Dear Lloyd and List:
Your latest post offers so many issues, I doubt I'll get the dishes done tonight!
Lloyd, your descriptions of registration are thorough and detailed, and I don't doubt your deep knowledge. But I regret that I always come away from these registration discussions feeling like the theories are not complete, and issues are not resolved.
On the issue of the male voice, you write: > The male high voice, usually called head voice, is a logical > extension of the chest voice except the cricothyroid muscles have > become active with a resultant lengthening and thinning of the vocal > folds and a substantial increase in their longitudinal tension.
I understand this, and yet there was a fascinating exchange with Wim Ritzerfeld a few years back (see December 2000 in the archives) with Wim citing research by Donald Miller (?) - and Wim offered up several interesting points that you seemingly did not address:
Classically trained men (not countertenors) sing in only a single vibrational mode, whereas classically trained women sing in two vibrational modes. Essentially, Wim said (my interpretation) that male falsetto is rather akin to female head voice, and that the operatic male head voice is a sort of extension of the chest voice.
In post 7630, Wim wrote:
In female middle voice and head voice the 'light' vibrational pattern appears, which is characterized by low vertical phase difference and a low closed quotient (glottis is closed 40% of the cycle or less). It is the same pattern as used in male falsetto. The 'heavy' vibrational pattern is only present in the lowest of the three female registers (chest) and in belting.
In post 7607, Wrim (responding to you) also wrote:
You state that the male registration event between 'chest' and 'head' reflect vocal fold function. Almost all literature on the subject states that as pitch rises, the vocal folds become longer and thinner as a result of cricothyroid muscle action (and relative relaxation of the vocalis muscle). For me there is no doubt that this is true so I guess we agree there.
However, there is ample evidence that the vibrational pattern of the folds stays the same as the male voice goes into 'head'. There is vertical phase difference and a large closed quotient in male head voice and also the shape of the electroglottograph signal is the same as in chest voice. The folds are longer and thinner, but I see no reason to assume a register event in the vocal folds themselves, nor a mix of two registers, but simply an extension of the same vocal fold vibrational pattern seen in chest voice. The registration event in a well trained male voice takes place exclusively in the resonance adjustment.
Cheers,
Michael Gordon
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