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REGISTER
Human voices have 4 registers, or parts of the overall range. These are a
little like gears on a bike or a car, and it takes serious training to be able
to move seamlessly from one to another. For maximum power in
speaking, it helps to understand the registers so that you can consciously
choose the most effective one for the receiver and context at hand.
Whistle
The whistle (or flute) register is unlikely to be of much use to you because
it occupies the very highest notes a human voice can produce, roughly
spanning an octave upwards from C6 (2 octaves above middle C). These
high, piercing sounds are produced by resonating the back of the vocal
cords, and are in general possible only for female singers. Singers like
Mariah Carey use this register in performance; a good recorded example
is the 1975 hit
Lovin’ You
by Minnie Ripperton. For you and me, this
register is of academic interest only.
Falsetto
The next register down is more recognisable: many successful male
singers have used falsetto with great success, from Frankie Valli in the
Four Seasons in the 1960s, to the Bee Gees in the 1970s, to Coldplay’s
Chris Martin today. Falsetto tends to be a purer sound than the natural
voice, as it has less overtones; for that reason, it’s also less characteristic
of an individual. For males in speech, falsetto is a gear change up into an
unnatural, slightly comical speaking range: think of the Monty Python
team pretending to be women. However, for many females, particularly
the older generation, it becomes a soft, unthreatening place to speak
from, well out of the harsher traffic lanes of most speech. In Japan,
speaking in a high falsetto has long been a female cultural imperative in
order not to challenge male authority, though this is at last changing in
line with social attitudes.
You will move naturally into falsetto from time to time, for example to
express astonishment (“Whaaaaaaat?” starting high and going higher is
probably in your falsetto register), approbation (“Woo-hoo” will often be
belted out in falsetto) or some other strong emotion, differentiating this
communication from your regular voice in order to make it stand out.
But, as far as our mission to achieve powerful speaking is concerned,
falsetto is generally to be avoided – so, once again, we move on.
Modal
The modal register is where most people speak from. It’s the natural
speaking voice, where the vocal cords are at maximum efficiency. Where
your vocal register begins and ends is an important defining factor of
your voice: when we describe someone as a soprano or a baritone, we’re
saying that their modal register is higher or lower.
I would like to distinguish 4 separate speaking voices within this register.
That’s 2 more than the common distinctions from singing coaches. You
may have come across the terms ‘head voice’ and ‘chest voice’, especially
if you’ve ever taken any singing lessons. I am going to add ‘nasal voice’
and ‘throat voice’.
In fact, your voice is always produced by your larynx, which is in your
throat, but you can change your tone and timbre significantly by altering
many elements of the complex process that produces your characteristic
sound. Following the work of Professor David Abercrombie at Edinburgh
University, academics distinguish ‘vocal settings’, which are regional
styles of speaking that overlay someone’s accent and suggest where they
are from. These include things like pace, emphasis and intonation, as well
as the timbre or quality of the voice itself, and they need to be altered if
one wishes to speak a foreign language like a local.
My distinctions of 4 voices combine the quality aspect of vocal settings
with my own experience of voices from around the world to produce a
practical classification of the modal register that’s accessible to you and
me through the idea of speaking from a specific place – nose, head, throat
or chest. This is purely a practical tool, not an attempt at a scientific
classification. There is debate, for example, about whether you physically
can resonate your voice in your chest (logically, this would involve
sending air downwards from your larynx when you speak, which is
impossible), but I know in practice that I can change the depth and
quality of my voice by
focusing
on resonating in my chest. These 4 voices
may in part be metaphors, but they work!
So, let’s step over all the scientific and pedagogical debates about this
complex area and simply deal with the practical question of taking
control of your voice. We’ll consider the 4 voices in turn; meanwhile, you
can consider which is your own home turf. You will probably use all 4 to
greater or lesser degree, but for most people one will be dominant at any
time. Leaving aside medical conditions, speaking primarily in one of
these voices is partly genetic or cultural, and partly down to individual
choice or upbringing; also, situations may dictate moving from one to
another – for example, nervousness tends to move people up from chest
to head.
The important thing is that, in my experience, it is possible to train most
people to move consciously from one to another. We’ll work on that in the
exercise that follows.
Nasal voice:
For everyone, the nose resonates to generate 3 sounds (ng,
m and n, as in the word ‘morning’). The nasal voice sends many more
sounds to resonate in the noise, giving it a high, bright, thin and slightly
harsh feel. It is widely used in Latin countries, and, famously, in New
York City, as well as other locations. To check if you are using nasal voice,
touch a finger very lightly to the side of your noise and say “Morning”.
You will feel slight vibration in your nose. Now say “He loves food.” If you
felt any vibration at all, you are using a nasal voice.
Head voice:
This is the speaking voice most people use most of the time.
It requires relatively little effort, resonating efficiently in the cavities of
the pharynx, mouth and nose. It is light and bright in tone and pleasing
in the main, and it’s where singers (apart from basses) generate their
voices from.
Throat voice:
Common among males from the Indian subcontinent, this
can sound hoarse and breathy, though in singing it can soar into
magnificence, as with the astounding Qawwali singing of Nusrat Fateh Ali
Khan.
Chest voice:
This is the deepest and richest of the 4 voices, most naturally
(but far from exclusively) found in those of sub-Saharan African descent:
think of James Earl Jones or Morgan Freeman. Actors train to speak
from here, and there are many examples of widely-admired chest voices
in that profession, from Sean Connery and Sir Ian McKellen to Orson
Welles and Vin Diesel.
So, where do you typically speak from? If you want to deliver powerfully,
become conscious of the place you feel your voice is coming from, and
practice moving it as appropriate. In most cases, the maximum power
and authority come from the chest voice, so that one is definitely worth
learning.
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