David Grogan wrote :
<< Do you ever see the possibility of using falsetto to help a person find their head voice? For instance, if a singer cannot find their head voice because they are using the TA too high, and do not know how to relax it when singing. Wouldn't singing in falsetto relax the TA, and stretch the vocal cords, just like head voice, but without the medial compression? >>
This is exactly how I use it. Falsetto helps to open the pharynx in a relaxed way, to somehow "lift" the soft palate, to feel some useful "head" sensations, to feel the larynx in a relaxed position... Some male students seem to be stuck in a TA-only mode, as if they sang in a "raw chest" voice that not only hinders the high notes but also make the medium range somewhat "dull". Thi is often the case with pop singers whose ear was never cultivated by bel canto sounds. I frequently make them do descending scales from falsetto into chest, on different vowels (beginning with the easiest, [u], ending with the most difficult, [a]). When they can do it properly, I make them move the passaggio higher by a semi-tone each time. By doing so, I tell them that it is as if, while singing the last note, one octava below the first note, this last (low) note kept the same intensity of the first (high) note, but as a first harmonic instead of as the fundamental. Recently, I have experienced with a spectrogram and discovered that this "image" of mine was the exact truth : for example, when moving from G at 490 Hz in falsetto to G at 195 Hz in chest, there is no loss of intensity in the 490 Hz harmonic!
| Alain Zürcher, Paris, France | L'Atelier du Chanteur | http://chanteur.net
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