Verify Head Voice creation

[ILoveMonkeys]

When in head voice, some places I read say the sound is resonating in the nasal cavity. However, I can do a high pitch head voice (not falsetto) and pinch my nose, with no change in sound. I can Weeeee, or Whoooo in the higher pitch kid voice, like going down a slide, with no change in sound. When I am in head voice, my soft palate is not resting on the back of my tounge, as in the NG sound. As you know, when doing NG with soft palate touching back of toungue, air is diverted past the closed off mouth cavity, through the ortho and nasopharynx. If I hold my nose while doing an NG sound, the sound stops, not possible, because of soft palate blocking mouth cavity. So, what happens when you do head voice and pinch your nose? Discuss.

[ILoveMonkeys]

I will add there is a slight change in sound of course, but barely, super small. As if more sound is resonating in the mouth cavity. Basically, minimal sound in nasal. This goes against many of the things I read about,hear about, ot watch, regarding head voice.

[ido1957]

To be honest I would look pretty silly singing with my nose pinched in front of hot chicks in the bar.

Seriously none of the exercises I've heard of ever involve pinching your nose - so why would I even try that when warming up or singing?

[kickingtone]

The idea is that air flow generates sound in the larynx (voice box). After leaving the larynx, the air flow itself need not contribute anything further to the sound, but it has to escape somehow via mouth and nose, depending on how you have shaped your vocal tract.

 

Cavity resonance is a separate phenomenon to air flow, caused by multiple reflection of sound waves. Sound waves are vibrations in the air, not net flow. Once produced, the sound does not depend on net flow to resonate. All you need is resonant space.

 

A particular type of resonant space is created by shaping the vocal tract to produce the NG sound. This happens to allow slightly more air to escape through the nose. It is incidental. But the shape of the vocal tract then creates a particular type of resonance called "twang". This kind of "twang" is often conflated with the "twang" caused by correct vocal cord closure and compression.

[highmtn]

Some head voice sound creates sympathetic vibrations in the nasal cavity and sinuses. You can sometimes feel it "behind the eyes", "in the forehead", in the cartilages of the nose, against the front teeth and hard palate.

 

With some head voice sounds, the "feel" is "as if" the sound were shooting straight up, into and out of the top of your head. Of course this is just a sensation. The top of your head does not actually open up for the sound to shoot out!

 

You will also notice that the stream of air is very tiny that is pinging around in these places in your skull. As the frequency of the sound increases, and the pitch increases, the actual wavelength and amplitude of the waves gets physically smaller. That's why the ringing takes place in very small spaces and cavities in your head.

 

As kickingtone said about sound waves being vibrations in the air, not net flow, so is resonance actually the column of air in the vocal tract resonating, not the vibrations (sympathetic vibrations) that we feel in the Mask, the teeth, etc... those sensations are vibrations, not resonance, per se. Resonance is an amplification that happens when mathematical magic happens between the space the vibrations take place in and the frequency of the vibrations in that space. With true resonance, Acoustical Amplification takes place.

 

Bob