Whew! 18 posts since this morning! GOOD ones too! Thanks for the read folks.

James.T.Orr...
Thanks for the compliment on my eloquence. Hehehe.
Seems we have a lot in common. Bass Baritone vocals, an appreciation for different styles and pushing ourselves to attempt new stuff in order to improve as well as just enjoy. Would really love to hear your voice.

harpoet...
I actually have a different perspective from JTO on the true voice vs falsetto. There are several schools of thought on what falsetto is but the following is the one I subscribe to. NOTE: This is going to be LONG!
First an understanding of some singer terminology is required here.
RANGE: I'm sure you know this just means how many notes you can sing from the lowest to the highest note.
REGISTERS: These are parts of the range which alter in tone and utilise air flow in a different way.
RESONANCE: A vibration that the air flow results in in certain cavities or hollows in the skull which although similar in appearance are subtly different enough to give everyone a unique voice.
CHEST VOICE: This is the term given to your lower register. It does not mean that you somehow project from your chest or anything. It is simply an observation that if you place the palm of your hand flat against your chest and in about the same pitch as your regular speaking voice sing 'Aah' (as in Apple), you should notice a vibration or 'resonance' there.
HEAD VOICE: If you place your hand on the very top of your head and say in a high girly but loud voice: 'Whee!' you should notice vibration / resonance there.
NB: The lower the note, the more chest resonance you will have. The higher the note, the more head resonance you will have to the point that a low enough note will have no head resonance and a high note will have no chest resonance. This is the difference that distinguishes Chest Voice from Head Voice.
MIXED VOICE: I will explain this after explaining Falsetto.
WHISTLE VOICE: Not sung by many but if you think of Mariah Carey's super high notes, you'll know the sound I'm talking of. If you haven't heard it already, have a listen to her 'Dream Lover' introduction and realize that is her natural voice, not an instrument that you hear.
VIBRATO: If you sing and hold a note - preferably a vowel sound - typically you will hear its sound quality alter with a distinct cycle as if the voice is somehow adding its own beat or rhythm to the note. A kind of 'wom wom wom wom wom wom' sound. THAT'S vibrato. Some people have a slow vibrato or even none at all so they sound like they're talking rather than singing because they typically won't hold notes and if they do, it's a jarring, unpleasant sound. Others like Johnny Cash and especially Dolly Parton have a very fast vibrato. Most of us lie somewhere between. Supposedly, the most pleasant vibrato is 6 oscillations per second. So 6 of those 'wom' noises I mentioned per second.
Okay, before I go further and get to explaining Falsetto, it is necessary to understand the workings of the VOCAL CORDS when a person sings.
The vocal cords are NOT as you might imagine, 2 strings somehow suspended in the windpipe that vibrate. Rather, there is a piece of human female anatomy too risque to mention here that the vocal cords bear striking resemblance to but it is actually more helpful to imagine a soft pencil case with a zipper. Be sure that in your mind, the zipper is vertical, open and in the centre of your view, with the zipper at the bottom of that image. This is very similar to the top view of your vocal cords when relaxed. Also remember that unlike in a pencil case, there is no seam at the rear of the vocal cords. They are open at the back and that's where the air from the windpipe passes up from the lungs and out through the 'zipper' when singing. As that air passes through, the folds of the pencil case (your vocal cords) vibrate and flap against each other which gives you not just the note but your 'vibrato.'
For low notes (Chest voice), the zipper remains more open so that more of the whole length of the cords vibrates. As you sing higher and higher (Head / Whistle Voice), the more 'zipped up' those cords become and only the open section vibrates now.
I hope you're with me so far. I am trying to be as visually descriptive as possible and as you will see in a moment, it is all entirely relevant.
Ideally, we should be able to go from the bottom note to the top note with ease, simply zipping the vocal cords up naturally as needed. However, there comes a point where other muscles - the swallowing muscles start to interfere with vocal production. They are trying to relieve the tension felt by the cords as you go higher and higher. As the cords 'zip up' there is tension felt. Eventually, there comes a point where the swallowing muscles trigger a 'break' in the voice so that the voice goes up one more note and instead of being tense as it was for the first note, it is now EASIER to sing higher but weak and breathy sounding. THAT'S the flip into FALSETTO.
So, WHAT IS FALSETTO? You ask?
Okay, recall that for Head Voice, the cords zip up very tightly with only a small portion of the cords left to vibrate and produce sound. When those few individuals with a Whistle Voice reach this point, that remaining section of their cords actually thin themselves to produce still higher notes until eventually, the singer reaches the limit of their range and can't go any higher.
FALSETTO: A weak, breathy, high girly tone - especially more noticeable in men than in women. Falsetto is produced where the Chest Voice starts to reach its tension limit before hitting head voice. Interestingly, in most men, this occurs around the notes E, F and F-Sharp above Middle C but for some, can happen as low as (Middle) C, C-Sharp and D. In women, I can't recall exactly but I think typically, it's about the A, A-Sharp / B-Flat, B mark above Male High C (Pavarotti's signature note) but just below Female High C. Incidentally, those C notes are octaves apart - Middle C, Male High C is next and Female High C is next again. The Whistle Voice notes typically start only about 5 or 6 notes higher than that again.
Okay but at this point, where the Chest Voice is saying, 'Uh oh. This is getting hard to sing higher,' the swallowing muscles take over and the vocal cords actually stop zipping up and the air just passes between the cords without making them vibrate which is why it is easier to sing falsetto because there is no more tension. It is that escaping air that we hear as the breathy tone of Falsetto.
The more adept singer can control or bypass that break by using MIXED Voice. This is part Chest Voice, part Head Voice and for me anyway, difficult to master (I'm still working on it). It allows you to get into Head Voice without that yodel type crack in the voice occurring and what even top Grammy Award winning singers go to vocal coaches to learn. Head Voice may have a girly sound but it is strong and powerful without the breathiness of Falsetto and when you have mastery over your voice (even if only for a moment), you can sing all the way from the bottom to the top of your range without any cracks or breaks in the voice occurring and there is just a smooth transition from low to high and back again. With Falsetto, you notice a huge difference in vocal quality from the note before the break to the note after it.
Mixed Voice is what gives those powerful baritone voices their high notes which sound so deep and manly (think Engelbert Humperdink). I'm afraid I'm not too familiar with female Falsetto but I'm sure female readers here who struggle with breaking into Falsetto will have their own Engelbert female equivalents they can think of who somehow have more power up high than they do. I'm guessing Alicia Keys, Whitney Houston, Anastasia and Toni Braxton would be good examples there.
I know to answer your question, harpoet, I could have just said I subscribe to the school of thought that Full Voice (Chest / Head / Whistle) uses the vocal cords while Falsetto uses the swallowing muscles around them to produce sound but I believe in imparting as complete an understanding as I can. I think this answer makes much more sense than that would have too, don't you? ;)
Submitted by Johnny Burrows on 05-10-2007

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