one of the problems in discussing this topic is an agreement on terms. i will try to use well known examples wherever possible.
when i speak of 'which voice' someone is singing or speaking in, i refer to the timbre not to the range. i believe timbre to be sounds created by the vibration of the vocal folds, in one manner or another, expanded by resonance. analogously, a violin can be bowed or plucked, so can a cello. you can't call plucking a cello 'plucking' and plucking a violin 'pizzicato' and say 'therefore they are different'. range has nothing to do with the issue of plucking.
the voice i think hillary clinton speaks in, i call 'speaking voice'. i think it is what most people would call 'chest voice' although some would call it a 'mix'. the voice julia childs speaks in, in addition to be totally ridiculous (and i don't say this just because she almost ran my mother over in harvard square one day), is called 'head' but, i call it 'falsetto'. stefan zucker, 'freak of the universe', also speaks in falsetto. the voice giulietta simionato or tatiana troyanos sang with is usually called 'head'. the voice david daniels sings with is usually called 'falsetto' (although some counter-tenors call it 'head'. is this some kind of pc thing?). whatever you call it, i say that the voice that daniels sings in and the voices simionato and troyanos sang in are the same, individual differences aside.
it has been my experience that women can sing in the same concoction they speak with up until the Bb above middle C. at that point, there is an event similar to a gear shift but, the timbre stays in the family (as in 'it goes from being a viola to being violin not a viola to a flute'). with men, the same thing occurs until about F above middle C. and again, this is like bass going to cello not flute.
the sound that mr. daniels, ms. simionato and ms. troyanos sing/sang in, is different from the sound that occurs above the 'gear shifts' noted in the previous paragraph. and, in all three cases, it is a sound i hear them trying to sing high and low and everything in between in. occasionally, ms. simionato would do a reverse yodel for the lowest notes (creating the impression of a momentary sex change in the character she was portraying). the idea of a passaggio below Bb for a female i think is a matter of 'just how low do you think you can get away with singing like that?'. and i think you'll find that counter-tenors have the same problem around the Bb just below middle C.
mike
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