[Psalm 73]

I have her "Diamonds and Rust" album - her distinctive voice is called, what, "tremelo", where it quivers?

Like most artists, she's a liberal nut case, but her music is never-the-less, sweet (as Tupelo honey).

[lee martell]

Tremelo. So that is the correct term. For some, it’s an acquired appreciation, but I’ve always enjoyed that vocal technique when done well.

Joni Mitchell also specialized in using that skill, especially in her early and mid career, before her voice began to toughen from age and chain smoking around 1985.

Johnny Mathis, same story of tremelo, when he was younger and in full voice.

The three J’s.

[Trailerpark Badass]

No, it’s vibrato. Vibrato is variation in pitch while tremolo is variation in volume.

[imardmd1]

I listened to it again. Trained vocal artists use a cyclical variation of the voice on sustained tones of the melody to enhance the presentation: of the pitch of intonation, vibrato one might term a lilt; of the volume only, the tremolo, which you have well described as a quiver.

When I played this video back again. it was clear that Baez was unmistakably employing tremolo, not the much sweeter vibrato. Either style of variation can also be achieved with a wind instrument, but only vibrato with a viol-type instrument; neither with a fretted guitar/mandolin or piano.

Personally, I do not find tremolo a pleasant rendering of a melody, and would never train one to us it in place of vibrato as the customary rendering of sustained tones.