Dear Michael and Vocalisters:
I may add to the confusion in this discussion by quoting from the
following articles mentioned by Michael.
Ingo Titze wrote an article entitled "Response to Oren Brown on Use
of Falsetto" (Vol 6, No. 3 (Jan/Feb 2000) issue of the NATS Journal
of Singing) responding to objections made to Titse's earlier article
on Falsetto in the March/April 1999 issue of Journal of Singing
Titze quotes himself from the earlier article:
"A disconnected falsetto that doesn't make any use of vocal tract
reinforcement is of little use in training the male high voice except
perhaps the counter tenor. A connected falsetto, which some would
call a light mixed or head voice, is the the only means of achieving
the upper pitch range for some singers. But the most gifted singers
may not need this lighter mechanism."
Titze then quoted from a letter sent to him by Oren Brown, a strong
proponent of using the detached falsetto:
"All of these [singers] would not have found their upper voices if
they had not exercised the detached falsetto first-lightly almost
breathy. There have been many others who did not have great careers.
I have never found anyone who did not need to find this lighter
mechanism. The same is true for the female voice. I could enumerate
and name [the singers]."
Titze then pays due respect to Oren Brown, a very experienced teacher
who has made a very strong statement, and expressed the necessity
to"take this statement into account and bring it into harmony with
other theoretical and empirical findings". He makes the following
points.
1) There is no doubt that for a voice that is injured or muscularly
driven, the disconnected falsetto is a way to avoid excessive insult
to the vocal fold cover (lamina propria).
2) There is no doubt that the pure falsetto will allow for the widest
pitch range , without the fear of a voice break.
3) There is a fear that with prolonged use of the pure falsetto the
voice will never crescendo to a full voice. "The singer feels
disembodied without the sense of ring and pressure of harmonic
structure in the voice."
4) "A falsetto that utilizes some vocal tract reinforcement should an
early target for the singer."
5) "Partially-occluded vocal tracts (as in humning, lip trilling, or
ringing with the epilarynx tube) provide this favorable acoustic
load."
6) "When Oren Browns talks and writes about letting the falsetto feel
comfortable in a slightly lowered larynx position, perhaps one of the
facilitory actions of the vocal tract is beginning to be set up. A
slightly lowered larynx, combined with a forward (rostral) movement
of the tongue, begins to stretch out the false folds and form a
resonating epilarynx tube. This may be a way to get a slightly
richer timbre (ring) into the falsetto. More importantly, it may be
a way to facilitate graduated activity between the cricothyroid and
thyroarytenoid muscles, an eventual requirement for avoidance of
register breaks."
7) "I do believe,and I know Oren des, that teachers that use the pure
falsetto in early phases of vocal development (and in voice therapy)
generally need a strategy for allowing this phonation type to
ultimately be enhanced by vocal tract acoustics."
Oren Brown was included as a teacher at Titze's Vocalogy Institute
which took place in Denver during the summer of 2002.
--
Lloyd W. Hanson
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