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kickingtone

TMV World Legacy Member
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Everything posted by kickingtone

  1. Can even be counterproductive, sometimes. When people say "hooty", I'm thinking owl, wooden flute, that sort of thing. I am not thinking Hyacinth. In fact, imo, she is neither a good example of airy nor hooty. I can isolate what I think is similar in her voice and the Mickey Mouse voice I found, and narrow down the definition of what I THINK you are calling falsetto -- even though your definition is not BASED on sound. But I do think that DEMONSTRATING the sound IS a good way of describing it. Online dictionaries do now have this capability, although there are too few situations to make use of it in a general dictionary. I'm not quibbling about the definition, per se. No point in that. I'm just curious about how effectively it can be used. Whether you are using sound or doing an exercise, you always end up interpreting whether the particular coordination is being used -- does it sound right? Did the lip trill cut out? etc. None of them definitive, but narrowing down the possibilities. I'd still say that giving someone a demo of Hyacinth or Mickey Mouse and saying, "copy that" could be a good start. Then, if it isn't quite right, you'd have to pick other diagnostics to highlight the difference.
  2. I'm not even sure that the classification makes much sense today, with all the electronic editing that goes on. You have microphones designed to add warmth to the tenor voice, or special editing done to add base. You can't hear the difference between your own clip and the other one, yet you are saying which "most people" would prefer? It's mostly in your head.
  3. But, just like listening to the sound, that is still an indirect diagnostic. Listening to the sound, or doing an exercise like a lip trill, NARROWS DOWN the available coordinations, coaxing you into, or facilitating, the production of the desired coordination. And it is still a theoretical leap of faith that the sound or exercise is being produced by your definition of falsetto.
  4. You took the word right out of my mouth. You have to decide whether you want to be a singer/artist or an obsessive. Right back when I started singing, and some very insistent folk were advising me how to sound, and I listened to their examples, I thought whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat! Why would I want to sound like that? I couldn't care less what it was called. All that base, cadence, and dynamic chopped out, and the sound held back? That just wasn't for me. I love the base in the baritone sound. But if you have no taste, and can't hear differences in what you are aiming for, and are only doing it for a label, then that is not art. And a singer has to be an artist.
  5. Stop worrying about labels. Use all the richness of your tone in whatever range it works best, and stop falling for all the tenor nonsense. I have a baritone voice, like most males. I ignored all the tenor hype when I started to learn to sing, and I am very grateful that I did. Be thankful that "god" gave you a nice base in your tone.
  6. You are unhappy about NOTHING. Learn to like your voice. It works best doing what it does, naturally. Don't try to be a shadow of something else.
  7. But I could probably tell the "spectrograph" of a piece of flute music from sax music, which is more in line with what we are talking about. There is no SIMPLE spectral difference between a male voice and a female voice, and people can even sometimes mistake the actual voices. But you're back to sound again. If you can hear the difference, why do you need to define the coordination? Would you tell the student to kindly stop stiffening his doodah (vocal folds, whatever). How do you use the definition?
  8. What you are suggesting is that you CANNOT definitively tell from the sound if it is falsetto. But you CAN tell if it is NOT falsetto. -- If the sound is "relatively free" of overtones then it MAY be falsetto, OR it may be something that mimics falsetto. -- If the overtone content is too high then it is NOT falsetto. After all, we have been discussing this, and giving examples according to SOUND. BUT... I guess that this "indication" from the sound is theoretical. i.e claiming that the vibrational modes of the lighter edges of the vocal folds CANNOT produce much in the way of overtones, and that they WILL be roughly sinusoidal. Has such a theory EVER been tested for vocal fold mass? And, even if the vibrational mode is sinusoidal, is the amplified sound (amplified by resonators in a non-linear fashion) also so simple? We are talking about a biological instrument here. Schematics can give a basic outline, but biology varies hugely. On top of that, there are so few test subjects who have had scopes shoved down their tonsils for scientifically controlled testing.
  9. But, if falsetto is defined by the sound (fundamental plus weak harmonics), then mimicking the sound is the sound. How else can you mimic the sound without having a similar spectrum? On the other hand, if you use a more qualitative definition, of vocal fold mass vibration, there are a heap of other factors that will impact on the final sound. Who's to say definitely what could or could not be falsetto, just by listening? And if you were to insist on defining falsetto to be both of the characteristics, then, what would be the use? You'd need a scope to know if you were doing falsetto, because the sound wouldn't tell you. It could be something mimicking falsetto, or it could be falsetto sounding like something else. I mean if you said that falsetto is defined by the spectral output, AND excludes other things that mimic the same spectral output, the only way you could rule those other things out would be with a scope down the tonsils! But then, who cares. The singer has produced the desired sound SOMEHOW... unless you can INSTINCTIVELY FEEL how much vocal mass is vibrating and could be instructed to stiffen the folds etc.
  10. But there is stylistic chest falsetto, where transition can be smooth on low notes with lower air pressure. And I think that falsetto mix is possible there, too. I can understand how it may be "impossible" to reconnect smoothly after falsetto is used on very high notes. You basically need a fresh onset. Even then, I think that a smooth transition can sometimes still happen in the easier direction (modal to falsetto). I checked my second clip in Audacity, and the airy notes are even more "falsettoey" than the first clip, according to reduced overtones measure. I am seeing the fundamental frequency 18 to 24 decibels stronger than the next strongest harmonic. So, I am not sure that that definition and the "falsettoey" sound marry up.
  11. How on Earth do you know about Keeping Up Appearances. OK, I'm starting to get your definition, and I have now found a Mickey Mouse video with the characteristic. It also does agree with what can be produced if the voice "cracks or flips". Maybe that is one way to produce the sound, just let the voice crack -- but boy, doing that for any length of time sounds very uncomfortable. I think I'd go hoarse within seconds. I'd liken it to the vocal folds skidding instead of rolling.
  12. If it is about priorities, rather than fooling people, they should put the pedals out in the open. That way everyone can see the singer pull a lever before their voice changes.
  13. No, but I still want to know what people mean when they use the word. I can't claim to have much of a scientific basis to what I call falsetto. Like most words, I just associated it with something, and that stuck. Then confirmation bias, whatever, sort of made the other considerations fit in. I think that there is a real muddle over the word. I used to think that there was a "core" sound that was unequivocally falsetto, and everyone would agree while they argued around the fringes. But even that notion has been shot to pieces. I've seen YouTube vids and comments saying that one person or the other has it (and head voice) the wrong way round. I've forgotten what Mickey Mouse sounds like, so I googled it... I definitely have heard of "Mickey Mouse falsetto" but the voice actor I chanced upon didn't sound falsetto to me. Maybe I picked the wrong voice actor. Anyway, this is about as airy as I can get (end of phrases only, esp last 2). I associate it more with whispering than falsetto -- definitely not flutey! But reading what you wrote, the mass of the vocal folds can be vibrating without making contact, and it is still not falsetto. For falsetto, the folds are stiff, and only the edges vibrate? I wonder how you can tell without a scope? And did anyone put a scope down Mickey Mouse's tonsils? (btw, my memories of Mickey Mouse are only of a very childlike voice.)
  14. At least you see guitarists playing live, using a capo. They are not out to fool anyone. What would be a problem would be if they had been recorded using a capo and only pretended to be playing live without a capo. Even then, I guess that it would take an actual guitarist, like yourself, to attach greater skill to one or the other. On the one hand, people can be fooled into practising harder than they otherwise would, because of all those lofty targets. But, when people catch on to the deception, it can have the opposite effect... "if a pedal works, why sweat and toil? Just use that".
  15. Yeah, it's the Age of Fake, really. It's not just music, it's anywhere you look. Sport is dominated by.. let's just call it chemistry. Doping, microdoping... all that ish is winning. Fashion and beauty has been down the swanny for decades. A model is no longer a symbol of health and beauty, but the wonders of the surgeon's knife and weird fads. A toxic combination of competition and a monopoly on information breeds a culture of deception. But people seem to have Stockholm Syndrome, buying into the deception, at least with their particular "hero" or "heroine". People want heroes, and they want to believe that their heroes are superhuman. So there is actually a demand for deception, coupled with a bizarre intolerance of cheats. Clumsy cheats spoil the party. If you can't pull off the cheating with polish and finesse, you will face the wrath of the public. You are a killjoy. Artistic production can be what it likes. But when deception is an integral part of the story, something isn't quite right.
  16. ..I'm getting a picture of a stage with a CD player in the middle, and the band flipping on a tune and going to sit in the audience. So, what do people see as success? Is it about fame, money, getting a "message" out there willy nilly? Maybe the singing/performance is only a means to an end, and the creative satisfaction is slipping down the league table.
  17. Dayum! Messing around looking at the waveforms in Audacity and I've only just realized that there is an octave jump in there! I know that I am singing a heap of notes wrong, but the thing was only ever intended as an exercise in projection anyway, and I kinda got stuck singing it this way. It's still a tune, just not the right one . (Who's to say what the original is, anyway?) The exercise was suggested by ronws, a member back in the day when I was starting out. I knew he'd picked it to get me working on projection/resonance because that is what we had been talking about. I think he knew that that, combined with the speed of the song would trip me up. I just didn't realize there was an octave jump in there F3 - F4 (or maybe I created it by singing it wrong). Years later, I'm still using it for warm-up/exercise! Good call by ronws. I recommend it. I can go a smidgen faster.. (yeah yeah the tunes a bit wrong)..
  18. A few days ago, I saw a post on Reddit where someone was asking for his singing to be critiqued. After a couple of replies the person says that there was... "some light pitch correction"... ...in his singing sample! Making changes to pitch or rhythm makes a mockery of any critique of technique (it wasn't a finished cover, or anything; it was him practising). So, what's the point? Will people start to become so reliant on technology that they won't bother anymore?
  19. Forgive my ignorance, but your username looks like a Chinese name, but I can't tell for sure if it is female or male. (And I didn't want to send you a creepy PM asking). Age matters too, particularly for males going through puberty. I think the advice there is patience and allowing the voice to settle. Some women with very soft chest voice use vocal fry to fake the lower register (I think that usually sounds horrible). My own opinion is that there is enough practice involved in learning to control all those factors that MDEW mentioned that strength will grow automatically. The purpose and focus of repetition in practice is not strength, but improving control. There will be more than enough of that going on that it will also serve as strength training. So, in a training session, your goal should not be "ten of these, twenty of those", but a few targeted attempts at improving something specific. Then the strength improvement will look after itself. I see many people go straight from basic exercises to their favourite complicated songs, with little in between -- often leading to great disappointment. I think that is a big mistake. The common exercises are nowhere near complete enough to prepare them. Nowhere near. There are any number of simple to intermediate songs that you can use to do some of the more complex coordinations in an easier setting -- more slowly, more isolated (but not as basic as something like a lip trill). Simple songs may not be what you like to sing, but I think that they are the best way to drill technique and just to warm up. So, if such songs themselves do not inspire you, you can motivate yourself by knowing that they are a great workout.
  20. I can hear an immediate difference (I'm listening on heavy closed back headphones). I can JUST hear a difference through my laptop speakers, too, but I guess I already know what I'm looking for. It actually started with me trying to sing Fields of Gold (Sting), and deciding that a touch of distortion is required on some of the phrases (like, "among the fields of gold"). I've never really been interested in distortion, but this seems to be one of those rare cases of a song I like that I think needs a bit of distortion in places. Trouble is that I have no idea how to even begin getting the particular distortion (a touch of rasp I would call it?) through placement in the mask. But placement at back of the throat FELT different. Although I wasn't trying to do any distortion, it FELT more like it WOULD be more able to distort the way I wanted. So, I was thinking that if I do learn a bit about rasp, I'd better use that placement (as oppose to the placement in the mask that I am more used to.) I know that rasp has to be done carefully, and not physically directly on the vocal folds (or you could eventually find yourself stuck with it!) So, I am just exploring a foundation for learning how to do it for the odd occasion.
  21. Can you hear the difference? One is placed mainly back of throat, the other in the mask.
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