I think now I understand better what my teacher said to me. I study to be a singer. Currently I’m 23 years old and a teacher of mine insists that my voice can sound distant. Nof necessarily extremely high pitched. But I’ve heard it myself while vocalizing not long ago. During class I panicked thinking I had done something wrong. It sounded just.. too far away from me. (I’ve been having problems recently with this. My voice just doesn’t fit the standard of husky round soprano voice. And most teachers have told me I have to fix it. However in private lessons another teacher is convinced I have a bell like voice). Anyway, now that I see this, it makes me wonder if perhaps with the correct education my voice might someday sound like this too. (The comment might seem as a brag but I have honestly been concerned that my voice doesn’t sound like my fellow classmates. Even considered dropping out because my voice just didn’t fit in. But now I have hope. Thank you
The greatest asset is to not sound like everyone else. If you sound like everyone else you can be a good singer. But you can only be a great singer if you have a distinctive voice!
It sounds like a reinforced version of the whistle register (the "M3" laryngeal mechanism) used in popular music. The spectrogram for a whistled note also looks similar. Do you think it could be the same thing?
very intriguing: thanks for this. This somewhat substantiates a personal belief of mine, that there is some much contributed by popular singers and those of other genres that equates to functions of our 'lost artof western classical singing'.
You are a brilliant educator. I very much admire your use of scientific analysis and ever present tone of artistry, creativity, and sense of style. I have a background as Speech Language Pathologist and a singer who was taught to sing in the grand voice; I have never encountered anything this fun and edifying. Do keep it ip!
I am pleased that you included Herman Jadlowker. He was a remarkable singer and oh, so versatile. Thank you. Your channel is absolutely in triguing and brings me much pleasure.
Absolutely brilliant use of spectral (heh!) analysis for our Phantoms, here... This register sounds more than anything to me like a /theremin/, which is absolutely fascinating- the theremin's always been one of the most 'vocal' of all instruments, but it's too pure, and sounds distant and alien - which is exactly the quality of this fourth register.
Your research is incredible, and how marvelous that you are sharing it... along with your own marvelous voice, and kudos for finding your fourth voice!
Immensely fascinating! Your use of the spectrum analyzer is amazing - and your description of "sine wave" to describe the effect spot on. I really must find some of these discs! Wonderful - thank you for your great efforts! I look forward to more of your videos!
Very interesting! The male voices I hear as a light, clear variation of falsetto. But in the female voices, I'm hearing not whistle tone (which is usually defined by a higher range as well as its tone) so much as extremely thin vocal fold body/cover with very tight closing of the aryepiglottic sphincter (vocal twang) and the lightest of breath pressure under the folds. Probably lots of mouth resonance/highly lifted soft palette. I personally think of this sound (which I also use) as a "floated" head voice. I was unaware of the term "fourth voice" but you've inspired me to dig further. You're an impressive and thoughtful historian - kudos!
I understand EXACTLY what this is! I sing in this ‘fourth voice’ a lot especially when approaching D5 and above when practicing or trying not to be loud. It feels very floaty and almost off the voice. Great for pianissimo on high notes. I am a CT btw.
Oh my gosh… I love these examples including your own at the end, and I now realize that I likely became nervous to sing high notes when I lost my fourth voice in my teen years and nothing else high sounded as good to me. My sister kept her forth voice for longer than I did and seemed to be able to “sing anything up there effortlessly” to me. I have a request. When I was young I read a book I never forgot called “Jenny Lind and Her Listening Cat” and she has always been one of my inspirations for wanting to sing. What do we know about Jenny Lind’s voice and how she was trained? Thank you so much!
if I recall well Jenny Lind was re-trained by Manuel Garcia (sr.) in Paris, after she almost lost her voice bc using wrong technique. After that she was unstoppable and truly a bel canto queen 😌
The Fourth Voice is all I sang in for years, and I have many recordings of it. It's also the only tone I had to work with for that amount of time, other than chest voice. You see, I had no falsetto or idea of what it was. When I did find how to access a weak incarnation of it, the falsetto was very airy and absolutely ended at F4. It took 3 years to extend it to A5, but that apparently wasn't needed- the fourth voice is easier to extend, and makes the entire voice stronger. Curiously, I started out singing with a little boy sound intentionally- it was a quirk of my songwriting and musical persona. The Fourth Voice does sound eerie, and it can atrophe with disuse. In fact, you start to lose it at first if you overdevelop falsetto.
I used to be a soprano in a boys choir, and when my voice started to drop, I tried keeping my highest notes, but I hadn't yet developed falceto, so I tried different techniques and I think I have also developed fourth voice as a result of my need to keep my high notes. Sadly I can't sing above G5 anymore, but I did gain a lot in my lower range (confident E2)
I use falceto in another way than the previous video, because in my experience I had chest voice, middle and head voice, and after my voice dropped I now have chest, middle and falceto, which feels different to use than how it felt when I was a kid, which I think gives it a right to it's own name
Thank you! I discovered you only a few days ago and have gone already thru almost all of your videos. I enjoy what you say, how you say it, the mise-en-scène and your own look. Congratulations!
Thought I am completely blown away from Jadlowker recording. Emma calves recording is probably the best example of fourth voice that exist. But wow that note from Jadlowker gave me goosebumps.
The proliferation over the past 50 years or so of counter-tenors and outright male altos attest to, in my opinion, a kind of approach whereby one can cut out the vibrations of the lower partials, e.g., the chest tones. Men can do this anyway in whistling, which seems to me, equivalent to the white tones of the "fourth voice" again, purposefully omitting some of the partials or overtones. Also, I do believe there have been distortions in recordings of 100 years ago that were not able to pick up the extremely high overtones or partials. People who heard those singers like Caruso, Ponselle, etc., testified to the live performances being much better than the recordings. I also think that intentionally trying to cut out out overtones, mistakenly called vibrato is not a good practice. A free sound was still the ideal of Bel Canto.
When I listened to this video (yes, I listened and almost didn't watch), one question popped up in my head. I heard similar singing sound from Luzmila Carpio. Is she using this technique to achieve her unbelievably high notes? She is not nearly a classical singer but a folk Bolivian music performer.
The coloratura Maria Ivogün taught a forehead , third eye tone as a foundation of technique. It was to be practiced softly and with as pure and mystical a tone as possible. I was lucky to have a student of hers show me the technique, not that I mastered it utterly. My teacher who showed it to me said that the etheric tone was drawn from the heavens instead of truly created by you. The operetta singer Renate Holm had that training and in her youth, with effortless E naturals, could produce a shimmer and that sound of a voice from a distance that you speak of. The sound was crystalline rather than chesty as so many try to do today. Her Schlager hits are the best places to hear her do it. Amsellied is one. There is some mastering, but the sound is coming from that training and would not be valued by classical vocal teachers of today's styles. She does it on Im Schwarzwald Singt win Finchenpaar also. That was in the 50's.
It was a technique also cultivated by Emma Calve, even in some of her primitive recordings, as well as Lily Pons, who produced her highest notes with her mouth virtually closed.
Why do you feel this is something else again compared to flageolet, or possibly whistle? I have heard flageolet described as the extended sound used eg. by some coloratura sopranos to get high light notes that are well connected to the rest of the voice. Then there is whistle which is a high sound most often made for effect by some pop singers that doesn’t usually seem very easy to do much with in terms of singing words, and seems quite small and disconnected and made with a more closed-off throat (I think). Those are the only kinds of super high register I've heard people discuss before.
The upper end notes sound like a flageolet or feather-light head voice, and the technique seems very akin to voce finta or a voice lightened through raising the larynx and pulling it back.
I saw a film of Yma Sumac today. I wonder if you would consider her extraordinary high notes to be from her fourth voice. You hear the effort - not much, but naturally there is some - as she sings higher and higher, but then there comes this incredible series of high notes that sound relaxed but eerily disembodied and almost unwilled. I wonder, Ziazan, if you would consider Sumac to have access to that fourth voice. Also, while we're on the subject, what is the "whistle register" that several commenters have mentioned?
I was very fascinated by this video. Incidentally, I'm color blind, so the graphics were all lost on me. However, I just sat and listened and could hear the difference in the tone. I wonder if you think that Lily Pons may have used this "fourth" voice. When I was young and showing my sister her recordings, she said her notes above high C sounded fake, or falsetto like. My sister is a coloratura soprano, and she was sure that whatever Pons was doing was the easier way out of singing high notes compared to full voice. I didn't hear it at first, but there is something different in her tone above the staff. I don't know enough about this but wondered if you hear that in her voice as well.
That must be whistle register!!! The covering is her closing her vocal folds. I’ve done it myself on a spectrogram and my whistle register has only like three main overtones within it
Thank you so much for your fascinating and important work. I just discovered your channel and I'm looking forward to things that will come. Can you tell me please the name of the song or aria Caruso and Jadlowker did sing at the end of the video? Thank you and take care.
It's an aria from Goldmark's opera "Die Königin von Saba" (The Queen of Sheba), called "Magische Töne" or, in the Italian rhythmic translation Caruso uses, "Magiche note".
Once again, many thanks indeed for this, it's absolutely fascinating (and so well explained and presented). How extraordinary the human voice is - that some singers can mute certain frequencies/harmonics like this. I was going to say "conversely" regarding throat/overtone singing, where the fundamental is muted, but so are other frequencies, so perhaps it's a similar phenomenon whereby in both cases, all frequencies/harmonics other than a chosen one (be that the fundamental for Fourth Voice, or one of the overtones) are muted. Also I wonder how this is possible, in a physiological sense, and why, in an evolutionary sense!
Interesting: was I the only one who immediately guessed that her example of Caruso's 4th voice was to be from (0ne of the takes) of his "Magiche Note" (from Karl Goldmark's 'Regina di Saba')? It is a thought provoking topic, and brings to mind several other instances on these records where Caruso himself, among others, may well have employed something akin to this 4th voice, albeit in a lower register (as suggested to be possible with the Calve excerpt). It sort of begs the question: was the 4th voice a 'register' at all, or perhaps a timbric emmission devoid of harmonics? In that case.... Do let's get one thing straight which was overlooked in this otherwise superb and flawless presentation: 'Magiche Note' or Magische Toene' (in the original German, as sung by the equally incomparable Jadlowker) translates to 'Magical Notes' or Tones, respectively, hmmm... could there have been there a tradition of this dating back to the original production, a mere few decades before these recordings were made?
I don't know if this is what you're doing but I know how to sing something that looks like a sine wave on an oscilloscope. First your vocal tract should be set up for the "oo" sound. Then shrink the opening of the lips to about the diameter of a straw, and drop the jaw and tongue as far as you possibly can. The tight but not completely closed lips can be adjusted to give you the back pressure that may may it easier to sing high. I know back pressure is crucial to playing high on brass instruments.
After watching this, I remembered doing something similar when I was doing my A level in music by singing, and so I tried to produce the tones again that I did then (and brought a surprised look from my music teacher!). The tone seems to be coming from between my ears, somewhere in a place I think is called the condyloid fossa. I can only really produce two tones, and I can do it with the mouth open as well as closed. Is it something that people can do naturally then?
Great video! But I think the register is simply a pure head tone sung in a piano or messa voce like fashion. It does sound extraordinary when properly demonstrated. But anyone with proper development of their breath and messa di voce can practice and learn this unique sounding and beautiful attribute.
Thanks so very much for your presentation. It provokes a lot of thought even though i started as an alto and then became a deep basso. But i remember as an alto trying to sing the same whistles as my guinea pigs from deep in the throat. I still sing a bit of counter tenor, but i learned the placement of that from my voice teacher.
The description reminds me to the technique for Mongolian khoomei, at least the preparation for it when you need to land or set the voice in the throat, deep down fixing the soft palate. You should test the voice of Venezuelan "copleros" because I believe they use this technique extensively, specially Simón Díaz in his youth.
Though this 'flageolet' register is extremely pure and effective in recordings and (I presume) in small- to medium-sized venues, would it's pitch alone allow it to carry in larger auditoria?
Very interesting. I have lost the head voice as I am 70 years old.... and also have a cartilage disease. I wonder if I could learn this way of singing.....
Good work! You are searching for something that is there. High resonators (trade secret) know when it is there. But no one knows, technically, what it is.
A real great and interesting video ! Unfortunately in the end the image of the spectrogram doesn't permit to us to see you singing for real and appreciate the technical part. Only for a fraction of second we can see how your mouth is close just as in the old books' description.
Wow, wait - I’ve read that Isaac Nathan passage. Zheanna Erose introduced me to the concept of “voce finta”, and I found it through a Wordpress article on the subject.
Those highest tones sound like the high pianissimi that Caballe was famous for, and as her career progressed, she used those tones more and more on high notes instead of singing them full out, even when they were intended to be sung forte or fortissimo. Apparently, singing them pianissimo was easier than singing them full out. To my ears, these sound merely like a slimmed down version of the singer's high register, stripped of its overtones. I would call the fourth voice the whistle register we hear in singers such as Mado Robin or even Mariah Carrey. Lilly Pons also used such a tone, where you could see her almost close her mouth when she went for the highest notes.
Oh my god,I thing I can do this....well I didn't think it was a named thing,I just considered it whistling but not quite....I do get a feeling of pushing the air towards the front of my lungs but little air is coming out...
In these recordings, it sounds a lot like Mariah Carey's whistle notes. There's a lot of examples of her singing in "whistle register" and it really sounds similar to that piercing inhuman tone described as the fourth voice.
Is that the same as subharmonics? By producing a combination of harmonically related tones that are within your range, you can create the illusion of notes that aren't in your range by exploiting the missing fundamental effect. Brasses and strings both can use this technique, but it's typically done on trombone (to reach F trigger notes when you don't actually have an F trigger, or to get the low B♮ with only a single trigger. There are a few cellists exploiting it to good effect as well, although the brashness from the missing fundamental is rather stark.
I have only just caught up with this but it put me in mind of the guitar vocal duets between Richie Blackmore and Ian Gillan in Strange Kind of Woman. For those who are not familiar... ruclips.net/video/mphoZFb3Wwc/видео.html This does not apply to every note but the one at the end of the phrase around 1:45 to 1:55 has always struck me as being very different from the others. I think it would be interesting to put some of these through the same spectrum analysis to see what the overtones are like.
Disgusting, evil commercials. But i guess thats not your fault. Regarding your video, thank you! A baritone friend and duet partner always said my voice is like Galli-Curci's. I didn't hear the resemblance but love the comparison.
Honestly, castration is not a healthy or natural practice. That is why I'm more impressed by men who have never been castrated and their voices artificially modified - such as Russell Oberlin. Granted, I'm not a fan of that particular type of voice or talent, but it is interesting. I'd love to learn how to do the fourth voice. :)
Please remove the commentary from time stamp 3:49 to 4:33, as well as later on. It is too frustrating to listen to the singing and the explanation at the same time.
It is my understanding that Jadlowker WAS the cantor that Caruso would go to see whenever he was performing. Though now, of course, I can not find where I read that.
I think now I understand better what my teacher said to me. I study to be a singer. Currently I’m 23 years old and a teacher of mine insists that my voice can sound distant. Nof necessarily extremely high pitched. But I’ve heard it myself while vocalizing not long ago. During class I panicked thinking I had done something wrong. It sounded just.. too far away from me. (I’ve been having problems recently with this. My voice just doesn’t fit the standard of husky round soprano voice. And most teachers have told me I have to fix it. However in private lessons another teacher is convinced I have a bell like voice). Anyway, now that I see this, it makes me wonder if perhaps with the correct education my voice might someday sound like this too. (The comment might seem as a brag but I have honestly been concerned that my voice doesn’t sound like my fellow classmates. Even considered dropping out because my voice just didn’t fit in. But now I have hope. Thank you
The greatest asset is to not sound like everyone else. If you sound like everyone else you can be a good singer. But you can only be a great singer if you have a distinctive voice!
It sounds like a reinforced version of the whistle register (the "M3" laryngeal mechanism) used in popular music. The spectrogram for a whistled note also looks similar. Do you think it could be the same thing?
I think the exact same thing! I can acess my whistle register (in a contemporary standard anyways) and it looks alike on the spectrogram
It is just whistle voice imo. It doesn't need to be "reinforced" because it cuts through by virtue of its high frequency.
very intriguing: thanks for this. This somewhat substantiates a personal belief of mine, that there is some much contributed by popular singers and those of other genres that equates to functions of our 'lost artof western classical singing'.
You are a brilliant educator. I very much admire your use of scientific analysis and ever present tone of artistry, creativity, and sense of style. I have a background as Speech Language Pathologist and a singer who was taught to sing in the grand voice; I have never encountered anything this fun and edifying. Do keep it ip!
I am pleased that you included Herman Jadlowker. He was a remarkable singer and oh, so versatile. Thank you. Your channel is absolutely in triguing and brings me much pleasure.
Absolutely brilliant use of spectral (heh!) analysis for our Phantoms, here...
This register sounds more than anything to me like a /theremin/, which is absolutely fascinating- the theremin's always been one of the most 'vocal' of all instruments, but it's too pure, and sounds distant and alien - which is exactly the quality of this fourth register.
Your research is incredible, and how marvelous that you are sharing it... along with your own marvelous voice, and kudos for finding your fourth voice!
Immensely fascinating! Your use of the spectrum analyzer is amazing - and your description of "sine wave" to describe the effect spot on. I really must find some of these discs! Wonderful - thank you for your great efforts! I look forward to more of your videos!
Very interesting! The male voices I hear as a light, clear variation of falsetto. But in the female voices, I'm hearing not whistle tone (which is usually defined by a higher range as well as its tone) so much as extremely thin vocal fold body/cover with very tight closing of the aryepiglottic sphincter (vocal twang) and the lightest of breath pressure under the folds. Probably lots of mouth resonance/highly lifted soft palette. I personally think of this sound (which I also use) as a "floated" head voice. I was unaware of the term "fourth voice" but you've inspired me to dig further. You're an impressive and thoughtful historian - kudos!
I understand EXACTLY what this is! I sing in this ‘fourth voice’ a lot especially when approaching D5 and above when practicing or trying not to be loud. It feels very floaty and almost off the voice. Great for pianissimo on high notes.
I am a CT btw.
Oh my gosh… I love these examples including your own at the end, and I now realize that I likely became nervous to sing high notes when I lost my fourth voice in my teen years and nothing else high sounded as good to me. My sister kept her forth voice for longer than I did and seemed to be able to “sing anything up there effortlessly” to me.
I have a request. When I was young I read a book I never forgot called “Jenny Lind and Her Listening Cat” and she has always been one of my inspirations for wanting to sing. What do we know about Jenny Lind’s voice and how she was trained? Thank you so much!
if I recall well Jenny Lind was re-trained by Manuel Garcia (sr.) in Paris, after she almost lost her voice bc using wrong technique. After that she was unstoppable and truly a bel canto queen 😌
I think you're making lovely content - Your own voice was also awesome!
The Fourth Voice is all I sang in for years, and I have many recordings of it. It's also the only tone I had to work with for that amount of time, other than chest voice. You see, I had no falsetto or idea of what it was. When I did find how to access a weak incarnation of it, the falsetto was very airy and absolutely ended at F4. It took 3 years to extend it to A5, but that apparently wasn't needed- the fourth voice is easier to extend, and makes the entire voice stronger.
Curiously, I started out singing with a little boy sound intentionally- it was a quirk of my songwriting and musical persona.
The Fourth Voice does sound eerie, and it can atrophe with disuse. In fact, you start to lose it at first if you overdevelop falsetto.
I used to be a soprano in a boys choir, and when my voice started to drop, I tried keeping my highest notes, but I hadn't yet developed falceto, so I tried different techniques and I think I have also developed fourth voice as a result of my need to keep my high notes. Sadly I can't sing above G5 anymore, but I did gain a lot in my lower range (confident E2)
I use falceto in another way than the previous video, because in my experience I had chest voice, middle and head voice, and after my voice dropped I now have chest, middle and falceto, which feels different to use than how it felt when I was a kid, which I think gives it a right to it's own name
@@bruhspenning That's so interesting! I love when people succeed in keeping their voice and don't give up on their talent!
Thank you! I discovered you only a few days ago and have gone already thru almost all of your videos. I enjoy what you say, how you say it, the mise-en-scène and your own look. Congratulations!
Thought I am completely blown away from Jadlowker recording. Emma calves recording is probably the best example of fourth voice that exist. But wow that note from Jadlowker gave me goosebumps.
The proliferation over the past 50 years or so of counter-tenors and outright male altos attest to, in my opinion, a kind of approach whereby one can cut out the vibrations of the lower partials, e.g., the chest tones. Men can do this anyway in whistling, which seems to me, equivalent to the white tones of the "fourth voice" again, purposefully omitting some of the partials or overtones.
Also, I do believe there have been distortions in recordings of 100 years ago that were not able to pick up the extremely high overtones or partials. People who heard those singers like Caruso, Ponselle, etc., testified to the live performances being much better than the recordings. I also think that intentionally trying to cut out out overtones, mistakenly called vibrato is not a good practice. A free sound was still the ideal of Bel Canto.
When I listened to this video (yes, I listened and almost didn't watch), one question popped up in my head. I heard similar singing sound from Luzmila Carpio. Is she using this technique to achieve her unbelievably high notes? She is not nearly a classical singer but a folk Bolivian music performer.
This is heavenly! Your channel is amazing !
The coloratura Maria Ivogün taught a forehead , third eye tone as a foundation of technique. It was to be practiced softly and with as pure and mystical a tone as possible. I was lucky to have a student of hers show me the technique, not that I mastered it utterly. My teacher who showed it to me said that the etheric tone was drawn from the heavens instead of truly created by you. The operetta singer Renate Holm had that training and in her youth, with effortless E naturals, could produce a shimmer and that sound of a voice from a distance that you speak of. The sound was crystalline rather than chesty as so many try to do today. Her Schlager hits are the best places to hear her do it. Amsellied is one. There is some mastering, but the sound is coming from that training and would not be valued by classical vocal teachers of today's styles. She does it on Im Schwarzwald Singt win Finchenpaar also. That was in the 50's.
It was a technique also cultivated by Emma Calve, even in some of her primitive recordings, as well as Lily Pons, who produced her highest notes with her mouth virtually closed.
Fascinating, thanks you for that: I remember the Romanian Soprano Lya Hubic also referring to the third eye at some point during lessons with her.
Why do you feel this is something else again compared to flageolet, or possibly whistle? I have heard flageolet described as the extended sound used eg. by some coloratura sopranos to get high light notes that are well connected to the rest of the voice. Then there is whistle which is a high sound most often made for effect by some pop singers that doesn’t usually seem very easy to do much with in terms of singing words, and seems quite small and disconnected and made with a more closed-off throat (I think). Those are the only kinds of super high register I've heard people discuss before.
The upper end notes sound like a flageolet or feather-light head voice, and the technique seems very akin to voce finta or a voice lightened through raising the larynx and pulling it back.
Update: seems like they are in fact the same thing. Voce finta actually seems rather useful or even essential in voice feminization for trans women :)
I saw a film of Yma Sumac today. I wonder if you would consider her extraordinary high notes to be from her fourth voice. You hear the effort - not much, but naturally there is some - as she sings higher and higher, but then there comes this incredible series of high notes that sound relaxed but eerily disembodied and almost unwilled. I wonder, Ziazan, if you would consider Sumac to have access to that fourth voice. Also, while we're on the subject, what is the "whistle register" that several commenters have mentioned?
I was very fascinated by this video. Incidentally, I'm color blind, so the graphics were all lost on me. However, I just sat and listened and could hear the difference in the tone. I wonder if you think that Lily Pons may have used this "fourth" voice. When I was young and showing my sister her recordings, she said her notes above high C sounded fake, or falsetto like. My sister is a coloratura soprano, and she was sure that whatever Pons was doing was the easier way out of singing high notes compared to full voice. I didn't hear it at first, but there is something different in her tone above the staff. I don't know enough about this but wondered if you hear that in her voice as well.
This cantor that Caruso used to listen to whenever they happened to be in the same city was Gershon Sirota.
I really like the 'ventroloquism' allusion! It would be so amazing to hear this in person. Thank you for your research!
I just discovered your channel today, and I love it!! I look forward to hearing more from you regardless of the particular subject matter. 💕🎵💕
That must be whistle register!!! The covering is her closing her vocal folds. I’ve done it myself on a spectrogram and my whistle register has only like three main overtones within it
Thank you so much for your fascinating and important work. I just discovered your channel and I'm looking forward to things that will come. Can you tell me please the name of the song or aria Caruso and Jadlowker did sing at the end of the video? Thank you and take care.
It's an aria from Goldmark's opera "Die Königin von Saba" (The Queen of Sheba), called "Magische Töne" or, in the Italian rhythmic translation Caruso uses, "Magiche note".
@@jeandesesseintes97 Thank you so much!
@@tenorette2003 You're very welcome :)
Once again, many thanks indeed for this, it's absolutely fascinating (and so well explained and presented). How extraordinary the human voice is - that some singers can mute certain frequencies/harmonics like this. I was going to say "conversely" regarding throat/overtone singing, where the fundamental is muted, but so are other frequencies, so perhaps it's a similar phenomenon whereby in both cases, all frequencies/harmonics other than a chosen one (be that the fundamental for Fourth Voice, or one of the overtones) are muted. Also I wonder how this is possible, in a physiological sense, and why, in an evolutionary sense!
Interesting: was I the only one who immediately guessed that her example of Caruso's 4th voice was to be from (0ne of the takes) of his "Magiche Note" (from Karl Goldmark's 'Regina di Saba')? It is a thought provoking topic, and brings to mind several other instances on these records where Caruso himself, among others, may well have employed something akin to this 4th voice, albeit in a lower register (as suggested to be possible with the Calve excerpt). It sort of begs the question: was the 4th voice a 'register' at all, or perhaps a timbric emmission devoid of harmonics? In that case.... Do let's get one thing straight which was overlooked in this otherwise superb and flawless presentation: 'Magiche Note' or Magische Toene' (in the original German, as sung by the equally incomparable Jadlowker) translates to 'Magical Notes' or Tones, respectively, hmmm... could there have been there a tradition of this dating back to the original production, a mere few decades before these recordings were made?
I don't know if this is what you're doing but I know how to sing something that looks like a sine wave on an oscilloscope.
First your vocal tract should be set up for the "oo" sound. Then shrink the opening of the lips to about the diameter of a straw, and drop the jaw and tongue as far as you possibly can. The tight but not completely closed lips can be adjusted to give you the back pressure that may may it easier to sing high. I know back pressure is crucial to playing high on brass instruments.
After watching this, I remembered doing something similar when I was doing my A level in music by singing, and so I tried to produce the tones again that I did then (and brought a surprised look from my music teacher!). The tone seems to be coming from between my ears, somewhere in a place I think is called the condyloid fossa. I can only really produce two tones, and I can do it with the mouth open as well as closed. Is it something that people can do naturally then?
Immediately the high "ahweeeeee" from ' In the Jungle' ...the mighty jungle ...comes to mind with this.🤣
Great video! But I think the register is simply a pure head tone sung in a piano or messa voce like fashion. It does sound extraordinary when properly demonstrated. But anyone with proper development of their breath and messa di voce can practice and learn this unique sounding and beautiful attribute.
Somewhat off-topic, but what's the tenor piece sung by Caruso and Jadlöwker? I'm obsessed now and can't find it.
Incredible ! Is this register somehow linked to the more famous whistle voice ? It sounds really similar
Thanks so very much for your presentation. It provokes a lot of thought even though i started as an alto and then became a deep basso. But i remember as an alto trying to sing the same whistles as my guinea pigs from deep in the throat. I still sing a bit of counter tenor, but i learned the placement of that from my voice teacher.
brava madame. I've been waiting to hear your voice.
Fascinating indeed! Keep up the great work!
Very interesting!!! I'm loving your videos! congratulations!!!
Amazing ! Thank you for sharing your research with us.
The description reminds me to the technique for Mongolian khoomei, at least the preparation for it when you need to land or set the voice in the throat, deep down fixing the soft palate. You should test the voice of Venezuelan "copleros" because I believe they use this technique extensively, specially Simón Díaz in his youth.
Though this 'flageolet' register is extremely pure and effective in recordings and (I presume) in small- to medium-sized venues, would it's pitch alone allow it to carry in larger auditoria?
Very interesting. I have lost the head voice as I am 70 years old.... and also have a cartilage disease. I wonder if I could learn this way of singing.....
Good work! You are searching for something that is there. High resonators (trade secret) know when it is there. But no one knows, technically, what it is.
Great analysis. Amazing technics, new sub here.
A real great and interesting video ! Unfortunately in the end the image of the spectrogram doesn't permit to us to see you singing for real and appreciate the technical part. Only for a fraction of second we can see how your mouth is close just as in the old books' description.
Wow, wait - I’ve read that Isaac Nathan passage. Zheanna Erose introduced me to the concept of “voce finta”, and I found it through a Wordpress article on the subject.
Imagine a soprano singing the final note of “Caro Nome” in that register. Just imagine. 🤩
Fascinating.
At 15:12 the voice has an interesting "wailling" feel about it... Is it part of the intended effect from?
Those highest tones sound like the high pianissimi that Caballe was famous for, and as her career progressed, she used those tones more and more on high notes instead of singing them full out, even when they were intended to be sung forte or fortissimo. Apparently, singing them pianissimo was easier than singing them full out. To my ears, these sound merely like a slimmed down version of the singer's high register, stripped of its overtones. I would call the fourth voice the whistle register we hear in singers such as Mado Robin or even Mariah Carrey. Lilly Pons also used such a tone, where you could see her almost close her mouth when she went for the highest notes.
Vidro fantastico....grazie❤
Perhaps to me what Caruso was doing might have been closer to Garcia's 'male head voice'?
Schmidt was a cantor as well.
Is the fourth voice like falsetto at all? (I am not musically educated, so apologies if this is a dumb question!)
I wonder what Barbara Doscher would have thought about the fourth voice. I don't recall her mentioning it in her literature.
How is the French folk song called?
I'm wondering if the last note of Dimash Qudaibergen's Ave Maria would be considered 4th voice.
Wouldn’t this be the same as the whistle register?
Oh my god,I thing I can do this....well I didn't think it was a named thing,I just considered it whistling but not quite....I do get a feeling of pushing the air towards the front of my lungs but little air is coming out...
Is this fourth register the "whistle" voice?
In these recordings, it sounds a lot like Mariah Carey's whistle notes. There's a lot of examples of her singing in "whistle register" and it really sounds similar to that piercing inhuman tone described as the fourth voice.
Hm listen to the end of Caruso's 1909 recording of O Souverain O Juge O Pere from Massenet's Le Cid
why didn’t you explain what a castrato was?
Is this like the voice breaking in Malagueña Salerosa?
If there are four voices, what about strohbass? A FIFTH voice?
Is that the same as subharmonics? By producing a combination of harmonically related tones that are within your range, you can create the illusion of notes that aren't in your range by exploiting the missing fundamental effect. Brasses and strings both can use this technique, but it's typically done on trombone (to reach F trigger notes when you don't actually have an F trigger, or to get the low B♮ with only a single trigger. There are a few cellists exploiting it to good effect as well, although the brashness from the missing fundamental is rather stark.
What about the whistle register?
The second example with head voice sounds way better imo
Turns out I can do this :)
I wonder.... to my ears this "head voice" sounds like what is today referred to as "whistle register", is it not?
I have only just caught up with this but it put me in mind of the guitar vocal duets between Richie Blackmore and Ian Gillan in Strange Kind of Woman. For those who are not familiar... ruclips.net/video/mphoZFb3Wwc/видео.html
This does not apply to every note but the one at the end of the phrase around 1:45 to 1:55 has always struck me as being very different from the others. I think it would be interesting to put some of these through the same spectrum analysis to see what the overtones are like.
Disgusting, evil commercials. But i guess thats not your fault. Regarding your video, thank you! A baritone friend and duet partner always said my voice is like Galli-Curci's. I didn't hear the resemblance but love the comparison.
can the fourth voice just be whistle register like Mariah careys?
Honestly, castration is not a healthy or natural practice. That is why I'm more impressed by men who have never been castrated and their voices artificially modified - such as Russell Oberlin. Granted, I'm not a fan of that particular type of voice or talent, but it is interesting. I'd love to learn how to do the fourth voice. :)
Galli-Curci had pitch problems due to her illness.
Wtf. Is there anything Jadlowker could not do?
The man was a phenomenon
Caballé can do it... It is just a higher sulfiato singing, it is NOT whistle register.
I think Mariah Carey has that fourth register.
She got a whistle register
So to practice it, you have to sing with your mouth shut?
Please remove the commentary from time stamp 3:49 to 4:33, as well as later on. It is too frustrating to listen to the singing and the explanation at the same time.
This is clearly just the whistle register, it has and continues to be used by quite a few contemporary singers.
You are just talking about the forcefully castrated vocalists in the Catholic Church (Aka child genital mutilation).
It is my understanding that Jadlowker WAS the cantor that Caruso would go to see whenever he was performing. Though now, of course, I can not find where I read that.
Nicolai Gedda is another was able to produce this effect. His recording of "Magische Tone" is my favorite.