Dear Colin,
I'm including your message below so I could include the whole thing -
You brought up some excellent points...
The issues you mention are ones with which I have struggled as well.
There seems to be a notion out there that tenors do not produce a true
falsetto in the sense that baritones do. There are tenors who have claim
not to even have falsetto. Bjorling and Oberlin come to mind (both of
whom had an amazing upper extension). The highest tenors *do* sometimes
report a transition close to high B, however... maybe there is another
mode of phonation that kicks at that point?
A true, clinical falsetto may be identified by completely lax cords
(with volume control therefore impossible). Perhaps some men learn to
introduce tension into the folds enough to allow changes in volume as
well as pitch? Maybe this is the "in between" mechanism to which you
refer? Maybe this is a register in itself...
I can crossfade between head voice to "falsetto" (if that's really what
it is) on one breath. This kind of crossfade probably requires that the
singer have a sufficiently reinforced "falsetto", or even the ability to
reinforce it in the first place, and of course the muscular control to
switch dynamically from one mode to the other. Analogous conceptually to
the chest/head transition, I'd imagine. Believe it or not, I know a few
mezzos for whom this second passagio is more of a struggle than the
first! (Ladies, can anyone speak to this phenomenon from experience?)
As a countertenor trains, he develops the ability to sing longer lines.
Richard Miller chalks this up to learning to budget breath. Perhaps it
is more than that - Maybe there is development in the phonational
mechanism that allows the cords to adduct more fully? Since the cords
would no longer be slackened in this register (the only possible
explanation for the ability to control volume), it stands to reason
full closure might now also be achieved.
I can't believe what I'm doing up at top is falsetto: it is supposedly a
mode that can never be as loud as the rest of the voice. Truth is, my
upper register is the objectively loudest of all by a long shot. I've
run a spectral graph on my singing in the upper countertenor as compared
to my singing in the upper "traditional male" voice, and the wave form
is simply much more complex and higher in amplitude in my upper
countertenor voice.
Dr Colin D Reed <colin.reed@e...> wrote:
> I've never been quite certain about this. I can sing in falsetto (or
> what I would call falsetto). It is a slightly breathy sound with no
> connection at all to my tenor head voice (I cannot switch from one to
> the other without restarting the note, or going through a bit of a
> yodelling stage) I run out of breath quicker in this voice (evidence
> for incomplete adduction), and yet I can crescendo and decrescendo
> (albeit more limited than my true voice) and can use vibrato. This
> would tend to go against the idea that you have stated above that the
> primary factor in changing pitch in falsetto is breath pressure.
> Maybe there is an "in between" mechanism?
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