Hello My Esteemed Colleagues:
Although I am FAR from the most educated, experienced and informed singer
on the list, I would still like to post an answer that actually contains a
question. LOL!
Ok, I myself have a high tenor facility. Just to clarify, my teacher had
an internationally successful opera career, has a Masters Degree from
Julliard, studied with Seth Riggs directly for 5 years and is a certified
Speech Level Singing Instructor. Thus she does NOT allow me to sing in any
way that could potentially harm my voice including singing with a high
larynx, spreading my vowels, using air blast (too much subglottal
pressure??) and other no nos. So we regularly vocalize up to the C two
octaves above Middle C. Now I can sing all of my high notes in two "modes"
and I have had to do this on several occasions when people didn't believe me
that I wasn't singing in a reinforced falsetto but in a full, connected head
voice all the way up. I can sing how I normally sing all the way up form my
lowest note in chest, no break or disconnection in a full, supported voice.
I can also purposely disconnect into a falsetto function which is not very
usable in my opinion. So I am assuming the former is my head voice and the
latter my falsetto. I do NOT belt chest at all! My primo passagio starts at
around an E or F above Middle C. I m a rock/metal singer BTW. I also do
musical theatre like Phantom, Les Mis, J.C. Superstar, Jekkyl & Hyde, etc.
Not the nasal brassy style of musical theatre. Yuk! ;)
So I suppose my definition of head voice is a voice that extends upward
but never disconnects form the bottom or the low support. I don't know...
Yours In Music,
Denis J. Lanza
Vocalist
-----Original Message-----
From: Greypins@a...]
Sent: Saturday, March 30, 2002 6:03 PM
To: vocalist-temporary@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [vocalist] how do you define 'head voice'?
after our recent discussions on registration and whether or not pop
singers ever use head voice, it occured to me that we probably don't have a
concensus on what actually constitutes 'head voice'. i am interested in
knowing how many of you think that it only needs to be a change in behavior
of the vocal folds or, does there have to be an accompanying change in the
resonator as well. do you think is it possible to make a change in vocal
fold behavior without a change in the resonance? (obviously, it is
possible
to increase crico-thyroid activity with both low and high larynx which would
affect resonance.)
for this discussion, and really any discussion we would have on
technique, it would be most helpful to cite specific examples. it is my
impression that some of us are in agreement as to what has been written on
the subject but are not in agreement as to what those findings might sound
like. this, of course, leads to a discussion of connecting the research to
the practice.
mike
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