Dear Lloyd, John et al, Bravo Lloyd! That was, hands down, the best description of the difference between how men's and women's voices actually work that I've ever read. Your observations on male versus female passaggi agrees with everything I've found to be consistent and true. I also agree that it is important to understand how the mechanisms function. I do wonder however, how intellectual knowledge of function helps us to learn to use and manipulate register phenomena? I really feel that knowledge of function and knowledge of what we each must do to make our bodies work the way we want them to are not necessarily the same things. It's a subtlety, but I think an important one worth looking at in more detail. *********************************************************** Lloyd: The difficulties they have connecting their high voice with their chest voice requires that they transcend TWO passaggio areas <snipped> *********************************************************** Oh boy have you got that one right! This physical difference between men and women has caused unbelievable misunderstanding, miscommunication, incredulity, suspicion and even animosity between voice teachers for as long as I can remember. A man can't feel what happens in a woman's body when she sings. All he can do is try to reconstruct causation, based on the effects detected in a woman's voice AND it works exactly the same way for women dealing with men's voices. Once a teacher understands that there's a very real difference between women's and men's voices, there's no problem with a man teaching a woman or vice versa, but the teacher has to know there's a difference of they'll never be as effective nor as helpful as they might otherwise have been.
You nailed the passaggi for male and female perfectly. You described the difference between chest, head and falsetto with great precision and accuracy.
What we still need to know is exactly how to apply this knowledge in what we do when we sing.
*********************************************************** Lloyd: Although it would appear that the only change needed to move from falsetto to head voice would be the closing or adducting of the vocal folds, the fact of the matter is that this a most difficult act because it requires the coordination of not only the thyroarytenoid and their antagonistic cricothyroid muscles but also the coordination of all of the adduction/abbduction muscles (cricoarytenoids, lateral cricoarytenoids, and interarytenoids). *********************************************************** It's good that we know what needs to take place in our throats but how do we learn or teach what to do to make them happen? Yes, absolutely such knowledge is essential to understand what really takes place. I believe your descriptions are absolutely true but how do we get them to actually do it. To my mind that practical sort of knowlege is real and of value.
There are exercises that provide the opportunity to experience the necessary function to learn to manage the head voice that can be accomplished WITHOUT the need of any intellectual understanding by the singer about what's happening in their throat. Those are the kinds of things that I truly feel are useful and real.
Unvoiced lip trills, for example can teach breath management without the need for the teacher to even say a thing other than "Do this and see if you can stretch it out to 15 seconds." You show 'em how to do it and off you go! If the student can strech out an unvoiced lip trill to 15 seconds, they are already starting to manage their breath! An intellectual understanding of the function of breathing during singing isn't going to help them do that and in fact may even cause dysfunction by fostering too much self-consciousness. *********************************************************** Lloyd: It is much easier to learn the difficult enough process of gradually transferring the contracting energy of the thyroarytenoid muscles, which is found in chest voice, to the lengthening effect of the cricothyroid muscles which is found in head voice. This transition is necessary if the male singer is to learn to manage his passaggio and he has a mere fourth in pitch range to accomplish this act. *********************************************************** Yep. But what does he have to do to accomplish this? There are three or four exercises that I know of that help this process. I have found that singing a five note descending diatonic figure (5, 4, 3, 2, 1) starting in falsetto on a schwa vowel, say around a tenor's high c, in the range just above the region of passage for most male voices, then singing down scale, while relaxing into what sounds like falsetto with chest "added" is a pretty good way for men to "find" their head voice. In some respects it's exactly like learning to ride a bike. One has to get a feel first, then they stand a chance of understanding the description of the actual function you've written about so well. I honestly don't think it works quite so well the other way around. *********************************************************** Lloyd: I have found in over 40 years of teaching male voices that it is very uncommon for a singer to successfully use falsetto as a method of learning to use head voice. In fact, falsetto usually becomes a kind of high voice crutch that the singers musculature coordination will revert to automatically, pre-empting his attempts to make the coordinations necessary to move from chest voice to head voice. I do not recommend it. *********************************************************** Excellent recommendation. I can't think of very many people whose understanding, experience and opinions I would value more than yours Lloyd. I mean that. I would love to know how you teach a singer to use their head voice. Would you care to offer some vocalises, exercises, or other suggestions? regards, Les
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