Thread: "Normal" range and falsetto

I have known a few countertenors that are actually basses in their normal range. So I think it just depends.

Definately basses can be countertenors, but question is are they limited to a range that is similar to alto? Or can they go higher?

That I'm not sure of. The old friend of mine that was a countertenor/bass was really in an alto range.

that brings up an interesting question. Anyone can produce a tone that is that high, but it comes with the right training.
For let's say, a bass that has large laryngeal cartilidge and vocal folds. It takes much more chest compression, almost physically impossible, to open the vocal folds that are extremely adducted.
The cricoid muscles can be trained to adduct the vocal folds at very high pressure, and -----tension and mass are directly proportional to frequency.
I'm glad you got me thinking about this question.

Truth be told, falsetto is normal range! there is nothing abnormal about it except the name. It is really a misnomer. Falsetto gets it's name from the false vocal chords that hang losely above the normal vocal chords. It was once thought that these produced the upper tones of the male voice but investigation has proven that to be wrong. Falsetto comes from the same set of vocal chords. The difference is the mucsles being used to apply tension to them. In a really good tenor voice, you should hear no difference in timbre as he goes into his upper range. That is called a "blended" voice where both sets of muscles work together, the upper leading the way with support form the chest register. This is a voice that has been properly developed. The only difference, say between Frankie Valley and Poverati is one of delveloped vocal muscles. They both sing in the same range! The norm for a voice developed this way is about three to three and a half octives. A well deveoped male voice will have the capability to sing any male part in the chorus and even alto at times.

Are you basically saying that there's no such thing as falsetto really? It just that in the upper range, timbre changes easily (but not necessarily if the vocalist is skilled) to something that we often usually "falsetto", but there's no precise difference in terms of technique with falsetto and so-called "normal" singing voice?

In a word, yes. There are two type of singers, one registor or two registor. The average pop singer is a one registor singer with a very limited range. For the normal guy, it takes paitence and years of practice to blend both registors together. There are however folks that just naturally sing with both registors. One name that comes to mind is Jose Cura. His high C sounds completley baritone but you can't sing a C without engaging the head registor. It takes alot of work but is well worth the effort to sing with a blended voice!

Check out Ivan Rebroff; the Russian - German singer

Originally Posted by Bgroovy2

In a really good tenor voice, you should hear no difference in timbre as he goes into his upper range. That is called a "blended" voice where both sets of muscles work together, the upper leading the way with support form the chest register. This is a voice that has been properly developed.

This is correct. A good, well-developed tenor voice can move between ranges seamlessly.

I once had a fine falsetto, but since I began singing tenor in choirs it's been getting smaller and smaller (while the range of my normal voice expands upwards) and now only consists of the tone b'. I have no idea why or if this is normal.

That is great Saturnus. With more practice/training, your 'normal' voice will assimilate that B.

That's relieving to know , I was afraid I was damaging my voice with some stupid amateur technique I might had been using (I haven't learned much about singing).