Dear Michael and Vocalisters:
There is no need to create registers if they do not exist. The traditional
registration events for the male voice are chest voice and head voice. And
that is all. These registration events reflect vocal fold function.
The passaggio area which occurs where the chest voice meets the head voice
is so called only because it requires special skills to make the transition
from chest into head and visa versa. These registration events are based
on the registration experiences of almost all male voices. Some very high,
light male voice might experience slightly different registration events at
the top of their voices but that is not the common experience of most
males.
Falsetto is not similar to either chest or head voice and represents a vocal
fold function that is very different from chest voice or head voice.
Falsetto is not a part of traditional training of voices because it is not
considered as a legitimate voice for classical singing. Its range is very
much the same for most male voices, roughly from A4 to C5, give or take a
few notes on either end.
I quoted Miller who compared the male passaggio to the female middle voice
in his discussion of female registration events but he was NOT considering
them to be the same. Both the male passaggio and the female middle voice
present similar difficulties for what is called mixing of one register with
another but it serves no purpose to equate them beyond the similarities of
difficulties they represent.
I have long held and taught that resonance factors have so strong an effect
on vocal phonation that resonance can and does alter the position of
registration events by as much as a minor third for closed vowels as
compared to open vowels. Consequently, when I give registration pitch
ranges it is always for the vowel [a].
Research by Donald Miller (no relation to Richard Miller, that I know of)
delves into the effect of resonance on phonational tone and explains the
phenomenon by defining which of the phonated partials is emphasized by the
resonance attributes of the vocal tract. Because the vocal tract is
adjustable, the singer can, in many instances, make adjustments such that a
different phonated partial is affected which, in turn, will change the
tonal color of the voice in a very dramatic manner.
For example, male call voice which occurs in most untrained singers in their
passaggio area can be altered to become a ringing covered tone by lowering
the resonance attribute of the vocal tract through lowering the larynx.
This is exactly what males have done for centuries as they learn to
negotiate from chest voice into head voice in the passaggio area. And it
us usually called cover. Donald Miller's research explains why this
happens and givs us much better clues about how to train male voices to
achieve this desirable ability.
But the primary phenomenon that occurs is an alteration of phonated tone by
the vocal tract which is selectively emphasizing one phonated partial over
another. This kind of alteration of the vocal tract to effect phonated
tone is also what occurs when we change from one vowel to another. Vocal
tract alterations are, therefore, used to produce all vowels and to alter
slightly any given vowel.
Registration events for female voice are different because their instrument
is different. The mass and length of the vocal folds is less than in the
male voice, consequently, that reduced mass is less able to maintain any
given configuration on an ascending scale for as long a range as the male
larger mass and length model. Since each change of basic configuration
creates a different register, the female voice has three or more registers
to the male voice's two registers.
Of course there will be anomalies. Female voices that are very low will
resemble male voices that are very high and vocal fold mass and length will
be similar. Burton Coffin had great success training contralto's in the
same way he trained lyric tenors; the tenor's passaggio was in almost the
same place as the contralto's lower passaggio.
A good discussion.
Regards
--
Lloyd W. Hanson, DMA
Professor of Voice, Vocal Pedagogy
School of Performing Arts
Northern Arizona University
Flagstaff, AZ 86011
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