modes of singing

• Neutral: Singing at normal vocal effort, with not as much vibrato as in relaxed singing. Perhaps no effort to create the singers formant.
• Light: 6 dB softer than neutral singing, probably short glottis closure.
• Dark: Normal vocal effort, probably with larynx lowering resulting in lower formant frequencies.
• Soft: As soft as the singer considers artistically acceptable, which is much louder than the softest possible phonation. About 12 dB less intensity as in neutral singing.
• Loud: The recordings are normalised for SPL, you will only hear the effects on timbre. Loud singing yields 6-12 dB more SPL than neutral singing. The sound has rich overtones due to strong glottal adduction.
• Relaxed: The ideal beautiful sound, with agreeable vibrato. This sound does not differ much from neutral singing.
• Pressed: High muscular tension in and around the larynx. This wrong way of singing can be interpreted in many ways by singers. In most cases it will yield a sound which is rich in overtones, with a relative small first harmonic. There is a long glottal closure and a small maximum air flow. (The latter attribute corresponds to the low amplitude of the first harmonic.)
• Straight: It is difficult to sing without vibrato for a singer not especially trained for this. In a good realisation you will hear a straight tone because the fundamental does not modulate.
• Exaggarated vibrato: Exaggarated vibrato is usually realised by increasing vibrato depth, not by increasing the vibrato frequency (which is normally is 5-6 Hz).