Dear Lloyd and List:
Your latest post offers so many issues, I doubt I'll get the dishes
done tonight!
Lloyd, your descriptions of registration are thorough and detailed,
and I don't doubt your deep knowledge. But I regret that I always
come away from these registration discussions feeling like the
theories are not complete, and issues are not resolved.
On the issue of the male voice, you write:
> The male high voice, usually called head voice, is a logical
> extension of the chest voice except the cricothyroid muscles have
> become active with a resultant lengthening and thinning of the
vocal
> folds and a substantial increase in their longitudinal tension.
I understand this, and yet there was a fascinating exchange with Wim
Ritzerfeld a few years back (see December 2000 in the archives) with
Wim citing research by Donald Miller (?) - and Wim offered up
several interesting points that you seemingly did not address:
Classically trained men (not countertenors) sing in only a single
vibrational mode, whereas classically trained women sing in two
vibrational modes. Essentially, Wim said (my interpretation) that
male falsetto is rather akin to female head voice, and that the
operatic male head voice is a sort of extension of the chest voice.
In post 7630, Wim wrote:
In female middle voice and head voice
the 'light' vibrational pattern appears, which is characterized
by low vertical phase difference and a low closed quotient (glottis
is closed 40% of the cycle or less). It is the same pattern as used
in male falsetto. The 'heavy' vibrational pattern is only present
in the lowest of the three female registers (chest) and in belting.
In post 7607, Wrim (responding to you) also wrote:
You state that the male registration event between 'chest'
and 'head' reflect vocal fold function. Almost all literature
on the subject states that as pitch rises, the vocal folds
become longer and thinner as a result of cricothyroid muscle
action (and relative relaxation of the vocalis muscle).
For me there is no doubt that this is true so I guess we
agree there.
However, there is ample evidence that the vibrational pattern of
the folds stays the same as the male voice goes into 'head'.
There is vertical phase difference and a large closed
quotient in male head voice and also the shape of the
electroglottograph signal is the same as in chest voice.
The folds are longer and thinner, but I see no reason to assume a
register event in the vocal folds themselves, nor a mix of two
registers, but simply an extension of the same vocal fold
vibrational pattern seen in chest voice. The registration event in
a well trained male voice takes place exclusively in the resonance
adjustment.
Cheers,
Michael Gordon
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