Hi, Wallace.  I'm afraid that my son, who is a professional countertenor, would take issue with your terminology and with the older concepts that lie behind it, although I do realize that you may simply be using conventional terminology because it's conventional.  You can track down his comments on his blog by starting at http://www.ianhowellcountertenor.com/index.html.

 

But to answer your question, the voice teacher I worked with in high school used high calls, NOT vocalises, in the uppper voice, on a very bright "nyaaaaa" sound, which for most of his students opened up the upper voice very nicely.  He then worked that upper voice down into the lower voice to develop the ability to blend from one into the other, and eventually to blend from one to the other while crescendoing or decrescendoing in the upper range.  He always worked from the top down, never pushing the voice from the bottom up.

 

My late wife, on the other hand, simply had the boys with changing voices in her youth choir keep singing along with the trebles on unison anthems as long as they could.  As a result, neither of our own two sons ever lost their upper voice, and the older went on to develop it (with excellent voice teaching) into a rather beautiful instrument.  That didn't work with all boys, of course, but it did with more than you might think.

 

All the best,

 

John

 

 

 Hello Wallace,

 

I have had good success with the men in my community choir and my church choir with an exercise by Richard Miller.

 

Sing "la la la" on A G F below middle C in regular voice, sing the same an octave higher in falsetto, sing the same again at original octave in regular voice, sing again up the octave, but try to mix a bit of the lower quality into the falsetto. Do the same exercise a half step lower. Continue.

 

Yes, I have them work on it in warm up with the women present. It's bumpy at first, but it smooths out and it has greatly improved the ensemble.

 

I would love to see a compilation of other ideas.

 

Best of luck,

Karen Schuessler

Karen Schuessler Singers

London, Ontario, Canada

 

 

Start about high C (or the highest pitch they can sing without sign or sound of effort) on a pure "oo" vowel, and gliss slowly down - maintaining a light a pressure free feeling all the way to the bottom.  Encourage taking the light quality to maintain all the way down to the lowest notes. 

Watch closely for signs of tension - if you hear or see a noticeable shift in neck position - start over!  :)

 

 

 Hello wallace, 

 

My boys in middle school and high school love the exercise, 5 3 1 doing pweep pweep pweep

 

Sirens work as well. 

 

 

 

 

Sing like pirates. A good "arrrrgh" does the soul much good. Many of my "growlers" were able to find their head voices in no other way.

After a while with pirating, try decending, focused sighs. After the singers find their heads (or even concurrently) then decending 54321 vocalizes on open mouth ng hums will put a bit more subtlty after time. Whatever you choose, always decend. Head voice (or mixed voice, differing from falsetto) can only come from relaxation and a spaciousness of the lifted soft palate and relaxed mid and rear tongue. There should be no groove up the middle of the tongue, no lifting of the tip of the tongue or stiffness in the tougue or the base of the tongue nestled in the v of the jaw.

I would demonstrate by telling a singer, "I'm going to grab your tougue" at which time I grab what they think of as their throats. That is where all

the tension occurs: the bases of the tongue as it is folded into the v of the job. Have you ever seen a whole cow or pig tongue? Remember how big they are? I would further demonstrate by making a fist with one hand and drape my other hand over the fist. This shows the relationship to the moving part of the tongue to the massive tongue muscle not seen.

This all takes a long time and everyone's patience and the boys may not succeed until their voices have changed signaled, in most cases, when the boys' voices chant at about bass clef low g.

S