Singing Better
Vocal Quality and Registers
There are of course, many other websites on singing and vocal production which have much valuable information. But......
My goal in this website, is to deal with an area that is seldom clearly dealt with - the relationship of vocal registers to tone quality. This area can dramatically and quickly improve your singing quality.
There are basically two vocal registers - the Modal (Regular) and the Falsetto register. Actually there are two other registers but they are basically unusable for singing. They are the Vocal Fry and the Whistle register. If you are interested in these latter two registers, Google “Vocal Registers” in Wikipedia as we will only deal with the Modal and Falsetto registers.
There are small muscles in the voice box that make the change between the Modal (Regular) Register and the Falsetto Register. Usually the falsetto register is thought of as the extreme high register in male singers but women also have it too. (We’ll discuss this on the next page). These “falsetto register change muscles” have more uses than just producing this high register. Essentially the same muscles that are used for the falsetto also need to be properly adjusted for best singing in the modal register.
In untrained singers there is a tendency to hold the muscles that control registers, stationary or almost stationary - not changing them thru the range of ascending and descending pitches. This clamping tends to give a strident, heavy quality to their tone, particularly as they reach higher notes. Instead there should be a gradual change in these muscles as the pitch changes. That is, unless you are trying to yodel - as yodeling is abruptly changing between the modal and falsetto register. These muscles should also gradually change as we change dynamics from loud to soft.
To isolate and understand these muscles, it is extremely valuable to gain control of the falsetto and the passaggio The passaggio is the technical term for the break area between the modal and falsetto registers.