What is the difference between male head voice and falsetto?

Question

What is the fundamental difference between head voice and falsetto in male singers? I think I know the answer, but I cannot be sure in its credibility, since all my self-researched knowledge comes from YouTube video lessons, internet articles, and the like. I also heard some very strange views on falsetto from people who have been supposedly studying music, that's why I would like to get a clear answer.

As far as I am concerned, the difference is in cord closure: that is, in head register the vocal cords are zipped up, leaving a narrow opening to vibrate, whereas in falsetto the vocal cords burst open. That's why we can hear a "flip" when a singer accidentally drifts into falsetto, because of this sharp change in chord coordination. Sound-wise, falsetto has an "airy" sound, and it usually starts with some "-h-h-h-" hiss before you can produce the actual note. Head voice, in contrast, has a clear ringing tone, it can also be produced at higher volume than falsetto. Even with my very limited vocal range, I can sing a light "-i-i-i-" with cords connected and easily start adding more volume, whereas when I sing it in falsetto, it's very quiet and "hissy" (although I can "hiss" higher notes in this register).

Please correct me if I got something wrong. As a case study, may I suggest "Somewhere Over The Rainbow" by Israel Kamakawiwo'ole, which, apparently, everyone considers to be sung in falsetto, but I have my own doubts, as it sounds rather "connected" at times (you can listen to the song here). Any other (better) examples would be fine too.

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I decided to add some references to online resources where I picked up the notion described above:

• Here is a link to a video lesson
• And here is a link to an article by a different author

Answer 1

Falsetto and chest voice are different mechanisms. Basically, falsetto stretches the vocal folds by lengthening the distance between their fixtures (the larynx mechanism is a rather complex contraption with various muscle groups changing the overall geometry). Chest voice, however, also involves tightening the muscles at the base of the vocal folds themselves, so it changes the consistency of the folds, not "just" their length. That makes it comparatively easy to achieve good closure but produces a number of harmonics. The pure falsetto action, in contrast, leaves the muscles in the folds alone, leading to a rather pure tone (bad for distinguishing vowels, actually). With practice, one can achieve good closure and a rich tone even with falsetto. As this requires the "falsetto configuration" of the larynx to be close to complete, good closure works best in the high range. Which means that the use of the full falsetto (rather than a more mixed head voice) works better for natural baritones or basses rather than the rare true tenor.

The larger larynx and larger involved forces make it advisable not to start too early with heavy training: the cartiledge forming the respective mechanism takes decades to fully harden (ossify) after mutation.

Answer 2

Basically it depends on what definition you are using. Most people nowadays when they talk about headvoice are really just talking about a non-breathy falsetto.

The old term headvoice though, meant what people are calling mixed voice now - staying in your chest or real voice but the resonance shifts to the head or "mixes".

I've made a detailed video about the differences between falsetto and headvoice, check it out here:

Answer 3

There are significant differences between falsetto and full that no one has discussed yet. 1 upper limit of range - most baritones find falsetto range extends much higher than their full voice. This is because of 2. To achieve the same pitch, the full voice needs twice as much tension in the larinx as falsetto. In the lower part of the falsetto range there is so little tension it is difficult to control. Crossing this break between full and falsetto without adjusting the tension (much) gives the yodelling technique. In my case, and I guess for a good yodeller, the flip in pitch is almost an exact octave with the same tension. To the instrument engineer in me, the octave is significant. Wind, brass or string instruments all show a similar octave flip for a given geometry. So if as a baritone I'm trying to sing a tenor line, my full voice is stretched to its limit at a top F but I can extend this by nearly another octave in falsetto. The problem for me is when the tune needs me to sing (nicely) through that break where the step change in tension is required. Some guys - Cliff Richard, Sam Smith can manage the break almost seamlessly. Are they so good because they've worked hard on it for so long or have they got a subtly different larynx demanding less of a jump in tension? The female voice also has this break, but the lower and upper ranges are usually referred to as chest and head. Falsetto is not used. Many women will use both ranges all the time both singing and in normal speech and are hardly aware of the small (I think) jump in tension, some yodel uncontrollably in normal speech but by much less than an octave, and then there are artists like Adele or Whitney Houston who can deliberately and subtly change the tone and character of their voice by using either the softer head voice or the harder chest voice over a large part of their range. Fascinating

Answer 4

I believe that a tenor - for example, sings with the vocal chords 'closed' in head voice but still maintains the tenor range. The same voice singing in falsetto opens the chords and sings in an 'artificial' range. I suppose that an excellent example in (old) popular music is Roy Orbison who seamlessly crossed from chest to falsetto. In classical and operatic music, the likes of James Bowman and William Towers have learned to control their 'falsetto' to such a remarkable extent that they have become male altos. Of course, there used to be a surgical technique to achieve the same (or similar) thing. I know of no male who would have knowingly consented to this though - I'll keep my lousy baritone/tenor voice, thanks.

Bill

Answer 5

I've never sang in a choir, but I have a friend in choir who told me that "falsetto" is the male equivalent of the female "head voice" (and that the male "full voice" is what "chest voice" is for females).

Answer 6

There's a lot of debate around the topic, I've heard that males have falsetto and head voice whereas women only have head voice; and I think in academic terms this is actually determined this way.

In the male situation, you are right, in falsetto the vocal chords are open and in head voice they are closed. I understand from dealing with lots of hardrock singers that head voice is an extension of the chest voice. I mean, both are your natural sounding voice, the only difference is that higher notes resonate in higher parts of the body (the head), while falsetto is a whole different thing.

In practical terms you should stick to results in the sound. Head voice sounds louder and stronger, and it's suitable for musical genres that demand the higher notes to be in louder dynamics. On the other hand, falsetto is more adequate when high notes are required to be executed in softer dynamics.

Answer 7

Listen to "The Avalanche" by Sufjan Stevens. Maybe that's what you are looking for.

When Sufjan sings "But I was on the hatch.....", listen attentively to when he sings "... the hatch, I was on the avalanche". That part sounds like a mixture of head voice and falsetto. Because it can't be full head voice as there is clearly a touch of falsetto in it.

In a few other songs like "John Wayne Gacy Jr" and "The Wasp Of The Palisades...." too, he uses this same mixed voice.

After days of practice, I can finally sound like him while singing. What I do is, I try to sing by keeping my vocal chords right where my chest voice ends and my head voice starts, in my passagio. It doesn't need as much cord closure as head voice, and can be sung quite effortlessly.

Answer 8

The difference between head voice and falsetto is, as others have stated- the cord closure. I would say that the term head voice to describe a male voice means that it's in the upper registers of modal voice, which is anything produced with normal cord closure.

If you want to hear an excellent example of head voice that sounds totally different from falsetto, just listen to Pavarotti sing some of his highest forte passages.

It's very difficult to sing softly in high modal voice, which is why composers like Puccini often used high notes together with forte or fortissimo. When you have high passages that are pianissimo, it makes sense to switch to falsetto because it lowers the tension on the cords.

As others may have mentioned, head voice range and falsetto range may have some crossover, depending on voice type and the individual singer.

I have a degree in voice performance

Answer 9

I'm a musician and a singer, and I've had voice lessons with a good voice coach. I can tell you that falsetto is always going to be whispery, there's no way to put power into it. A good example of falsetto occurs in the bridge of "I can wait forever" by Air Supply. The singer (not Russell Hitchcock) is singing falsetto.

A good example of headvoice is "Sherry" by Frankie Vallie and the four Seasons. Frankie Vallie is in head voice during the line "Sherryyyyy" but then he switches to full voice to the next phrase "Can you come out to night". His voice is anything but whispery and his voice gets a lot of power in that register!

Your chords do close during production of headvoice and if you can do it, they really close during the production of Whistle register!

• Dave

Answer 10

You will hear a lot of people claiming that falsetto has bad closure, low volume and a breathy sound. I'd recommend to listen to Jochen Kowalski, a falsetto based countertenor. Here is a link to an aria from his signature "Graf Orlovsky" role from the "Fledermaus" operetta. There are a few isolated instances of head voice (sounding a bit like a male voice prompting) in lower-pitch phrase starts but the bulk is in falsetto.

It's the head voice passages that are weakest here in carrying power and closure, partially so because they need to be colored strongly towards the falsetto side in order not to stick out, and he is reverting to head voice exactly because falsetto on its low end loses substance and carrying power and eventually closure. But that's the low end.

His main ranges in that piece are pure falsetto and carrying strongly. So the stuff you handwaved together from disparate sources does not match reality of vocal production. If you are interested enough, I recommend you look up anatomical descriptions of chest voice and falsetto, two fundamentally different methods of vocal production. There are some blends and colorings between the two running under various titles like head voice (which in the terminology I adhere to is chest voice with falsetto set up so that there is no hard tonal transition) and mixed voice (which in the terminology I adhere to is a rather evasive confluence of both mechanisms that does not work for extended ranges or higher volumes but allows seamless transitions).

Please note that a number of sources all ascribe different meanings and definitions to head voice and mixed voice, and to some degree even to falsetto and chest voice, and the terms for comparable mechanisms in the female voice and the child voice are still different.

So there is a lot of partially conflicting material around that makes sure that when people are using the same words for describing vocal phenomena, they are employing them with quite different meanings. Making yet another definition up based on imagined anatomic details definitely not in concord with actual physiology and phenomens, is not going to help anybody including yourself. So I recommend that you pick some mainstream definition, preferably anatomically based and matching actual available voice types and in particular countertenor types, and for better or worse stick with that instead of making up your own.