Dear Sally, Sharon, Norma and Vocalisters:
A part of any discussion about registers must include some definition
of the locations of those registers. It is traditional in female
voices to consider chest register as beginning with the lowest
comfortable pitches and continue to about G above middle C. It is
also traditional for the high voice to begin at about E an octave and
a third above middle C and continue upward through C two octaves
above middle C. Above this high C one usually finds the vocal
register described as flute tone, whistle tone, flageolet, etc rather
than as an extension of high voice.
All of the above leaves a rather large, undefined area in the female
voice between G above middle C and E, an octave and a third above
middle C. It is in this area that the voice must make the change
from chest voice with its primary use of the vocalis muscles as
antagonists to the stretching action of the crico-thyroid muscles,
and the high voice with its eventual use of the vocal ligament as the
primary resistance to the maximum stretch of the crico-thyroid
muscles. The transition can extended the chest voice well into the
upper limits of its range in which case the vocalis muscles retain
their function as oscillating participants in the phonated sound.
Or, the transition can remove the chest voice much earlier in the
frequency climb in which case the vocalis muscles are no longer
involved as oscillating participants in the phonated sound even
though they may still contribute some resistance to the stretching of
the crico-thyroid muscles. Or the change may be gradual with an
emphasis of chest or high voice as the singer desires or is able to
achieve. (It is not unusual for a vocal style to be created when a
singing artist is unable to achieve a gradual transition and the
change from chest voice to high voice occurs in an abrupt and
sometime clumsy way with little or no sense of gradual transition.)
The area of change is most often called the female middle voice (with
many variations thereof) which implies a separate entity(s) from the
chest voice and the high voice. I have not found this to be so, but
rather that it is a transition range in the voice as the singer makes
the necessary adjustments to cross from the chest to the high voice
and back again. However, the manner of making this transition does
vary with each singer and the demands of a singing style will also
impose itself on how the transition is to be achieved.
Sometimes, singers do not make a transition but, instead, remain in
either chest voice or high voice. I have found that it is not
uncommon for popular song performers to avoid the use of high voice
except for special effects. Many female singers are able to sing to
the D an octave and a second above middle C while yet in some form of
chest voice with little involvement of the high voice. It provides a
vocal tone with the edge and pathos that is often sought in popular
song styles and can be achieved with acceptable vocal stress if it is
not done with strong sub-glottal pressure (pressed singing) and is
amplified.
--
Lloyd W. Hanson
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