Saturday, January 06, 2007

Falsetto

Physiologically, most modern voice scientists describe pure falsetto as acricothyoid-dominant mode of phonation, with thyroarytenoid action virtuallynil. In layman's terms: the stretching and lengthening of the vocal foldsis occurring in order to change pitch, but the adduction (bringingtogether) and thickening action of the folds is absent or insignificant. Ifyou could see the folds in three dimensions, you would see that falsettouses the thin edges of the folds and that the folds are not held firmlytogether, where in a head voice with more body and ring in the tone, thethyroarytenoid action causes the cords to come together more firmly and withmore bulk as intensity is increased. Both the "stretchers" and the"closers" have to work together to make a head voice, and the ratios of thetwo actions can vary, creating the gamut of effects from "pure falsetto", to"coordinated" or "reinforced" falsetto, to light head voice, etc. all theway to what sounds like "chest voice". In a tenor's higher pitch range(such as A440 and above) a "pure chest voice production"(thyroarytenoid-dominant bulking up of the folds) produces a sound notunlike that emitted by a pig being disemboweled without anesthesia.

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