In a message dated 9/5/00 12:04:56 AM Central Daylight Time,
lloyd.hanson@n... writes:
<< The female equivalent to the tenor passaggio (which is usually about a
fourth in range) is the female middle range which us often an octave or
more in range. Below this is the female chest voice, above it the female
head voice or, if you prefer, high voice. Above the female high voice is
the flageolet and whistle voice. Even if females sing in their high range
or in the upper part of their middle voice with a breathy tone which
requires closure rates that are open more than closed, they are not singing
in falsetto. They cannot because their vocal folds are too short to obtain
the falsetto position of the male voice. The tone may imitate the male
falsetto but it is not the same functionally.
>>
This extended, low occurring mix in the female (classically oriented
aesthetic driven technique) is a behavior which is imposed on the voice to
fit into a rather dated view of femininity. If you do lip trills with a
soprano you will here the slight shift in resonance occur much higher in the
voice (upto a Bflat above middle voice) than what is drilled into the voice
with the above mentioned pedagogy. Why should the middle voice in the female
be that much longer in one sex over the other? It is not because of function
but because of a preconceived notion of a sound. While pulling chest above
the higher mix point is injurious, the lower mix causes its load of posturing
problems and unnecessary breaks in many female voices.
Randy Buescher
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