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Falsetto

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Hi, I've posted a topic about falsetto before and got really no help....I really want to learn how to sing falsetto but I can only do it on very limited notes and vowels.....how does one sing falsetto? What needs to happen with the vocal cords and such? Should there be an open throat? How similar to head voice is it? Please help......

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Falsetto is next to 0 vocal fold adduction. Very few people train their head voice to be airy, which is why finding help to master it is going to take a while. The only way to make it better is to practice it . Unfortunately, muscle memory with eventually block your ability to sing in head voice. While drilling falsetto, you are instructing your vocal folds to be bypassed. I'd suggest not working on falsetto, and concentrate on head voice expansion. For instance, if you can sing a C5 in head voice , then you can sing a C 5 in falsetto. The opposite is not true.

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It's hard to explain how. The sound is light and Hooty like an owl. Mickey Mouse sound is falsetto. Women in british comedies usually speak in falsetto.

Normally just by singing a very light high tone without any squeeze in your throat will produce a falsetto sound.

If you can sing a high note, say B4 or C5 just back off of the volume. Slacken any sqeeze that you might have in your throat.

I am not a teacher. That is the best way that I know how to describe it.

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I would say depends on what you call falsetto firstly. What alot of people here call "pure head voice" is falsetto to me, just not airy and with better resonance manipulation.

Do you want a very breathy sound, or a more "hooty bell-like" sound?

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Mivke has a great point. Just remember, in falsetto, something is vibrating at the required frequency. Otherwise, you would hear air only and no tone.

Falsetto, the love that dare not speak its name. :D

And that falsetto is a certain amount of fold adduction considered less than full adduction. Whatever full adduction is. I'm with Daniel. I also need an adduction-o-meter.

There are times when I did what I thought was falsetto and others thought it was full and not so overdriven.

Other times, I have done what I thought was full head-voice, not overdriven, and someone thought it was falsetto.

Then someone brought in the term "reinforced falsetto," which confused me, as that sounded like an oxymoron, to me. (Oxymoron = mutually contradictory terms put together, like military intelligence, public education, singers without egos, you get the point. :D )

So, then, I wasn't sure if reinforced falsetto was a falsetto that received some resonance. Or was it a note that started falsetto but received some additional airspeed, seeing as a high note is a fast vibration and needs a something of a different attack, like the way that horn player changes embouchre.

Then, there were times when I would sing a note falsetto and then, later, retract my soft palate and it would sound full.

Other times, the reverse, like I did on my cover of "I Don't Believe in Love" where I am in the last note in full voice and then back off the air and let the soft palate out and it sounds like the note goes to falsetto.

But I just don't know enough. I am sure the experts will chime and I will learn the 5th new thing I have learned today.

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Depends on what you define as head voice, what you define as falsetto and what are your goals.

Your teacher should be able to help you do it. GL.

Which would mean that we cannot define it here. Becuase different teachers might approach what it is differently. I can think of two who have been members of this forum. Kevin Richards feels that falsetto is something you can do at an particular point in the range. And, for a while, I think Lunte felt it was only a timbre properly described in the head voice region. Though I may be wrong on that.

So, does that mean, that if I study with Mr. Richards and he says falsetto can happen in any part of the range, that I can stand on that definition and have others respect it?

I get it, you're saying we should all get a coach. I just don't see how that is helping the discussion of falsetto.

I could go back to the advice I received from a coach and just drop out of this discussion. Which would, no doubt, please others immensely.

:D

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I get it, you're saying we should all get a coach. I just don't see how that is helping the discussion of falsetto.

A good coach should be able to teach him the sound he wants, be it falsetto, headvoice or something else it doesn't matter.

Nick

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The easiest way to induce falsetto is to drop your larynx. Let your jaw fall down loosely and make an /AW/ vowel. This vowel is excellent for falsetto. Imagine your are yawning on that vowel. Try to make your mouth opening as big as possible in a vertical way. Then add an "h" to it, like Gina suggestest. So you do a long yawning on "haaaaaaw" with a really big mouth opening.

To make higher notes just add more air (push more from your lungs) to it without changing anything else. Keep everything above your lungs completely relaxed in the position induced above and just work with your breath.

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that sounds more to me like a connected (has base fold closure) light head tone.....he starts out a little airy then closes it up and sustains the note.

if that were pure falsetto the air would blow by the folds and he wouldn't hold on to it ...

great voice...gotta learn that one.

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