Karen Mercedes <dalila@R...> wrote:
Karen Mercedes <dalila@R...> wrote:
> My understanding of castrato physiology is that the gelding was
> done before puberty began, thus preventing the natural surges of
> testosterone that cause the lowering of the voice in most men.
> Thus, the castrato would have no need to use falsetto, because his
> voice remained naturally high. The countertenor, on the other
> hand, is a fully developed male who controls his vocal production
> in order to sing in what are usually considered female registers.
Gelding happened before puberty, yes (though it was a lot later in
life back in those days, like 17 yrs old) The castrato had no use for
falsetto (we're using my strict defintion here), but they were not
singing in chest voice either, anymore than a female opera singer is.
One can listen to recordings of "the last castrati" and hear that he
is not taking his chest voice any higher than A4.
The castration had two effects (on the voice anyway): 1) the larynx
did not grow disproportionately to the rest of the body and 2) the
ability to use the upper head voice never disappeared. #2 allowed for
the high notes, while #1 made it easy to reconcile the two registers -
the chest was not so much lower than the upper, as it is in most adult
males. A similar situation to a child's voice or woman's voice.
It is possible that #2 is at least partly a neurological issue (as
opposed to purely mechanical), since people with small larynges have
been known to lose their upper extensions, while people with larger
larynges sometimes maintain their upper extension. Daniels, Deller,
and several other CTs (including me) report that they simply kept
their boy voices... It is not that they lost their boy voices and
discovered a wholly new register. My voice never cracked, and I don't
remember ever thinking to myself, "hey, my voice is changing!"
So IMO, the difference between real CTs and castrati is not that the
mechanism of the upper register is different. It is the fact that most
CTs have a much lower chest register and therefore have different
gear-changing strategies than women and castrati do. Of course, in the
case of a natural tenorino countertenor, the effect may be as close as
one can come to a castrato sound. I've heard some actual
endocrynological and physical castrati, and the upper voice is not
what makes them unique from tenorino CTs or other CTs. It is their
wide ranged middle voice, as mezzos have. Most CTs generally have a
shorter middle range, since there is much less overlap.
Tako
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