Showing posts with label Teaching essentials. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Teaching essentials. Show all posts

i didn't know that! Issue #40- Female Falsetto

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Female falsetto

The issue of the female falsetto voice has been met with some controversy, especially among vocal pedagogists. Many books on the art of singing completely ignore this issue, simply gloss over it, or insist that women do not have falsetto. This controversy, however, does not exist within the speech pathology community and arguments against the existence of female falsetto do not align with current physiological evidence. 

Motion picture and video studies of laryngeal action reveal that women can and do produce falsetto, andelectromyographic studies by several leading speech pathologists and vocal pedagogists provide further confirmation.

One possible explanation for this failure to recognize the female falsetto is the fact that the difference in timbre and dynamic level between the modal and falsetto registers often is not as pronounced in female voices as it is in male voices. This is due in part to the difference in the length and mass of the vocal folds and to the difference in frequency ranges. It is an established fact that women have a falsetto register and that many young female singers substitute falsetto for the upper portion of the modal voice. 

Some vocal pedagogists believe that this failure to recognize the female falsetto voice has led to the misidentification of young contraltos and mezzo-sopranos as sopranos, as it is easier for these lower voice types to sing in the soprano tessitura using their falsetto register.


Courtesy of Wikipedia

I didn't know that! Issue #38- The Voice Range 2

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Vocal range and voice classification


Vocal range plays such an important role in classifying singing voices into voice types that sometimes the two terms are confused with one another.
- A voice type is a particular kind of human singing voice perceived as having certain identifying qualities or characteristics.

- A vocal range being only one of those characteristics. Other factors are vocal weight, vocal tessitura, vocal timbre, vocal transition points, physical characteristics, speech level, scientific testing, and vocal registration. All of these factors combined are used to categorize a singer's voice into a particular kind of singing voice or voice type.

There are a plethora of different voice types used by vocal pedagogists today in a variety of voice classification systems. Most of these types, however, are sub-types that fall under seven different major voice categories that are for the most part acknowledged across all of the major voice classification systems.

Women are typically divided into three groups: soprano, mezzo-soprano, and contralto. Men are usually divided into four groups: countertenor, tenor, baritone, and bass. When considering the pre-pubescent voices of children an eighth term, treble, can be applied. Within each of these major categories there are several sub-categories that identify specific vocal qualities like coloratura facility and vocal weight to differentiate between voices.

Vocal range in and of itself can not determine a singer's voice type. While each voice type does have a general vocal range associated with it, human singing voices may possess vocal ranges that encompass more than one voice type or are in between the typical ranges of two voice types. Therefore, voice teachers only use vocal range as one factor in classifying a singer's voice.

More important than range in voice classification is tessitura, or where the voice is most comfortable singing, and vocal timbre, or the characteristic sound of the singing voice.

For example, a female singer may have a vocal range that encompasses the high notes of a mezzo-soprano and the low notes of a soprano. A voice teacher would therefore look to see whether or not the singer were more comfortable singing up higher or singing lower. If the singer were more comfortable singing higher than the teacher would probably classify her as a soprano and if the singer were more comfortable singing lower than they would probably classify her as a mezzo-soprano.

The teacher would also listen to the sound of the voice. Sopranos tend to have a lighter and less rich vocal sound than a mezzo-soprano. A voice teacher, however, would never classify a singer in more than one voice type, regardless of the size of their vocal range.

The following are the general vocal ranges associated with each voice type using scientific pitch notation where middle C=C4. Some singers within these voice types may be able to sing somewhat higher or lower:

Soprano: C4 – C6
Mezzo-soprano: A3 – A5
Contralto: F3 – F5
Tenor: C3 – C5
Baritone: F2 – F4
Bass: E2 – E4

In terms of frequency, human voices are roughly in the range of 80 Hz to 1100 Hz (that is, E2 to C6) for normal male and female voices together.

Courtesy of wikipedia

I didn't know that! Issue #36- Modal Voice

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Modal voice is the vocal register used most frequently in speech and singing in most languages. It is also the term used in linguistics for the most common phonation of vowels. The term "modal" refers to the resonant mode of vocal cords; that is, the optimal combination of airflow and glottal tension that yields maximum vibration.

In linguistics, modal voice is the only phonation found in the vowels and other sonorants (consonants such as m, n, l, and r) of most of the languages of the world, though a significant minority contrast modal voice with other phonations. Among obstruents (consonants such as k, g, ch, j, s, and z), it is very common for languages to contrast modal voice with voicelessness, though in English many supposedly voiced obstruents do not have modal voice in most environments.

In speech pathology, the modal register is one of the four identifiable registers within the human voice, lying above the vocal fry register and overlapping the lower part of the falsetto register. This view is also adopted by many vocal pedagogists, although some vocal pedagogists may view vocal registration differently. In singing, the modal register may also overlap part of the whistle register. A well trained singer or speaker can phonate two octaves or more within the modal register with consistent production, beauty of tone, dynamic variation, and vocal freedom.

The modal register begins and ends in different places within the human voice. The placement of the modal register within the individual human voice is one of the key determining factors in identifying vocal type.

Physiological process of the modal register

In the modal register the length, tension, and mass of the vocal folds are in a state of flux which causes the frequency of vibration of the vocal folds to vary. As pitch rises, the vocal folds increase in length and in tension and their edges become thinner. If a speaker or singer holds any of these three factors constant and interferes with their progressive state of change the laryngeal function of the voice becomes static and eventually breaks occur resulting in obvious changes in vocal quality. While some vocal pedagogists identify these breaks as register boundaries or transition areas between registers, other vocal pedagogists maintain that these breaks are a result of vocal problems caused by a static laryngeal adjustment that does not permit the necessary changes to take place within the modal register.

On the lower pitches in the modal register the vocal cords are thick and wedge-shaped. Because of this thickness, large portions of the opposing surfaces of the vocal cords are brought into contact, and the glottis remains closed for a considerable time in each cycle. The glottis opens from the bottom first before it opens at the top; this imparts a fluid, wavelike motion to the cords. The modal voice has a broad harmonic spectrum, rich in overtones, because of this rolling motion of the cords. It is comparatively loud to the other vocal registers because of the vibratory energy present, but is capable of dynamic variation.

For the lowest tones, only the thyroarytenoid muscles are active, but as the pitch rises, the cricothyroids enter the action, thus beginning to lengthen the folds. As longitudinal tension increases, the glottis tends to develop a gap in the middle. To counteract this tendency, the lateral cricoarytenoids are brought into action, pulling forward on the muscular process of the arytenoids. This process is sometimes referred to as medial compression.

In addition to the stretching of the vocal folds and the increasing tension on them as the pitch rises, the opposing surfaces of the folds which may be brought into contact becomes smaller and smaller as the edges of the folds become thinner. The basic vibratory or phonatory pattern remains the same, with the whole vocal fold still involved in the action, but the vertical excursions are not as large and the rolling motion is not as apparent as it was on the lower pitches of the modal register.


The physical limits of muscular strength of the internal thyroarytenoids or vocalis muscle are being approached. In order to sing or speak above this pitch level the voice must adopt a new phonatory pattern-to change registers.


courtesy of Wikipedia

Teaching essentials: No 1

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To teach is to learn twice.

Joseph Joubert
French Moralist and Teacher

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