Her ammunition is the magic fire within, the passion of the spoken word, the power of her vocal instrument.

"She had the single best vocal instrument of any singer working in the popular field," the singer Mel Torme said yesterday.

Miss Franklin has lost a little of her range and grown a little huskier, but her vocal instrument is still a major one.

In its smoothness and flexibility, that voice is arguably the most perfect all-around pop-jazz vocal instrument of the last half century.

In church music, the building was always the secondary soundbox for the vocal instrument (the nasal cavity being the first).

His music is written for nearly every medium, including orchestral, chamber, band, percussion, electronic, vocal, and even non-western instruments.

His was a big, dark and well blended vocal instrument with strong top notes and plenty of stamina and carrying power.

Mr. Noll's vocal instrument is formidable, but nuance is nonexistent.

She had a beautiful voice in her prime, with auditorium-filling high notes and a remarkably nimble technique for such a large vocal instrument.

He's at the limits of his vocal instrument in his new ones, trying to use the strain in his voice to suggest yearning.