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From:  Tako Oda <toda@m...>
Date:  Wed May 31, 2000  5:42 pm
Subject:  Re: female falsetto (was: countertenors etc.)


Isabelle Bracamonte <ibracamonte@y...> wrote:
> A chest voice aside: Many of the "great" singers who
> biographies and books I have read (Nordica, Lehmann, a
> handful of the sopranos in the Hines book) repeated
> the old rule that a soprano should never, never take
> her chest voice above an E4. My teacher also advises,
> when singing chest-voice exercises, not taking the
> chest voice above an E or F4, which is my policy. Do
> others do this, as well?

I think this a rule for *anyone* who hopes to sing a lot above the
staff. Tenors and some contraltos take the break higher, but they are
not required to endure the high tessituras of sopranos, mezzos and high
countertenors. Maria Callas took her chest up to about A4 while
continuing the soprano rep, and look what happened to her voice!

Female pop stars generally have a chest heavy mix, and tend to be
limited to F#5 at the top. I've noticed that if I sing too much high
tenor stuff, my upper countertenor extension completely disappears. It
must be a muscle memory thing.

> I think my voice is pretty typical of most sopranos,
> except I don't have a freaky-high whistle register (I
> top out at an F6, sometimes a G). Do other sopranos
> on the list feel that they could sing, say, a B5 in
> two different voices -- supported and then that funny
> flip-falsetto feeling?

When I used to have the freaky high register (until I was 22), I was
able to sing B5 in both voices (now I can't sing B5 in either voice -
Doh!) The two registers felt completely different to me.

-Tako



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