vibrato too. So in general try to minimise vibrato in a choir, but whatever you are singing, first check what category that particular piece falls into. It’s not always easy, but there is a lot of literature on it and you can find it if you search hard enough ;)

First you need to figure out what your natural range is. When my son tries to sing popular music, he sounds *awful* - but he is the mainstay in the bass section of our choir. And I know a woman who thought for years that she couldn’t sing, because she couldn’t sing soprano - but she’s got a beautiful tenor voice. So experiment a little with vocal range, singing do-re-mi at a variety of pitches until you get to the point where you’re straining to reach the upper registers. Then STOP. You don’t want to damage your voice permanently.

Then see how well you can reproduce your favorite kind of music. Can you sing it back note for note? If not, work with it until you can.

Then I would find a chorus of some sort. Church choirs are the easiest to find, and not too awfully picky. See what the director can teach you, in terms of sight-reading and choral diction (hint: you don’t pronounce sung words the same way as spoken words). Community choruses are actually quite a bit pickier, in terms of their expectations of singers, but if the idea of a church choir really frosts you, give the community chorus a shot. They might be willing to work with you.

The idea is not just to improve your singing, but to improve your overall awareness of vocal music. Choral singing teaches you to focus your attention on your own part, while still listening to the other parts for things like cues (when to come in on your part). The emphasis on choral diction teaches you to appreciate precision in the spoken word as well as the sung word. And of course, the fun of singing with other like-minded persons is unbeatable.

Vibrato during g singing is a vital part if a classical singer or you are trying to weave a sweet rhythmic patterns on high pitch. To get this boon, you will have to mind these factors very perfectly.

1. Don't shout more!.

To make a vibrato effect during singing, your throat should be contracted and have a flexible throat muscle. Shouting can widen your throat and harden your muscles. There's no way you can do a vibrato if you yell and shout like Indian politicians during their rally.

2. Gargling with warm water + salt.

Gargling every morning with a solution of warm salty water 32 times every morning you wake up is best method to get your throat clean and ultimately get over a control of it ( gargle before brushing your teeth).

3. Avoid spicy food.

Spicy food can scratch your thyroid wall and cause gaps where your sound will sound like a dying goat or something when you try to do vibrato.

These 3 stuff can help you out!

Yes but. Vibrato is a natural result of efficient alignment, breathing, and coordination. It’s a result of the “alternating current” in the nervous/muscular system. Vibrato will be present in an optimally -produced voice.

That said, sometimes singers “assist” the vibrato to try and create that sound. It’s a bad idea, and will likely produce unwanted tension.

When an optimally-produced voice with vibrato has been developed, then controlling the vibrato for expressive purposes or perfect tuning is certainly fine (vibrato is an oscillation in pitch, thus a voice with vibrato won’t be completely in tune at every moment). But a projecting solo quality, unassisted by a microphone, will have some vibrato.

John makes good points. However, it also depends.

Trained singers will naturally have vibrato; it’s a naturally occurring phenomenon in a healthy, trained voice. When singing full voice, at forte in a choir, it is not correct, is unhealthy, and unfair to those with developed voices to REQUIRE they sing without vibrato. They will likely be uncomfortable vocally, and will likely not stay in the choir - and every choir needs good, trained voices to sound good.

However, good choir singers must be versatile and flexible. In piano passages, vibrato is distracting and damaging to the tuning, balance and blend, and most importantly, at all times, the vibrato must be controlled. Remember that vibrato is an oscillation in pitch, and in sections that need vertical (harmonic, chord) tuning, vibrato is a big problem.

So, don’t prohibit vibrato, but control it for the best possible tuning, blend and balance.

Yes and no. I’ll expound.

Of course! Singing is an expression of emotion. It’s a look into the performer’s sense of passion and interpretation of a language beyond words in most cultures. You can always tell the difference between a singer who was feeling the music and one who wasn’t. One can hit the same notes with the same inflection, volume, timbre and duration; but without the emotion something’s just missing. It’s that way with any instrument; but most noticeably the human voice. Emotion can add a certain x-factor to whatever is being sung.

Sometimes no. If performing at a funeral or any other event where one must be composed and maintain a modicum of dignity, it can hamper one’s performance. I’ve often been singing quite emotional pieces (to me anyway) and upon letting that emotion take over I’ll begin to choke up and almost sob. It’s very hard to sing through that. It can have a positive effect when it lets the audience know what you’re feeling, but if someone pays you to sing at their wedding and you can’ stop sobbing the whole time; you may not get too many more gigs. If you’re singing Happy Birthday for the eleventy sixth time to a child or loved one, you might not want to convey boredom. In my eyes, certain exceptions do apply.

That being said, sing how you want to. If the emotion hits you and you want to go with it; do it. If you want to tamp it down to get through the piece; do that. There’s no one, hard, fast rule about emotion in music.

“If there were words for every emotion there would be no need for music.”

-J. Davis

You are not alone.

Whether you’re female or male, higher notes always need more support, as do piano and pianissimo notes.

In all cases, never “push.” Don’t push your chest voice high, and don’t go beyond your current comfort range in head voice either.

You will gain more range by acknowledging what you have. Kind of like being grateful and appreciating what you have in your life, if you want to attract more of it.

Here are the three MUST HAVES in order for your voice to vibrate freely in any range:

1. Your voice naturally vibrates any time the vocal folds are allowed to swing freely.
2. The way to allow them to be free to vibrate is to create a column of air that is stable and supported enough to allow your throat to be open, and unconstricted.
3. The way to create a stable, yet flexible column of air is to support from below, from your power or motor area in your tummy. Both, intercostals and abdominals need to be engaged at all times, if your air is to be supported, in order to allow your throat to be open so your vocal folds can vibrate freely.

I hope this helps you. It’s a great sign that you’re able to hold a high note for a long time, meaning you have good lung capacity already.

Now just create more space in your body between your motor (power chakra, with the help of abdominals and intercostals) and your throat, so it can be open, unconstricted and allow your folds to vibrate in complete freedom and joy.

Enjoy!

This would be a great question to ask a physician, who knows and fully understands the breath cycle and whether there is any true benefit to tensing the abs.

My opinion is this:

The diaphragm pulls in the air. The abs help to expel it. The oblique, transverse, rectus abdominus, and trianglaris sterni are the abs involved in forced expirations. You usually do not need to force out the air, unless the vocal folds are severely hyper-adducted and are closing off the air stream. If hyper-adducted, that can cause irritation and swelling, potentially.

Tensing the abs may inhibit or assist exhalation, depending upon the volume level of the tone produced. Brass instrument players tend to flex the abs, but being a trombonist for 60 years and a singer for as long, being a professional for 51 years, I say that the so-called support (flexing abs) that I do on the instrument would adversely affect my singing tone quality and possibly cause irritation.

The truth of the matter is that you must do what works for you and without causing injury. If you over-breathe or over-tense abdominal muscles, you will notice the problems these things cause. Try to adapt to what works for yourself.

Well since you are male… A falsetto is basically how most males reach high notes. This takes practice and often times they NEED to do a falsetto to reach the high notes.
We all have different instruments for a voice. Some have a tuba (REALLY LOUD), while some have a flute and more. So know what your voice is like. Is it better off for lower notes (especially if you have a deep voice)? And so on. Maybe it’s that your voice simply is not made to sing high notes. Though do practice more and see a tutor maybe or private lessons- some form of help. At the end of the day, everyone sings differently and find what works for your voice!

That depends on whether you're male or female, because that usually, but not always, determines the range of your voice. Now what do you mean by LOW? Low for a soprano might be middle C, while low for a baritone could be two octaves below middle C.

In any event, I suggest you take singing/voice lessons. Your voice is an instrument that must be exercised and trained. The longer you study voice, the better you'll be at singing and you can work on stretching the limits of your range.

Your instructor will teach you how to sing with a vibrato, although for many that just comes naturally.

It would behoove you to learn how to read sheet music. If you don't play an instrument and have no idea how to sing when looking at the music, I suggest you begin with the piano. You'll be playing and singing your heart out in no time.

Not really, no.

In my experience from musical theater, making a big arm gesture can make one have a little less control just as doing a combined dancing and singing scene can negatively impact singing because one might have less breath control while the heart is pumping faster from dancing. Hand and arm movements can be part of the expression in interpreting a song in a solo or a small group performance, but if you look at videos of excellent choirs from around the world you can observe that singers are not making arm gestures. It would be incredibly distracting to the audience and the conductor see 30, 40 or 50 people all randomly waving an arm during a performance.

Arm gestures are not necessary to control pitch, breath, tone or anything else for an experienced, trained vocalist. In amateur groups or with children, using a visual aid like raising an arm is sometimes done as a psychological reminder for pitch to avoid going flat. In amateur and professional groups, one may observe people keeping time with a body part like a toe tapping, a leg moving, a hand moving or even a whole body moving like in a small bounce or “tick.” This can help the leader to project the “time” to other musicians and help someone receiving the time to stay “in the pocket” where they are visually locked in with others even if they cannot necessarily hear an individual player on the far side of a stage.

Unfortunately, some less skilled singers will project their own time with things like arm gestures while in a group and that provides a visual confirmation that they are not staying with the pianist, drummer, conductor or whomever is supposed to be projecting the time to the whole group. In a choir using a conductor, that conductor is the one controlling and projecting time with her arms. In a combo, it will be a leader who may or may not be playing a rhythm instrument who chooses the tempo and projects it or who has another musician project it.

When I am the cantor during a Catholic liturgy, I do occasionally signal musicians with a hand gesture for returning to the top of a song or making it the last verse before the final ending because the Communion lines are either running extra slowly or nearly finished. However, I don't use arm gestures in the manner of a pop singer as that calls unwanted attention to me as an individual instead of leaving the focus on the words from Scripture in the songs. I have no need to move my arms at all in order to fully expand my lungs for good breath support while singing.

I suggest that anyone who feels they must move their arms in some big gesture to hit high notes should do research by watching videos of classical/opera singers. Some people feel more comfortable moving, but I have not seen the science to show it is necessary for “control.” I want to be clear that I am not knocking it if that's what someone feels they need to do, but if someone is learning to sing please work on your technique so that you can do it even if tied to a stake on stage unable to lift a finger. You never know what conditions might come up some day when you will need to get a song done without relying on a movement.

Here is one performance by Pavarotti where one can clearly see his gestures are part of the acting and not correlating with high notes or anything technical in the singing. In fact, his arms are not raised for most of the piece and definitely not during the moments when his voice is doing more “gymnastics.”

This would really depend on how you want the different parts of the song you’re singing to be presented.

A phrase sung loudly can evoke some strong emotions and passion.

That same phrase sung softly can have a different impact on the listener by having other instruments drop out at the same time, which could draw special attention to the words themselves.

As Nathaniel Manns said, you shouldn’t really HAVE to get louder on a high note. You should be able to control your voice enough to where you can sing a high note in your range either loudly or softly…you should be able to make that decision.

So, I guess the real question, then, is what emotion are you trying to convey?

This is something that you’ll need to answer for yourself depending on the song you’re singing.

As a suggestion, if you want a portion of the song to convey stronger emotions, passion, energy, drive, etc…then sing loudly.

If you want a portion of the song to convey more intimacy, focused attention, calmness, quietness, etc…then sing softer.

If you’re singing with other musicians, keep in mind to talk about your vision for each portion of the song with the whole band so that way you’re not trying to quiet everything down while the drummer and electric guitarist are trying to drive on and rock out.

Keep everyone together with respect to the dynamics of the song, and as a group you’ll be able to present a unified and impactful vision of the song to your audience.

As Evasan said, I advise you to instead of aiming towards eliminating your natural vibrato, you aim to control it. If you allow me a suggestion look up on youtube about head voice, singing with your diaphragm, how to control your vibrato, vocal fry, falsettos, etc… and you will find many exercises that you should practice every day until you master it. After you get all this knowledge from any source you get it from, then it comes to finding your own style, where you can either balance, overuse, or not really use at all some of these techniques, other techniques will just become a part of you, and you will do them naturally.