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by golly, i think i've got it.


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hey folks, i just had a brain flash!!

what is a good way to explain head voice?

simply put, it's a placement above the speaking voice.....you really cannot sing in head voice and be in speaking mode.

would that seem to hold? steve, rob, whomever wants to comment?

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I'm with you, Bob. Head voice is a different animal than speaking. For me, speech level singing is good for songs like "Brandy" by Looking Glass but not so much for the chorus in "Run to the Hills" by Iron Maiden. But even in baritone range, there are songs that are sung differently than when speaking. Such as most anything by Metallica. Like any good singer, Hetfield is all about breath support.

There are some coaches, like Roger Love, who feel that we should phonate and breathe when we speak as we do when we sing but I haven't always found that as practical, though some singers approach that by never whispering. That is, they try to phonate fully, even when speaking.

But I like to think in terms of mechanics. Low notes are slower vibrations and longer waves and the air pressure is low, above and below. For there is air pressure above the folds as the wave is doubled back (resonated properly to achieve dB gain.) A high note is smaller, faster vibration that has a slight increase in pressure and therefore must be balanced with a slight increase in air pressure from below. Not a tremendous amount but subtly different than speaking.

The mechanics of speaking are different than singing. In speaking, we have way more stops that are harder in sound. Consonants, resonance affected by local dialect. For example, Chef Paula Deen speaks through her nose, which is a local accent where she lives. But it wouldn't work so well in hard rock. Also, the way we structure phrases in speaking requires, I think, different breathing. I think our ears would hurt if we spoke at concert volume to each other in close proximity.

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Head voice = high light notes, no? :)

not only, i would say head voice, depending on the placement and support can be a seriously powerful resonant high note you cannot even distinguish from chest.

example lou gramm...."hot blooded"

he eats tenor high c's for lunch.....lol!!

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Imaginative placement descriptions are too abstract to be the ultimate definition of anything, and work differently as tools on everyone. They can work great for some and be awful for others. If you want to define something for real it's all about anatomy or acoustics. :) Personally I think of what jonpall said when people say "head voice", nothing less nothing more. While sure many different schools have defined head voice acoustically, they have defined it different. And because so many schools have their own interpretation of what it means I find no point in establishing a real meaning for it, I rather just say "high note" +mode to describe something and the term head voice is obsolete.

The vibrations in your chest will disappear above a certain pitch no matter what mode you sing in.

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Bob - Some people speak in head voice, so I can't say that speaking voice isn't head voice, although it is for me and you and most of us guys on the forum. So for most of us your definition holds true.

How I think of it is this: Head Voice is a configuration that results in a certain sound. Broadly speaking it is Thin folds verses Thick folds. The configuration being CT activity only producing thin folds as opposed to a tug of war between TA and CT which produces thick folds.

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Bob - Some people speak in head voice, so I can't say that speaking voice isn't head voice, although it is for me and you and most of us guys on the forum. So for most of us your definition holds true.

How I think of it is this: Head Voice is a configuration that results in a certain sound. Broadly speaking it is Thin folds verses Thick folds. The configuration being CT activity only producing thin folds as opposed to a tug of war between TA and CT which produces thick folds.

geno, so that i might learn more about ta and ct muscles as it pertains to voice, can you recommend any reading to me?

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Bob - I learned the TA CT stuff from Seven Fraser's posts. It is really easy to feel it though. If you sing a note in chest and flip into falsetto - it creates a Yodel type of sound. Chest is TA and CT pulling against each other. When you flip into falsetto that is you letting go of the TA muscle and then CT is the only thing involved.

The CT muscle contols pitch - stretching the folds for higher pitches. The TA muscle acts like a "counter balance" and pulls the folds against the action of CT. That action produces thick folds. It is like if you pushed your right hand against your left hand. The more force you exert, the thicker both your arm muscles get.

The thicker the folds, the stronger the volume and tone (chest voice). It is like the lower strings on the guitar - they are thicker and produce more overtones. The top strings are thinner and go higher.

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Hi Bob... I dont mind your definition, however its not exactly right because you have to deal with Belts. Belt mode is not speech mode and yet, it resides in the chest voice. Your high chest voice phonations with aggressive onsets... the singing that is most like shouting, are called "Belts".

How about, "the change that is taking place is similar to shifting gears in a car, from one set of vocal muscles to another – in essence, the muscle ‘bulkers’ in the lower range (the Thyroarytenoid or ‘T.A.’s for short) to the muscle ‘stretchers’ in the upper range (the cricothyroids or ‘C.T.’s). It’s the smooth transition of this change-over that is desirable to most of us and results in a seamless sound as the singer “passes” from the chest resonance to head resonance".

I think the best way to define it, has to account for the physiology that creates it.

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