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Best Vowel Sequence To Tame Passaggio

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His highest note is an A4. If he did an early bridge it would be pretty low for M2 and therefore clearly audible. :)

For me personally, staying in M1 on A4 is very hard and I need A LOT more intensity compared to his recording to not use M2 + twang (or MLN in CVT) on an A4. I will try to figure out where I hear the bridging when I'm back home (with better earphones). But as I already wrote, the bridge is subtile in this recording, because he stays in the same mode/vowel space. Bridges are easier to hear when the mode/vowel space is switched at the same time.

If he doesn't bridge before A4 I would even consider this a "quite late bridge" for a male and I would definitely expect higher intensity on such a late bridge.

From personal experience I would say an early bridge is in the D4/E4 area, medium is around the G4, and late bridge is anything past that. It is even possible to bridge earlier than that, but that usually involves more air in the sound.

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Steven Faser Wrote: In the thread on "Female Classical Headvoice"

Consistency of tone quality, in any region of the voice, depends on maintaining the character of the glottal wave-form and the alignment of the resonances with the harmonics of the phonated tone. For men and women both, the tendency on the rising scale is to do too much, or too little, to maintain the consistency, either in the phonation domain alone, the resonance domain alone, or in their combination.

In the male voice, especially lower ones, the issue is 'head voice with power', or what the Italians used to call 'Full voice in the head' (Voce Piena in Testa). That sound, which is consistent (but not identical) to the ring and boomy quality of the chest voice, must be produced in a manner that approximates the glottal pulse wave form, and some resonance characteristics of the lower production... or it will be unacceptable to the ear... it will sound too different to the listener, and will be less than satisfying to them.

The challenge to the male singer is the technique of maintaining that glottal wave form through the resonance-disadvantaged area (aka, 'the passaggio') until alignment between F2 and H3 or H4 can be achieved. Put another way, as the vocal bands are thinning on the way up the scale, how to maintain reasonable closed quotient and glottal closure 'snap' that produces the fullness and high frequency components in the sound which are present in the chest voice.

Light head voice (which does not need either of those characteristics) is much easier to do, as it can be built from an easily-achievable M2, with twang added, and 'voila', the head voice used pre-Duprez in Italian Opera appears. Current writing on 'falsetto' in Italy discusses it this way, if even in the process, the re-casting of the term to 'yet another meaning' occurs.

However, the recent (last 15 years or so) research on the effect of epilaryngal narrowing specifically, and of vocal tract inertance due to resonance generally, gives us beneficial guidance. What we now know scientifically what good singers have known experientially... in their own bodies... that a free, well-supported, resonant 'twangy' tone is easier to produce over a greater range than a sucky one ;-) If the twang is produced epilaryngeally (that is, not by deliberate cord compression, but by resonance) then the vocal band adjustments needed to transition throughout the range can be accomplished with great freedom and consistency of tone. Using twang made this way, the glottal closure motion is naturally more rapid, giving a rich overtone content to the glottal pulse without having to use high glottal compression to accomplish it. Put another way, this kind of twang makes the tone 'chesty' without using so much TA muscle contraction to create it. The TA is then more free to be stretched by the CT, which is absolutely required to produce the higher fundamentals.

Combine that kind of phonation with good F2 tuning, and/or with some UH or Schwa in the C5+ region, or with a rock scream vowel, and really impressive results occur. Gedda, Pavarotti, Flores, Domingo, Milnes, Warren, Tippett, Tucker, Correlli, Bergonzi, Merrill, Hines... all these guys did it impressively well, for quite long careers, too!

I hope this is helpful.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Best Regards,

Forgive me Steven for using your words without asking first. I thought this was useful here.

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For me personally, staying in M1 on A4 is very hard and I need A LOT more intensity compared to his recording to not use M2 + twang (or MLN in CVT) on an A4.

Benny, I would very much like to hear a recording where you bridge to M2 before A4. Also, M2 + twang is not what CVT consider MLN below high C. :)

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Benny, I would very much like to hear a recording where you bridge to M2 before A4. Also, M2 + twang is not what CVT consider MLN below high C. :)

In lack for a better example, I have an old cover of HIM's It Is All Tears on my YT channel.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=JshPJhk7KUQ

The high note in the refrain is an E4 I think and should be M2. I use a little more air than kickingtone though, but the general coordination should be similar.

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Benny,

Yes, this sounds to me like M2. However, this coordination is far from what kickingtone is using. When you get the chance I would like you to do the same siren as him and then bridge at that point (E4) without any audible difference. :)

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For this thread on passaggio, the whole post.

For the last 5 or so posts, the first three paragraphs,

Whether Kicking is using a light head voice through the entire siren or a light M2 or a light M1 with proper resonance to make it sound modal does not matter. We will not know by listening unless the break is apparent. Which it is not.

The main point is that it is light and whichever way he is achieving it, He is achieving it. And it is easier to make the switch, if it is happening, not noticable when it is sung light.

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Benny,

Yes, this sounds to me like M2. However, this coordination is far from what kickingtone is using. When you get the chance I would like you to do the same siren as him and then bridge at that point (E4) without any audible difference. :)

Yes, I will try to do that. BTW, while listening closely I hear him switching at pretty much exactly 0:12 in the last clip (you can even hear a slight instability even though he covers it really well). Should be around F#4/G4, so more of a medium switch (or an early switch if he is a tenor).

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Benny,

A bit unstable yes, but that's just it to my ears. The reason why I say this is because it's very very hard to make an inaudible bridge that low. Also the normal passagio for men is below that, so I don't know why you call it medium or early bridge? :)

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At around F4 its already changed.

Its not hard to create a "virtual" register that does not have dynamic capability on chest voice :). You can take that up to C6 and it will still be somewhat "connected" as long as you drop the dynamics of the lower notes.

Its M2. And I agree its a good production within it, as I also mentioned on one of my first interactions with him. His lower notes are on head resonance, thats the reason for low volume and the masking of the pass into falsetto.

As I said, it lacks energy, its more of an amateur choir quality as it is now. So although it could be used for a lot of things, it just wont get near the subject, passaggio of male voice.

I think that there are some samples of yours demonstrating the same on an old sirens thread, although Im not certain about the vowels used.

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So, here is my shot on this: I think the coordination is the same as in that last clip by kickingtone (maybe a little more compression).

The switch is in the E4/F4 area.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/69231116/m1tom2.mp3

I could probably going on for a few notes on that intensity level, but to reach the really high ones without instabilities or "squeezing them out" I would have to increase intensity in the head voice part.

Personally, I can only stay in "full voice" (M1) up there if I am using centered Overdrive on the exact Overdrive vowels (mainly on EH) and almost dying from the instensity ;) In all other modes I switch to M2 before A4.

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Felipe, what do you mean by volume, and how can you judge from a recording?

It could be the mic? I'm singing at my laptop and I can't even see anything that looks like a mic on it.

Also, I have no idea why Benny can only "just hear" the second siren.

I can hear both sirens, but with the pillow it is quite hard to judge the first one.

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Also the normal passagio for men is below that, so I don't know why you call it medium or early bridge? :)

Hmm, are you referring to the head/chest passaggio? In terms of M1/M2 this is pretty much what I know:

Men and women typically change from M1 to M2 at about 350-370 Hz (F4-F#4) (Sundberg, 1987)

... which is what I would call a medium/standard bridge

There is usually a pitch and intensity range over which singers can use either M1 or M2 (Roubeau et al., 2004), and trained singers are good at disguising the transition.

which basically means trained singers can move the transition around (bridge earlier or later) and can disguise the transition (make it almost inaudible).

Perhaps there are some newer findings I don't know?

For the resonance registers (chest/head) however, the transition is indeed earlier and varies more among males and females as well as among voice types.

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Felipe,

Why don't you record the same siren where you keep the M1 configuration and another where you transition to M2? That way we can compare it to kickingtone's example :)

Martin - Can you explain CVT "Neutral Without Air" in terms of M1 / M2 or TA / CT activity? It seems to me that mode is almost devoid of any muscular shift of coordination throughout the range?

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Just to say something in regards to the original question. The vowel sequence in the passaggio depends a lot on the sound you want! The passaggio as a whole (even more the resonance shift than the M1/M2 shift) depends on the formant tuning, which is done by vowel modification. But there are different possible modifications.

The EE vowel Felipe mentioned is indeed a good vowel in the passaggio. But it WILL drive you towards a more classical/less shouty sound, which in contemporary singing is not often the desired tone. The vowel that is best for you is the one that let's you "tune" towards the desired tone.

In classical singing the resonance strategy in lower chest voice is usually F1 -> H2/H3/H4. This is more or less randomly because one of the harmonics usually WILL be in reach of F1. The larynx rises slightly in the process which makes the F1 "follow" the harmonics a bit. However, at some point in their range, classical singers intentionally lower F1 to decouple it from H2 and stop the act of "following the harmonics". This action is also known as "covering" and prevents a "shouty" or "splatty" sound quality in the passaggio. At the same time they still let F2 rise though, because in the "head voice" they will want to resonate H3 within F2.

The vowel EE is indeed a good one for this strategy because it has a low F1 and a high F2. Thus, if you modify your vowels towards EE it will lower F1 and therefore get you into covering easier. Another common sequence is the modification from AH towards OH during the passaggio to get the same effect. At the second passaggio that OH is usually further modified to OO which decouples F2 from H3 and makes you able to tune F1 to H0, which results in "falsetto" tone quality.

On contemporary singing though, you might want to have a more agressive/shouty tone in your voice. For a tone like this, you have to pull up the coupling of F1 and H2 further, which results in a lifted larynx and gives you more of a shouty tone. A higher larynx results in more medial compression, which makes it more and more physical to sustain that tuning. To sustain that tuning as long as possible without having to raise your larynx too much, it is recommended to modify to an UH vowel (as in "up") during the passaggio, because it has a high F1 by nature.

Then there is the matter of "mass" or "metal". Certain vowels will induce more metal in your voice because of their vocal tract set up (that is what the CVT modes are made of). A strong use of covering in the passaggio with a modification towards EE for example will result in a low-medium amount of metal. A strong use of covering with an AH -> OH sequence will result in a high amount of metal (and more demand on support of course).

Finally, you can mix the two approaches (leaving H2 tuning early vs. late) and switch somewhere in the middle. Which means you pull up the H2 tuning a little more compared to a classical singer but not up to the maximum (which is somewhere around C5). For this approach you can modify towards an EH vowel, which has a medium F1 and a medium F2 and therefore allows for kind of a transition somewhere in the middle with a balanced larynx somewhere between shouting (open) and covering (closed).

After you have managed the first break which has led you to a stable note somewhere between G4 and C5, you have to decide how to go on. Your tuning should be F2 -> X now and you will have to decide again in a very similar way: You can continue to raise your larynx and make F2 follow H2, which results in a "screamy" kind of resonance. Or you can lower the larynx again to make H2 go ahead and start tuning F1 -> H0, which results in a "pure head" or "falsetto" quality.

In the end, there are many paths you can follow in terms of resonance, which is at least as important for managing the passage as the M1 -> M2 transition. In the end it is something like this: M1/M2 are related to intensity/metal/adduction, resonace (head/chest) is related to tone. Thus, to manage the passaggio you need vowels that fit the tone you want to produce and you need good support/compression to manage the M1->M2 transition. There are a lot of resonance strategies to choose from and your choice will determine the overall percieved tone of your voice by a big margin.

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Martin - Can you explain CVT "Neutral Without Air" in terms of M1 / M2 or TA / CT activity? It seems to me that mode is almost devoid of any muscular shift of coordination throughout the range?

In CVT they don't cover M1/M2 at all, they are just basing everything on acoustics. However, while thinking of this. Our definition of M1 vs. M2 may just be different. The original definition of M2 is that the TA muscles are completely inactive (today this would probably just be called "falsetto"). This is what I'm doing in my cover of It Is All Tears.

However, recent research supports the assumption that M1 vs. M2 are not that distinct, and that there can be coordinations where the cover of the folds (the edges) are the driving mechanism of the vibration, but the TA muscles are still active and there are even slight vibrations of the body of the folds. This is still M2 mode (because it is driven by the vibration of the edges), but is is not falsetto in the contemporary sense of the word. In the past we sometimes called this "CT-dominance". This is what I (and kickingtone as well) am doing in the siren.

This is also what Steven refers to in the quoted post. There can be quite heavy phonations within M2 (with CT activity and quite some part of the body vibrating) and there can be quite light phonations within M1. The main difference is that in M1 the phonation is more "inside-out" or "bottom-up" while in M2 it is more "outside-in" or "top-down".

Actually, even the vibration pattern in M2+TA activation is more similar to TA dominant M1. Because of that the terms "modal voice" or "full voice" are quite misleading today, too, because they can be used for CT dominant coordinations as well as TA dominant coordinations.

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So, here is my shot on this: I think the coordination is the same as in that last clip by kickingtone (maybe a little more compression).

The switch is in the E4/F4 area.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/69231116/m1tom2.mp3

I could probably going on for a few notes on that intensity level, but to reach the really high ones without instabilities or "squeezing them out" I would have to increase intensity in the head voice part.

Personally, I can only stay in "full voice" (M1) up there if I am using centered Overdrive on the exact Overdrive vowels (mainly on EH) and almost dying from the instensity ;) In all other modes I switch to M2 before A4.

Benny, thank you for the clip. However, to my ears you are doing exactly the same as kickingtone - staying in M1. Also I find it pretty unlikely that you are using M2 in other modes below A4. What you can do to tjeck this is to start in M2 or falsetto as you did on the E in your youtube clip and then simply go to Curbing and Edge without breaking. :)

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Martin - Can you explain CVT "Neutral Without Air" in terms of M1 / M2 or TA / CT activity? It seems to me that mode is almost devoid of any muscular shift of coordination throughout the range?

Sure, Neutral Without Air is done in M1. However, the higher you go approx. around A4 and up the switch to M2 usually happens naturally, what CVT refers to as the flageolet (M2 = flageolet in their terms). :)

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I wriote something earlier but deleted it. It gave the wrong impression of what I meant.

Low fold mass, leads to less breath pressure needed to start fold vibration, leads to less effort to stretch vocal folds by ct involvement, leads to easier transition to higher pitch and head resonance.

Not exactly vocal pedagogy but it works

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https://app.box.com/s/mvq5ext1kz52wxfre0zi

First the "pass" he did, slowed down, and then I take away the resonance make-up (which is the positive point of the sample).

Then the passage without braking. A sample of chest/head Then a decrescendo in G4 (I think), until the quality brakes from modal to falsetto. (this needs some work :P)

Its not mass, its not muscle, its simply using the same voice. Not much secret to it, if you guys stop trying to listen for "clues" and listen to whether the basic voice quality changes or not, its simple. If it changes, then the pattern of vibration is changed and you broke, no matter how much metal you are using, no matter how loud you are, no matter how connected it sounds.

And just to bring the focus back to reality, because all this chat does not clarify why the subject is relevant, to understand passaggio take a song that goes in that area and sing it. There is no way to talk out something that is in reality a collection of "troubleshooting" measures.

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