One of the terms that hasn’t been mentioned yet is sopranist, essentially a male who sings in the soprano range. These are the highest-pitched countertenors. Some of them do use falsetto, which is an effect that pretty much anyone can achieve (though doing it well is another question.)
Some men, however, can sign in their normal, modal, voice in the soprano range. This is very rare, and caused by a vocal apparatus that doesn’t fully develop during puberty. It’s the closest thing we have now to the castrati of yore.
If you can remember any time you’ve ever heard a man mocking a woman’s voice, they’re using the falsetto. Prince sings in the falsetto quite a lot as do many R&B/Motown/Funk artists. If you’ve ever heard someone yodeling, they’re flipping rapidly between falsetto and full voice. It’s a high register, and can have a lot of energy, though tonally it just doesn’t sound… well… maybe “substantial” is a good word.
I don’t think women have a falsetto range. Most men can do it instinctively even if they don’t know what it is… you can physically feel your voice “break” into falsetto when you get into the top of your range (usually an unwanted effect). Generally it doesn’t sound like an authentic female voice except in the rare singers who put in the effort to master this niche.
A few years ago I was working with a mezzo who was singing something written specifically for her – except not for her. It had her flipping between full voice and falsetto so often, sometimes she had to flip several times in a single phrase. It sounded odd, it was hell on her voice, and she was not a happy camper. She spoke daily of killing the composer.
I have heard falsetto before. I’ve almost always heard it in a comedic fashion. however. I am vaguely aware that there was a time, perhaps, that women didn’t act and men did all the voices? Or is that something I’m remembering from {I}A Midsummer Night’s Dream*?
But I hadn’t realized that songs like the one above referenced were essentially a more pronounced version of the same thing, nor had I realized falsetto was actually taken seriously. Learned a lot today.
I’m kind of surprised that no one has yet mentioned yodeling, which involves rapid switching between normal voice and falsetto. In the US it tends to be regarded as a corny novelty effect, but it’s an important part of a number of ethnic folk musics, as well as old-time country music (see Jimmie Rodgers). Expert yodelers are almost unbelievable.
As far as I know, yodelling only made it into the rock world (and the Top 40!) but once. Hocus Pocus, by Focus, a seriously underrated band from the early 70s.
Yes. It’s not yodelling in the “lederhosen and alphorn” sense, but it is a sudden shift in register that causes the voice to “break off” into a higher or lower sound very suddenly, which is exactly what yodelling is. Once you learn to listen for it you’ll notice it in lots of pop singing. Chris Martin of Coldplay has made a career of it, for instance.
A well-know classic rock example is Aerosmith’s Dream On. In the last chorus, Tyler sings the title words a few times in full voice, then goes up an octave to repeat it in falsetto.
He doesn’t sound like a woman, though. He sounds like he got his nuts caught in the tape transport.
Isn’t there some talk show host that yodels? I love it. I agree, serious yodeling is enormously entertaining. It’s like folk music, you just want to join in and sing along, and it has a great beat.
Soo… when i do a little [impossible to describe] thing with my voice, and it goes from my normal tone and instantly to a high pitched, goofy sounding tone, thats a falsetto?
If so, about all i can do with it isan imitation of Tarzans yell.
I have heard Daniel Taylor (see Daniel Taylor (countertenor) - Wikipedia a number of times in person and also heard him interviewed. He explained that he had always wanted to sing, but that when his voice started changing, his voice teacher concluded that he would have a weak tenor and suggested he try to be trained as a counter-tenor. He was and with my untrained ear he sounds just like any female alto to me. But his speaking voice is a normal male voice and, while I have never heard him sing tenor, I have little doubt that he could, although perhaps it wouldn’t be a trained voice (and I imagine it would be a weak tenor). His speaking voice is a perfectly normal male voice. When people ask him if he is gay (surprisingly many do), he always refers them to his girlfriend.
It’s also a distinctive feature of Okinawan music, and probably many other folk genres. Japanese pop signer Chitose Hajime does it a lot because that’s the tradition she was trained in.