Head Voice...Girly?

So I have gone back to the Roger Love book/CD I bought when I first started.

That book has been great. And the warmup exercises on the CD rock.

I am trying to develop my head voice and mix. Pretty solid on my chest voice at this point, but the mix and head voice need work.

But the thing is...my head voice sounds a bit girly. No, alot girly. Roger Love's voice does as well when he is in total head voice.

So, my question is this: For those guys who have a strong head voice - does it sound feminine? And if so, how do you add some masculineity? That just in the mix?

HEY BRO

It all comes down to the audience's perception.

You need to use the head voice to hit those high notes, but you don't want to appear girly.

I recommend flexing your guns every time you have to use head voice. There's nothing girly about a vocal melody made entirely of biceps.

Alas, I have no guns. Just the howitzer.

So basically, this is normal?

I think I'm going to get into trouble, but here goes: I've always felt that high metalish/hard rock singing has this odd combination of feminine sound and masculine swagger--reaching head voice can seem like an athletic competition, a process of conquering. I offer this only as an observation, but I suspect that the swagger may subconsciously serve to obscure the femininity of the head voice....

Another way to push aside the gender implications may be brashness of tone--head-voice rockers seem to me to cultivate brashness (unlike, say, RnB singers), along with heavy vibrato. Both of these qualities may also reinforce masculinity.

But not RnB singers--who routinely and unapologetically go way up. Al Green, or Michael MacDonald or Skip James. This style of music seems to me very much less anxious about the matter.

Then there's Jimmie Rodgers, who yodels divinely.

FWIW. If you don't care for outrageous generalizations or warmed-over Freudian psychology, please ignore.

Haha. Great points Jersey Jack.

So basically, the upper reaches of Head voice can be naturally feminine sounding, unless you intentionally change the timbre in one way or another?

Totally see what you mean about R&B singers. And I don't really have an issue with head voice being feminine, just wanted to know if it was a normal thing.

Thanks for the input.

lol......i lyk dat....hahaha

Man, who cares if it sounds girly? If it's good, it's good! Guys dress up in face paint and sing like that all the time, but they're the manliest guys around, so I'm sure you'll be fine. lol

1knO1Ip9oEg

I bet ol' Kip never had any problems attracting the ladies with that "girly" head voice.

D thraco, if your head voice (hmm is that what u call it?? hehehe) is high it's because thats what the head cavities are for the hi's... if u think it sounds girly then u must truely be a tenor or going to far and reaching your falsetto.

dirty job i know but hey, someone has to do it... *laffin* seriously i am a counter tenor and my falsetto goes into saprano...

david lee roth has a 2nd tenor speaking voice but listen to those hi pitch noises he makes... he capitalized on it.

well joisey jack (new yawker here..hehe) i think the metal pretty boy 80's rock just looked like chicks but had great tenor voices..

jimmie rogers and his honey comb... hehe .. michael just sounded like he had crap in his mouth hehe... min. by min. *laffin* but hey they were all good in their own way....

r&b singers used a lot of falsetto

I'm definitely not a tenor. And it could be falsetto. But the lines on what that EXACTLY is are so blurred, it's difficult to tell what falsetto actually is...when up in the higher register anyway.

In that Roger Love book I reference above, he demonstrates Falsetto and he also drops his head voice down till it becomes falsetto on the CD. They both sound exactly the same. So, either he's singing in Falsetto when he is up high, or there's something else going on here. I'm going to scan the board for previous entries on this.

BTW - You posted 6 different posts all within a few minutes. You can edit the first one to add thoughts that come later. Very distracting.

HEY BRO

That doesn't really help him.

HEY BRO

With his post count, I mean

I'm not a tenor at all either, but I know exactly what you mean. I can't really distinguish the difference between head voice and falsetto anymore, but I know what you are saying.

When you listen to a lot of hair metal vocalists who sing in their head voices, they sound very feminine to me, and I don't like it at all. Personally, I kind of hate that sound. But then take a listen to Chris Cornell. He goes very high in his head voice and sounds actually very masculine.

Take a listen to this... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CykTEffKHA4

You can hear that slight rasp in this voice that makes it sound more mean and manly. Change it to a guy like Jeff Buckley and his head voice sounds cleaner and more fluffier more similar to a female texture voice.

i get you.the boundaries between my head voice and falsetto are also blurring.in my head they sound very similar.i'm sure when my head voice is much more developed i'll have the same problem as you.

to me, head voice sounds too thin and not 'masculine' enough...there are a few singers who have that kind of sound such as james labrie and early geoff tate...

the suggested remedy is belting, which is basically singing head voice notes with more chest resonance, it has a lot to do with a very open vocal passage and vowel modification, and someone said it involves use of the pharyngeal as well (doubtful about this last point)...but u cant sing much higher than tenor C with this approach, beyond that it WILL sound thin...its something im trying to learn and work with currently

if anyone has any pointers and experience wrt belting and specific exercises to practice this, please post them

I'm definitely a tenor, and admittedly, I don't have the most masculine singing voice. I don't worry about it. It isn't abnormal; it's simply the way my voice sounds.

What you're hearing is probably just your natural tone. I doubt anyone other than you is gonna care whether or not you sound "manly". Most likely, people will simply think you're a good singer with an impressive range. If you dress and act "girly", then maybe people will notice that. Then again, that didn't seem to stop all the hair metal bands of the '80s.

But I think it's kind of counter-productive to a good performance worrying about how masculine you sound. Worry about pitch, proper breath support, converying energy and emotion, and you'll be fine.

I think the part where most people are getting confused is the actual limitations of the voice itself.

In opera the hallmark standard highest tenor note is said to be C5 and the highest baritone note is said to be G5. I personally believe the reason for this is that with well developed technique these notes can be sung consistently and comfortably with an agreeable tone quality. Trying to sing above these notes while attempting to enforce a masculine tone leads to many different techniques which upset the purity and balance of the range already developed below (it is possible to sing above for short periods of time if one really understands their technique and has thoroughly developed it). The people who collectively 'put together' the art of opera over time were well aware of this and this (I believe) is the reason why till this day we have these set ranges.

In short, most contemporary non-opera singers with a large vocal range have an inconsistent tone production (atleast compared to opera singers) and use techniques which aren't the healthiest to achieve their sound. These singers do all sorts of things to try and find a balance between the most comfortable and pleasant sounding singing.

I believe the search for healthy and truly consistent pop singing is still in it's development with many famous singers suffering from nodules and other ailments of the vocal apparatus. Whilst there are many methods/techniques around that claim to be healthy, in reality they're only slightly 'healthier' than others. My advice is if you want to develop your high range (and/or your voice in general) properly, go find a good teacher and work with them.