Dear Wim:
You wrote:
>Looking at it this way, couldn't Garcia's falsetto then be equated
>to the lower part of 'light mechanism' ? If this is true then
>Garcia's falsetto and the female middle voice would be one and the
>same thing, making it quite logical that he placed the falsetto
>in the middle between chest and head registers.
COMMENT: "If this is true then Garcia's falsetto and the female
middle voice would be one and the same thing" How ever did you
extrapolate that statement from the balance of your information.
Clearly Garcia DID place his definition of "falsetto" between the
head voice and the chest voice. But Garcia's special definition of
"falsetto" in this range of the male voice does not relate either in
range nor in vocal quality to the middle female voice. I do not
understand how you can say they "would be one and the same thing."
A step further. The light mechanism, according to Vennard's favorite
use of the term, describes the vocal quality one obtains when the
vocalis muscle is no longer the primary antagonistic force that
resists the lengthening of the vocal folds caused by the cricothyroid
muscles. As the vocalis muscle releases its tension, the vocal
ligament assumes the important role of resisting the cricothyroid
lengthening of the vocal folds. The body of the vocal folds becomes
thinner, the resultant oscillation less complex, and the resultant
partials more clearly produced. Head voice is the common term to
describe this quality.
As the voice descends in pitch from head voice it is desirable for
the singer to develop the ability to gradually involve the vocalis
muscle in the phonation until it becomes, once again, the primary
antagonistic force which is its role in the heavy mechanism (chest
voice). The reverse would be true as the voice ascends in pitch.
The skill required to achieve this transition from vocal ligament to
vocalis muscle activity (and back again) is the primary skill
required to transcend the register changes that are present in both
the male and female voice.
However, if one follows the Garcia model, one maintains the vocal
ligament activity downward beyond the point at which it would
normally have little function and, simultaneously, maintains the
inactivity of the vocalis muscle in a range in which it should have a
primary function. This distorts the normal oscillation function of
the vocal folds and would appear to give little benefit in helping
the singer achieve the desired gradual transition from light to heavy
mechanism. The Garcia falsetto technique might have some value as a
demonstration device to make the singer aware of normal verses the
abnormal functioning of the chest voice but as a training device I
have not found it useful.
And, without a doubt, Garcia's definition of falsetto provides a
major confusion when compared to the modern definition of falsetto
(the high male voice that resembles a female voice).
--
Lloyd W. Hanson, DMA
Professor of Voice and Vocal Pedagogy, Emeritus
Director of Opera-Theatre, 1987-1997
School of Performing Arts
Northern Arizona University
Flagstaff, AZ
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