JPF Home Page Forums General Messages General Message Forum Falsetto/ Keep Your Voice Down

I was just listening to "She's My Girl" by The Turtles on the oldies station and noticed the falsetto vocal used in the chorus by Flo and Eddie. It made me curious.

I'm no vocal expert, but wonder if anyone with more knowledge than me has an opinion about pros and cons of using falsetto compared to natural vocal range. Is it something that's debatable, or do I need to get a life?

Examples include Roy Orbison. I believe that he used his natural vocal range and not falsetto. I may be wrong. What about MJ? Was he falsetto or natural?

Are there any solid recorded examples of falsetto compared to natural vocal range that proove one over the other? Other examples of falsetto may be The Four Seasons, The Beach Boys and of course Tiny Tim. Did Roy Orbison sing in three octaves?

Just wanted to throw this subject out there for discussion and/or laughs. Thanks, Ben

Here is a wikipedia article on it and it mentions some other singers toward the bottom of the page.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsetto

Ben,
Didn't the BEE GEE's make an entire career out of Falsetto!?

Droptine

I have a CD of singing lessons in which the instructor teaches transitioning into the "head voice" seamlessly. Pretty much the same as using falsetto.....think female opera singers.

I saw Flo and Eddie last year and they can still sing well.

Tiny Tim and MJ were a little on the peculiar side....probably helped the falsetto.

Give it a try -

I lost my falsetto years ago. It's belt it out or nothing for me now.

BC, maybe an operation is in order.

I wouldn't go THAT far. Funny thing is, I can hit higher notes belting now than I could 10 years ago.

I can't help but admire men and women who can "belt out" as opposed to falsetto. Any good examples?

Me too, Bob. Have to hit everything high full blast (which means backing off the mic).

Singers have their own range for natural voice.

Just because I want to hit a certain note high in natural voice doesn't mean I will be able to. If a song that I or anyone starts, that has a low note start to it, (at the bottom end of their "good" range, and it calls for notes that are higher than our "good or hittable high note range), then what's left but to whistle if not "having" to go to a falsetto?

Sometimes, as in Paul McCartney, those type of singers will go to falsetto as afterthoughts to a melody line, for added performance presentation. (Say an octave above even his high natural voice range, as in "Oh Darling", (those extremely high oooohs after a line).

For some singers who sing just about everything in falsetto,,,well that is a sound that they or the producers must have called "sellable" or unique, or something to have them do that.

But going to a falsetto for me happens when I choose to go above my natural voice range,,,,not for anything else. It;s uaully for effect, and not to be the melody. Most times it's for harmony I do outside my natural voice range. Otherwise, (wanting the note in there), as I mentioned already, I would have to whistle those parts! I think falsetto works better for the songs I'm talking about!

My natural range is up to a G, (But my good range is only up to an E. I wrote, or have changed the keys to songs, to have all my natural voice peak notes not go pass E. That's one way to avoid having to go falsetto for the "melody".

Falsetto is a good singing tool to use, when used in a way that sounds good to the usual ears of any artist

Smoky Robinson had his sound based on falsetto. He could have sung the songs in a lower key with a natural voice, and who knows? It may have been too normal of a sound. ????

Ohs and Ahs in high harmony can compliment the lead vocal who's in natural voice.

It all depends!!!!

OOOH-OOOH BABY BABY! {Smokey}

Yes, correct vocal technique means moving from chest to head without breaking. It takes time and practice to be able to achieve this. In a sense, we are "mixing" the voices to avoid any issues in the passagio (the 'break' is actually a 'passage'). This means the vocal folds work in a healthy fashion as we negotiate the range easily.

As I mentioned on another thread today, when we push too much in the chest, we loose the top notes, or make it difficult to access the top notes. The heaviness of the lower notes are like putting 'weights' on the voice, pulling it down. When we are able to sing in the lower and middle part of the range with light-weightness, good vocal quality, and proper breath support... we are then able to take this good technique up through the passiagio & find our top notes. Hard to explain in words but I spend many hours a week helping people (men and women) do just that.

I was listening to Alison Krauss and noticed she is a perfect example of this (among other things).

Sometimes it is actually difficult to determine if a singer is using a falsetto. Usually it is easy to tell, but not always.

Justice spends a good deal of time practicing the transition from her normal voice to falsetto - and determining where to switch for each song.

Tom

We have chest resonance and head resonance, but the goal is to make it 'all one voice', as I mentioned above. We work to make the join seamless, but more than that, to make the voice have the same quality throughout. So there is no falsetto, chest or head if the voice is properly trained. There is only one voice.

Mika's got a pretty good falsetto

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mC9UzFhNlbA

..ant

Good thread Ben. I've done what I call a falsetto to sing songs only at karaokes ( I like to do Prince's "Kiss"). However I've done it on one of my most recent songs as harmony on the chorus (White Collar Man). Technically the voice I used on that song was an impersonation (probably one that needs work - but it was novelty)of a Jamaican accent. Would that also be considered a falsetto?

Humans have four standard techniques of vocalizing. The fry voice, the modal voice, the falsetto voice and the whistle voice. The fry voice uses the glottis to produce a very low thrumming. The modal voice is the standard voice, used in singing or speaking. the falsetto voice is the "Mickey Mouse" voice where the very edge of the vocal folds are used in conjunction with Bernoulli's principle (the principle that keeps an airplane in the air...when air or fluid moves over a surface faster on one side than another, it creates lift. This is why the shower curtain moves toward the water flow.). Then there's the whistle voice, where the vocal folds touch each other, only allowing a smaller opening to create the voice. This is the "tiny" voice used in cartoons.

God gave us different voices. Some people can get a fairly loud falsetto, with an edge. Think Robert Plant or Barry Gibb. Others such as I sound like Mickey Mouse. Sigh. Such is life.

A falsetto can be a very good vocal technique. It's used in every genre of music I can recall.

Mike, thanks for the information. I never knew that. Now that you spell it out, it makes sense.

All- Do opera singers use falsetto?

Tom

[quote=Mike Dunbar]Humans have four standard techniques of vocalizing. The fry voice, the modal voice, the falsetto voice and the whistle voice. The fry voice uses the glottis to produce a very low thrumming.
So Mike, would I be correct in concluding that when one does an impersonation in a tone lower than their standard, they are using a "fry voice"?

As an opera singer, I don't use falsetto. As I said above, we are trained to sing with 'one voice'. Listen to Pavarotti, there is no falsetto apparent even when singing multiple high A's and a high B (a semitone down from high C5).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TOfC9LfR3PI

Another good example of Bernoulli's Principle is the "venturi tube". A regular garden hose that is pinched while the water is running. When you pinch the hose, the water comes out faster.

Falsetto is a good thing to keep practicing...the more you do it, the easier it gets. The real trick is getting familiar with the right transition point from natural to falsetto. A guy like Orbison sang like an opera singer, and most of those incredible high notes were full voiced...but I'm convinced he also sang falsetto for a lot of the high stuff too. Neil Young uses it plenty, and it's difficult to tell when he breaks from full voice to falsetto.

But if you get familiar with falsetto, you just gained a team of back-up singers for your multitrack recordings. It feels a little weird at first, but it sounds just fine. Embrace your girlie voice!

Good points Mark. Falsetto is very useful for multi-track recording. Individual falsetto tracks can sound odd, but when blended together, it often will come out pretty good.

I think falsetto is heavily about attitude and confidence, perhaps more so than normal singing. Practice helps here.

And all I can say to folks who don't embrace falsetto:

"It's A Shame"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHXFOUQBRHE