Falsetto

Falsetto ( from Italian falso 'false, artificial, imitated " ) is the name for a vocal register, and thus for a particular form of use of the human voice.

General

" Falset voice, falsetto [ ital ] heisset: ( 1 approaches, which are placed above or below each blowing instrument otherwise natural and ordinaire height or depth of a good master and forced kan ( 2 In adult singers when they sing instead of her regular bass or tenor voice, obtained by forcing and penetration of the neck, the alto or treble. One calleth it also therefore an unnatural voice. "

In a broader sense, the term is understood as that which is more commonly known as head voice or sometimes ( erroneously ) " falsetto ", ie an octave high-ranking male speech or singing voice in which the vocal cords not complete, but only vibrate at their edges, creating a softer and grundtöniger sound comes about. In a narrower (musical) sense of the term falsetto includes the gain that edge vibration voice in the depth of the tonal blending of chest and head voice; this technique allows countertenors to compensate for the transition to deeper layers dynamically. When yodeling the constant change between normal voice and falsetto is characteristic.

→ see also: Voice tab

Classical music

Until the Baroque period, the falsetto voice was one possibility among several singing of men in soprano and alto able to represent. Spanish falsettists sang in the Vatican, because by then- Catholic conception of the Apostle Paul commanded the women to be silent in the church. Increasingly With the emergence of opera from the late 16th century boys sang or Neuter the high male parts.

In -Baroque opera this kind of singing was only occasionally required as a comic effect. Only in the 20th century - when there were more and more countertenors in the wake of the rediscovery of Baroque Opera, sang the castrato - began composers such as Benjamin Britten ( Oberon in A Midsummer Night's Dream, Aldeburgh Festival 1960), Hans Werner Henze (L' Upupa or the triumph of filial love, Salzburg 2003), Georg Friedrich Haas ( the beautiful wound, Bregenz 2003), Gavin Bryars ( Gutenberg, Mainz 2002) and Klaus Huber ( black earth, Basel 2001) again to write for falsettists. The roles are often " intermediate beings ".

Rock and Pop

From the days of early blues to falsetto was used in all styles of popular music has always been a large number of singers as a stylistic device.

In the area of ​​doo-wop music is resorted in the sense of close harmony on falsetto singer to complete the harmonies. Assuming is made in the vocal surf music extensively use of it, the most famous example is Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys.

Some singers put the technology in only individual songs, for example, sang Bruce Springsteen 1999 Lift Me Up, the credits song for the film Limbo, completely in falsetto. Individual songs or parts of songs were presented, for example, by Neil Young and Axl Rose in falsetto voice, mostly in falsetto sang Mick Jagger the piece of Emotional Rescue and Beck song, Debra.

To be able to sing songs of extreme depth up to extreme heights, Fish, singer of Marillion, and Freddie Mercury put an even falsetto. The latter also sang complete songs in falsetto. Mercury was actually inherently a tenor, but could abschattieren the various registers of his 3 ½ - octave vocal range in a variety of ways. So he was not just able, the deep F intone correctly, he could lend his voice and the matching characteristic timbre of a bass - baritone. Accordingly, he sounds very convincing when b " in extremely high falsetto register.

Almost exclusively in falsetto singing Martyn Jacques, singer and head of the British " punk cabaret trio" The Tiger Lillies.

Metal and Heavy Metal

In the course of around 1980 emanating from the UK heavy metal wave in Europe and the U.S., many bands emerged with falsetto singers. The most famous among them is Rob Halford, the 1976-1990 with the band Judas Priest a variety falsetto songs recorded ( for example, the song Painkiller ). Other famous falsetto singers from the Heavy Metal include Bruce Dickinson, Ian Gillan, Tobias Sammet, Michael Kiske, Harry Conklin, Tim Owens, King Diamond and Eric Adams. Even with the German band Knorkator from classically trained singer cheroot ( Gero Ivers ) was sung at different songs very high falsetto, but in an uncharacteristically clear for Metal design that keep some listeners at first for a female voice. Especially in the power metal falsetto is crucial, especially in the bands Hammerfall and Iced Earth.

Spoken falsetto

Falsetto is also used when men want to imitate their speaking voice, a woman's voice. Examples of well known synchronized films where men disguise themselves with women's clothes, and falsetto voice as women, Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon in Some Like It Hot, Dustin Hoffman in Tootsie, Robin Williams in Mrs. Doubtfire - The prickly nanny and Martin Lawrence in Big Momma's house. The actress and singer Megan Mullally used falsetto to represent Karen Walker on the television series Will & Grace.

Falsetto in brass instruments

Still in the first appeared in 1913 German dictionary of foreign words are listed first under the heading of the falsetto " wrong notes " of brass instruments, today no longer know encyclopedias this phenomenon. The definition of Anthony Baines is:

" FALSET. Scope of the blower for the pitch control of a natural sound. While he was in middle and high register just sufficient to correct the intonation, it is very broad in depth with respect to the lowering of the tone; actually had the conventional system with three valves without this phenomenon limited prospects for the future, because the necessary depth for the valve combinations to produce high-pitched sounds. In the 2nd natural you can let the sound up to a fourth or more fall by the lips relaxed ( loose- lipping ) and as produced by a kind of shuffling approach artificial sounds which does not know the theory of overtones. "

The artificial low tones between the 1st and 2nd natural explains Arthur H. Benade so that you can bring as the natural tones to sound a pipe with other " preferred resonances ". While the frequencies of the natural tones always be integer multiples of the fundamental frequency, there is also one at the integer fractions of these natural tones. This has little practical significance in height, because there are naturals close together. In the depth but so can the gap 1 to 2 natural color to be filled, albeit with shades of inferior quality.