Vocalist.org archive


From:  "Michael Mayer" <mjmayer@h...>
Date:  Mon Aug 28, 2000  6:25 am
Subject:  Re: [vocalist-temporary] Falsetto Recognition


Marthea, the terms that work for me is falsetto is a quality of voice that
is weak and breathy. It is the typical starting quality of the head range
for both male and females. Once the vocal muscles start to develop the tone
becomes more focused and you get what I call pure head voice. Many still
call this falsetto, but I make a distinction because the pure head voice can
be further developed to add more depth, to the point of reaching the
complete performance quality top voice in the male. Falsetto is
characterized by incomplete closure of the glottis and only the edges of the
folds vibrating. I would say that what I am calling pure head voice still
only has the edges of the folds vibrating, but the glottal opening is in a
parallel position so you have a true phonation and no excess breath passing
over the folds. This quality can be exercised through the complete range
from top to bottom. It has an obviously odd feel in the lower voice, but is
an excellent exercise to eliminate excess weight in the bottom half of the
voice. This is helpful in preparing one to approach the passaggio in an easy
manner. Once the head voice is purified it is a small step to allow the
complete voice to take part in the tone. This has been very successful for
me in avoiding too large of a tone in the lower range. It should still be
focused and brilliant so it has carrying power, but slender so you can pass
into the top range with relative ease. This can help explain some of the
confusion between male/female and tenor/counter-tenor. In the male voice the
folds are longer and thicker, so there is a more obvious excursion when
allowing more depth into the tone. There is an excellent statement on this
subject in Jerome Hines' book "Great Singers on Great Singing". The chapter
with the voice doctor Leo Reckford, he stated that in relation to Garcia's
theory of registers there was something missing. You have two different
mechanical principals, one the edge is vibrating the other the complete
width. Reckford postulated that it was actually only a difference in
quantity of fold that vibrated that determined what we hear as register
differences. So what we hear as falsetto is only the edges vibrating, and
you can add air pressure to that so you vibrate more than the edges. He says
"When you can finally mix it to the degree that half of the width of each
vocal cord is vibrating, you have the ideal mixed tone. But it is still only
a quantitative difference between the falsetto and the full tone of the head
voice...That means that it is only the quantity of vibration which changes.
It is not the quality of the whole production." I would say you could change
the whole quality, but that is how you get drastic changes in tonal quality
as in yodeling or when the voice "breaks". The way I would explain
counter-tenor singing then would be they sing so only a smaller amount of
the width of the fold vibrates. This would correlate to a similar amount of
fold width the female uses in their complete voice because of the difference
in innate length and thickness. This also explains why the old italian
school used the messa di voce exercise. Through the exercise of increasing
loudness on a single pitch they could exercise the gradual increase of vocal
fold width vibrating to join the registers functioning together. So to
recap; pure head is piano like falsetto but not breathy, a pure tone. As the
width of vibrating fold is increased on the same pitch you increase the
loudness, or vice versa. It really is more complicated than this, but to try
to explain it would make me keel over from my brain tripping on itself.

Michael


>I have a question. How many of you can tell when a male voice is singing
>in
>falsetto? I've encountered a few men who go into "head" (I think) and I'm
>just not sure which it is. Your comment, John, makes me think that if it
>sounds full and rich then it can't possibly be falsetto. Aside from the
>sound (and being able to peer into someone's throat) is there a way the
>singer himself knows that he's singing in falsetto? I'm not disputing your
>thoughts. I just don't have a great deal of experience working with the
>male voice and am trying to learn more about it!
>
>Thanks!
>
>Marthea
>
>

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