为什么歌剧歌手喜欢用颤音

为什么歌剧歌手喜欢用颤音

　　导言：颤音，是以某一音高为中心上下稳定振动。实质是用气息演绎歌曲的时候，强大的气流冲击口腔和鼻腔后部所产生的震动，小腹给予气息的压力产生了气流。 气息是根本。很多歌剧歌手很倾向于用颤音唱法。大约在16世纪末期，歌手突然需要在歌剧院中加入管弦乐队，并且在歌唱嗓音中加入一系列的色彩和织体这就使得颤音唱法流行起来。

　　Why do opera singers use so much vibrato?

　　为什么歌剧歌手这么喜欢用颤音?

　　If you ask someone to imitate an opera singer, you can guarantee that they will do so with a humorously excessive amount of vibrato. We asked professional soprano and Classic FM presenter Catherine Bott to explain why…To get started, here’s Susanna Hurrell singing Puccini with lots of amazing vibrato:But people didn’t always sing like that.

　　如果你让某个人模仿歌剧歌手，可以保证他们会用过分幽默的颤音来模仿。我们请专业女高音和经典调频主持人凯瑟琳·鲍特来解释为什么……开始之前，先看看苏珊娜·赫雷(Susanna Hurrell)用大量令人惊讶的颤音歌唱普契尼。但是人们并不总是那样唱。
 

　　So when did singers start using vibrato?Back in the day, Catherine explains (we’re talking pre-16th century), nobody needed to sing‘louder than lovely’. People sang outdoors, in church or at home, which could all be done at the same pitch as speaking.There were no opera houses, concert halls, or orchestras – and as a result, singers didn’t need to produce a very loud noise.

　　那么什么时候开始歌手们开始使用颤音?凯瑟琳解释道，回到那个年代(我们讨论的是16世纪之前)，没有人需要唱的“相比于更悦耳而言更响亮”的声音。人们在户外、教堂或者家里唱歌，可能都在同一个音高上，跟说话一样。那时没有歌剧院，音乐厅或管弦乐队——因此，歌手们不需要发出很大的声音。

　　But then, music started to get written down more, composers got more ambitious and people wanted to sing a much wider range of notes.Then, opera was invented.Around the end of the 16th century, singer suddenly needed to be able to project over an orchestra in an opera house– and a whole range of colours and textures were required from the singing voice.The key to vibrato (which comes from the Italian ‘vibrare’ – ‘to vibrate’) is about warming your voice up and helping it carry. It also makes a singer sound more human, and helps you identify with what they are singing.

　　但是在那以后，音乐开始创作得更多，作曲家们变得更有追求，人们想要演唱跨度更广泛的音符。之后，歌剧发明了。大约在16世纪末期，歌手突然需要在歌剧院中加入管弦乐队，并且在歌唱嗓音中加入一系列的色彩和织体。颤音(vibrato源自意大利语，从vibrare到vibrate)的关键在于让嗓音温暖起来并帮助其支撑。它也让歌手的声音变得更加人性化，并且让你听清他们在唱什么。
 

　　Technically speaking, vibrato alters the pitch and frequency at which you sing, but it should be so tiny and so fast that you don’t notice it’s happening.When vibrato was a ‘new’ thing in music, it was deployed as a colour, something you put in to warm a note up when you were singing about love and emotion. String players liked the sound of it so much that they copied it from singers shortly after…

　　从技术上而言，颤音改变了你唱歌时的音高和频率，但是变化幅度很小，你并不会注意变化的发生。当颤音在音乐界还是一种“新兴”事物时，它被当成一种颜色，当在唱关于爱和情感的歌时，将其加入其中来润色音符。
 

　　So vibrato was invented in the 16th century?

　　那么颤音是在16世纪发明的吗?

　　Not exactly. Even though vibrato was treated as something ‘new’ at the time, it’s always been around. Vibrato is as natural as breathing, and we couldn’t make noise without passing air through our voice boxes. The air passes through, and it vibrates in order to make sound, so even the straightest sound has a bit of vibrato in it.

　　并非如此。在那时尽管颤音是被当做一种新兴事物来对待，但它始终是存在的。颤音就像呼吸一样自然，如果我们不让空气经过我们的喉头，我们就无法发声。空气经过，并且振动发出声音，所以甚至最直的声音在其中都有颤音。
 

　　And for this reason, Catherine says, she would never want to be without it.When you watch Maria Callas as Tosca,pleading for her lover’s life and her own virtue in‘Vissi d’arte’–‘I have lived for my art’–she uses a heck of a lot of vibrato.But we want to hear every single bit, because it shows that Tosca and Maria Callas are human.

　　基于这点，凯瑟琳说道，她从未想过不用颤音。当你看到玛丽亚卡拉斯(Maria Callas)扮演的托斯卡(Tosca)在《vissi d ' arte》(“艺术生活”)中为她爱人的生命和她自己的道德恳求时，她使用了大量的颤音。但是我们希望听到每一个单独的音，因为这样才能说明托斯卡和玛利亚·卡拉斯是个人。