On Sun, 10 Dec 2000, Lloyd W. Hanson wrote: > There is a very active discussion on the list regarding male falsetto, male > head voice and the fact that these two male vocal qualities occupy about > the same fundamental pitch range.
If we had Marko's archive's we probably would have to have these discussions ;-) Just kidding - I'm still learning from these threads!
> 1 The male head voice or the male falsetto, either one, does not have > register change points within the ranges of these voices. The female > middle voice or the lower end of the female voice, that is, chest voice, do > have register change points in the same ranges as the male voices. If the > voices were the same, the male voices in the ranges in question, would have > register changes similar to the female voices.
I don't know that I'd argue that they are the same either. What I dispute is that the registration differences between men and women somehow prove that their physical structures are different (though they usually are, if for now other reason that the size thing). The registrational dissimilarities could also be due to the different techniques men and women are taught.
Just as a for instance, I have found my registrational "events" to be very similar to those of contraltos. I have two passagio zones - one around C4, the other at D5, with some "lifting" that must begin by A4. If I were to use a tenoriffic strategy, my single passagio zone is more like Eb4 to Ab4.
I'm going to try to grossly oversimplify here: Below c4, almost everyone sings in chest. Above c4, almost everyone sings in head. As for the octave between these points, tenors and female pop singers use a head technique built on chest - i.e. maintaining some thickness in the folds (hence the complex spectrum). Countertenors and female classical singers us a head technique built on bringing the head voice down - i.e. maintaining a relatively light gauge in the vibrating bodies (simpler spectrum).
They're both head in the sense that there is the zipping up to shorten the effective vibrating length and that there is tension in the cords. The difference is in the amount of lateral stretch which thins the folds. One is specialized to blend seamlessly to a lower range, the other to blend with a higher one. Some people are better at one than another. Most of it is biological, the rest is merely strategic.
People are different. Some people (men and women) have healthy careers singing with a chest based mix in the C4-C5 range, others with a head based mix. Others are somewhere in between. Sure, there are a lot women who have damaged their voices singing too high with too much chest, but the same goes for men too!
Everyone has to find their own optimal registration strategy. There is no categorically better way. Some are suited to pop, others opera, or whatever. I suspect my career will last a lot longer as a countertenor than as a tenor (I'd last about 5 minutes... thank God the Carmina Burana tenor aria is so short ;-)
Tako
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