A study of vibrato: assessment by panel of judges compared to spectral voice analysis.

Experts in voice singing and voice training were asked to judge the vibrato of 30 singers (4 samples per singer: a sung [a] held without vibrato; a sung a[ held with vibrato; a self-selected passage and an imposed passage. In the first part, they ticked the type of oscillations (vibrato, straight tone, tremolo, quivering...). In the second part, they appraised various criteria. Intra-judge and inter-judge consistencies were determined. The subjective parameters were thereafter correlated with the measurements of six parameters of the MDVP (MultiDimentional Voice Program). The measurements were carried out on each task. Intra-judge consistency was good for only one judge (67-87% consistency). Since judge 2 and 3 were hardly reproducible (45-73%; 28-57%) measurement of the inter-judge consistency was pointless. The results of judge 1 were correlated with the Fundamental Tremor Frequency Index, the jitter and the shimmer.