Vocalist.org archive


Subject: Re: whistle tone - definitions and links
From: Jessica
To: VOCALIST <vocalist>
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on 1/21/00 4:05 PM, Uranal-at-aol.com at Uranal-at-aol.com wrote:
> okay so all that high crap that mariah carey does is called whistle tone?
> and how does one exactly achieve that..i looked back at the archives and i
> cannot find a specific definition of whistle tone

One should not aspire to "achieve" a whistle tone - it's not desireable.
Tako Oda put it quite well today - below is his post. I am surprised you
could not find anything on the whistle tone in the archives - I found tons
about it. I have included his post below. Since he mentions the term
flageolot, I have included a link to the archives which discusses the
difference between whistle tone and flageolot:

http://www.vocalist.org/html/9910/msg00311.html

For a good list of definitions about vocal terms in general, you might try:
http://www.allmusic.com/cg/x.dll?p=amg&sql=s1M
http://www.omnidisc.com/MUSIC/Glossary.html
http://www.allmusic.com/mus_Glossary.html
http://www.vocalist.org/html/9807/msg01464.html

and I'm sure other listers might have other links to suggest. If you want a
more extensive definition of whistle tone and/or other definitions, please
try searching the archives again, there are lots of posts about this topic.
I know, I found many of them. Meanwhile, here is Tako's post about whistle
tone:

on 1/21/00 3:38 PM, Tako Oda at toda-at-mills.edu wrote:
> You might want to learn how to use flageolet, but you probably want to
> steer clear of whistle voice. It's distinct from flageolet in that it
> cannot reconcile with lower registers. Also, the ability to produce it
> is often associated with abused vocal cords.
>
> My guess is that Mariah Carey is using whistle - she never blends it to
> her lower voice. I also get the impression her cords get a lot of abuse.
> I used to be able to produce whistle tones, but only after thrashing my
> voice considerably attempting to sing in the wrong fach! Hope this
> helps!