Mike, you mentionned pop/metal singers able to reach and sustain high
pitches with a lifted larynx, and definitely not sounding falsetto.
Lloyd, you clearly drew the line between the falsetto tone and the full
voice tone (chest+head)
But Mike again you admitted that your head voice feels like a "yawned" upper
extension of your chest voice, which means you also regard falsetto and full
voice as two different things.
Exploring falsetto-linked sensations may have helped you come to grips with
the discovery of your higher range, yet some tenors argue the pedagogical
validity of this : I'm not entering this much debated fray here.
Now the mystery lingers on : What happens to those high non-falsettists
pop/metal singers?
Are there singing full voice? To Lloyd, certainly not. Is their
taboo-breaking high larynx posture the reason why they don't sound like
Opera tenors? Perhaps. Most likely, I daresay their high larynx position is
precisely what prevents them to produce falsetto, which they obviously
aren't striving for.
There must be something else at play beyond the mere falsetto/full voice
alternative, giving those vocalists their strong yet non belcanto high
sound. The high larynx beeing one first important clue.
In my opinion, they are doing to their voices something similar to an
electric guitarist overdriving his instrument : namely adding overtones by
dints of parasital inharmonic by-vibration (noise).
How do they achieve it?
In three ways : pseudo-raucity, rattling and breathiness
- pseudo-raucity (Michael Bolton) : by "locking" the larynx -a muscular
tension which fairly raises it, as you observed, but not as dramatically as
a typical tyro clumsily entering high range- one can then more easely apply
transversal muscular pressure to it, distorting its shape so to speak so as
to crumple one vocal fold and stretch the other. Hence a pseudo-raucity
(definition of true raucity :dyssimetrical vocal folds lenghts). The
remaining non closing segment erratically vibrating on its own, while the
kinks in the crumpled vocal fold account for a less consistent source
laryngal sawwave, more random in its overtones content.
- rattling (many like Bon Jovi) : by forcingly setting whatever muscles,
bones, cartilages, joints and body tissues surround the larynx into
vibration, which seems to yield many different results among individuals.
- breathiness (Brian Adams) : by trapping air in the agmydals, thus creating
a white noise spin parallel to the vowel sound. One widespread method is to
take advantage of the "h" consonnant, and singling out breathy components in
the anglo-saxon p(h), t(h) and k(h) occlusives.
As to determine if one such voice cleaned from its noise would sound at that
height rather falsetto or full, I find it irrelevant. Sure, at the onset,
the noise production strain hardly looks compatible with the loose falsetto
posture, but it might as well be the complex vocal gesture as a whole, no
matter how distorted, that paves the way for higher pitches, otherwise not
to be sounded.
And still, there are many hybrids such as Stevie Wonder, using a combination
of tenor technique and pseudo-raucity, or Michael Mc Donald, intermingling
tenor, pseudo-raucity and breathiness, etc, etc,...who are all living proof
of the surrounding cross-over vocal world.
Bart J Jocelyn
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