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From:  "mjmoody2000 <mjmoody@c...
Date:  Wed Jan 15, 2003  1:05 am
Subject:  Re: Head voice from falsetto.(Some more questions).

> At any rate, John Moody has a point of view, and he has every
right
> to express it. I have read and I own 2 books by Cornelius Reid,
as
> well as Anthony Frissel's "Tenor Voice" book, and John's writings
> mirror these books, as John himself states. Personally I believe
> there is merit to what those books are saying, but there is a lot
of
> opportunity to misinterpret and to question what is really meant
by
> those authors. I do not believe these author's writings (Reid,
> Frissel) represent our current best understanding of vocal
> functioning or vocal pedagogy. Nonetheless, if exercises inspired
or
> suggested by these books are helpful, go for it.
>

Michael,

Kudos to you for an excellent response for this thread. I think you
accurately described how this list can be helpful to many people -
and I think that that honestly has to do with people making their
own decisions about some issues. The nice thing about the Vocalist
is that sometimes you can learn about different possibilities,
whereas it is very hard to find this information anywhere else.
I've known you really don't believe this falsetto stuff for years (I
remember some interesting threads in the original Vocalist).
However, you stated your opinion in a way that acknowledges that
though this way doesn't work for you - it is a documented method
that seems to have worked for others, you just don't recommend it.

As an interesting aside, I found some posts in the archives that
mention that your voice naturally goes kind of "high" in its
tessitura. Lloyd once wrote that his voice naturally went to head
voice and he actually had to LEARN how to sing in falsetto.

My voice actually seemed to lean "low." My chest voice seemed to be
exclusive, and there was no head voice participation in my tone at
all. The OTHER voice I had I labeled with the term falsetto - it
surely seemed disconnected from my chest voice, AND a tone that I
really didn't psychologically want to pursue (no, I don't WANT to be
a countertenor). By fluke, however, I found that this very same
useless voice that I defined "falsetto" could transform itself to a
resonant singing voice.

I'm interested in another quote of yours:

"but I did not lose the ability to produce "falsetto" - meaning (in
the lower range) a truly breathy, frankly horrible and without
aesthetic merit sound."

I have a similar sensation in the lower range. It's not in the
UPPER range, however! For sake of description, let us say I take
my "head voice" down below middle C. Sometimes it just doesn't seem
to line up with the chest voice right, and a truly
disconnected "false" voice occurs. With work I can sustain this
voice for a short range - but generally it feels the same as
my "head voice" (which I have called falsetto, anyway) at about the
F or G above middle C. So, I CAN get a REALLY false tone from about
the D above middle C to the G or F below middle C. Now, I don't
have a million books in front of me, but I seem to remember reading
somewhere that Garcia's diagram seemed to put falsetto LOW in the
voice and some other voice (head?) higher than the falsetto. I
wonder if this is what he was talking about?? I also wonder what
the range of Lloyds "falsetto" is?

I believe strongly in what Frisell writes. I took lessons for years
and had absolutely no clue what the male singers were talking about
when they said to sing in "head voice." It seemed that I had
clearly two possibilities - Chest and falsetto. I think I probably
have found a true "head voice" now - but it was only after reading
Frisell. This "head voice" seems to me still to be very related to
what I originally thought was my falsetto. I can just add a whole
lot of volume and resonance from my chest voice to this initial
tone. Here again, we are dealing with definitions - but
importantly, we are dealing with singer's own definitions of what
they are doing. This resonant voice can envelop my entire range -
also. When it does, I feel there is a column built that connects my
highest notes with my lowest notes. Since I sang so many years with
this "low" feeling chest voice, however, I sometimes slip into
that. I feel that this is a distinct method of production that is
different from my "head voice" production. So, I guess, that is how
I think the "falsetto" can totally overlap with the chest voice. It
is singing with a sense of alignment with the upper range as opposed
to singing with a "talking voice" that feels pretty much shut off
from the upper range.

Well, I have said a lot here - I hope nothing offensive. My initial
impulse was to write something supportive of Michael who offered a
very well thought-out rebuttal of some of my own opinions. I think
these are well thought out opinions, and hopefully Nicolas will
decide what is best form him in an informed manner as a result of
all these discussions.

John





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21945 Re: Head voice from falsetto.(Some more questions).Michael <chosdad@y...>chosdad Wed  1/15/2003  
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