I was talking to someone who had recently been to a performance of the Magic Flute about the Queen of the Night's aria and he mentioned something about the top harmonics not being very well in tune. His comment suggested that the very high notes in that aria are harmonics simply by virtue of being very high notes. I've never heard of the term 'harmonics' in relation to singing, but then I've never studed vocal production. Was he talking out of a hole in his head, or is that really how such stratospheric notes are produced? Or is it only one of several possible methods of production? Or does the term mean something different in this context? I think I remember correctly that in string playing a harmonic has a particular, usually thin, timbre, but that the same note can also be produced in the 'ordinary' way.

Please could I have an explanations in layman's terms... Thank you.

I think this is probably nonsense in regard to TMF, but I understood that certain styles of oriental singing (e.g. Mongolian throat singing) involved the produciton of either vocal harmonics, or at least several tones at once - and from what I can remember of hearing it, this is what it sounds like ...

EDIT: Indeed, here's the wikipedia entry:

The partials (fundamental and overtones) of a sound wave made by the human voice can be selectively amplified by changing the shape of the resonant cavities of the mouth, larynx and pharynx.[1] This resonant tuning allows the singer to create apparently more than one pitch at the same time (the fundamental and a selected overtone), while in effect still generating a single fundamental frequency with his/her vocal folds.

So one selects certain harmonic overtones from the vocal sound ... seems convincing. IIRC, throat singers are said to die young, so it may be a fairly taxing process

Thanks. I did think he was probably talking pretentious rubbish, but I'm still willing to have that assumption corrected.

Very high notes they might be, but they are just ordinary notes when I sing it. Nothing funny about them, just a long way up.

Good. It's nice to be right, especially when someone's pontificating about something they know nothing about!

I would not exactly say he was talking out of a hole in his head, but it is indeed a bit misleading ...

Pitch and voice quality (evenness etc.) CAN actually be measured by calculating the SHR (subharmonic-to-harmonic-ratio), which sometimes gets used in scientific voice projects. It's all quite complicated though, and if you don't have a maths degree, you probably don't want to look into it

But the SHR is not unique to the female whistle register, which your friend refers to. Maybe the singer's high notes where just bad, not everyone is very good at commanding the flageolet
Whistling is a special vocal register and the sound IS actually produced quite differently to the other registers - it does not allow messa di voce, forming of vowels or articulation other than some sort of "ah"-ish sound.

Then there's also the singer's formant, but that has nothing to do with pitch, more with projection ...

Er, flageolet? Messa di voce? Formant?

I did ask for layman's terms!

Flagolet is very similar to a tin whistle.
Messa di Voce is when a note is held, during which time it crescendos then decrescendos
A formant is a peak in the frequency spectrum of a sound caused by acoustic resonance

Sorry, flageolet is the same as whistle register, I just used both terms.

Messa di voce = gradual crescendo/decrescendo (I would have thought that's something a musician would know, so sorry again)

Singer's formant = http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formant

One point to Mezzo. Congratulations. You must be so proud.

My goodness, are we a bit sensitive? Next time I'll add ten smilies. I just didn't expect to be growled at for not using "layman's terms" when I thought I was using terms you know (after all, Italian is the language of music), so sorry if I overestimated you - better than the other way round, isn't it

I'll try it differently:

Yes, vocal harmonics do exist.
If you listen to a singing voice, the harmonics rise if the fundamental frequency rises. If it falls, the harmonics do the same. For an explanation of fundamental frequency: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_frequency.

But the term whistle register/flageolet (or the very high, flute-like sounds a female voice can produce) is not to be used identical to the word "harmonics".

Hmm, don't know if that was helpful

Very clever. That's not what I meant at all. Although I rather suspect you fully realise that and are now being deliberately obtuse.

Anyway, thank you for the explanation.

These terms can also be found in a good old music dictionary...

Czerny, I am really sorry, but I am obviously immune to British humour, irony or sarcasm in written form - or maybe really stupid, although not blonde

Peace?

@ DaisyChain: That's what you say - if I do so, I'm getting my botty spanked

Hi Czerny.
I often have this conversation with my students when a note can APPEAR to be flat or sharp. Sometimes there isn't enough brightness due to one or more of several possible factors - poor support or placement or a dull facial expression, for instance. Even when the technique is working properly there is more than one way of singing the same note. If you want to sing an octave scale upwards, it's no good thinking the starting note low harmonically or you have to make a transition in the placement on the way up, otherwise it's difficult. Likewise, if you want to sing downwards, it's no good thinking the start note high. Try it!
Sometimes, although someone is singing a perfectly well pitched note when it is unaccompanied, it can sound wrong depending on the harmonics in the accompaniment and the key progression.
Sorry if this sounds double dutch - I can demonstrate what I mean, but it isn't easy to put into words.
For what it's worth, I think your friend has a perfectly valid point, and as far as I am concerned, this can be applied to notes at all pitches and singers and songs of all standards. Others may disagree.

Ann

I'm glad it's resolved anyway

Thanks. However, if it can be applied to notes at all pitches then he doesn't have a valid point because he was calling the high notes 'harmonics' simply by virtue of their high pitch. Unless I've misunderstood what you mean...

Yeahno or Jein, as I would say. Higher notes usually have more harmonics, so he would be right. But "harmonic" is not the same as "high whistled note". Or better: It is not exclusive to the production of a whistled note ( a whistled note = the high Fs that the Queen of the Night sings, err whistles)

I don't know how to explain this any better without using too many scientific terms - where's rosfrog if you need him?

I'm starting to think I'm not actually writing in English this evening. He didn't mean anything about higher notes having more harmonics, he just called it a harmonic because it was very high, as if 'very high' is a synonym for 'harmonic'. Which it isn't, unless I've completely misunderstood what everyone has said.

No. A high note is not an harmonic. It is a fundamental (at whatever pitch) which will produce natural harmonics of its own.

Your friend was probably just trying to sound clever!

Thank you. He was.

Yes, I know, and I think we all got your point and are moving around in circles since ages now. If you got the essence, why do you keep on asking? The question has been answered, by various people:
Harmonics are not just high notes, he used it wrong in that respect (that's what I said in my very first post btw.), but as AnnC i.e. has said, he probably meant the right thing and just worded it wrong in an attempt to sound very scientific.

But maybe you should ask your friend again WHAT he actually meant before we are all getting completely confused by trying to find the exact definition you need ...

I'm hungry now, good night ...

Sorry - I was only trying to clarify the issue in my own mind. Being a bear of very little brain that took some time...

Yes, and me probably being a tired and hungry bear with a sore head, not the best combination either

Just to say that I've been a professional musician for 15 years plus and even though I accompany a lot of singers, I don't recall coming across this term before - perhaps it is specific to singers? (I'm a pianist)

You can tune the harmonics of your voice without difficulty if you're good enough. This is done by essentially changing the shape of the pharynx and epilarynx (and to some extent, the mouth) - it's often referred to as the singing formant - a particular band of harmonics that needs to be present in the classical voice to give it ring and help it carry over the orchestra.

If the top notes sounded dull, overly weighty, slightly flat or did not carry well, then your friend may have been right in saying that the harmonics were not correctly tuned. If they sounded fine and you heard them ok, then it's possible he'd just read up on vocal formants and wanted to spread the love!

To be strictly accurate, you can't tune harmonics. They are naturally occurring overtones. You can, however, emphasise or lessen them, which causes a change in timbre.

That's a fair point - I should have said you can tune your vocal apparatus to enhance the harmonics - we generally call that formant tuning.

I should have been clearer!

Thanks. I wanted to try and avoid any "technical" terms such as formant and keep it all in layman's terms as requested by the OP. But you're absolutely right in what you say.

I sing the Queen of the Night's Arias (yes both of them) and the Bell Song from Lakme, and the register I use is called the FLAUTINO register which is the female equivalent to falsetto. I can blend it into natural voice just like a counter-tenor, yet it goes all the way up to a super top A and is fully tunable. There is no way this is a whistle, and I'm pretty sure if you were to take photos of my vocal folds and mouth shape and compare them to a counter-tenor, you would find we would be doing something very similar inside.

True Harmonics start from a Fundamental note and are the overtones. I certainly can't sing those.

Changing the quality of one's voice is great fun. Addy can add loads of low harmonics to her top notes and all of her loyal fans will testify.

Isn't Addy a bit dead at the minute?

That is true alas but her recordings live on and her melodious notes will linger forever in the memories of all who heard her.


Didn't Harry Parry liken her voice to a foghorn once?



Oops, this is supposed to be a serious thread. Sorry folks.

Possible, since some very high sopranos actually don't need to whistle up there. Still that's rather the exemption than the rule. The test which register you use is easy, as you said yourself: If you can do messa di voce, it's not whistled. If you can hold a sustained note and it has vibrato, it's not whistled.

I believe that modern vocal anatomy actually distinguishes between 4 registers: vocal fry, modal, falsetto and whistle/flageolet (which are just different words for the same thing).
Flautino, as I understand it, should mean the same same as whistle or flageolet (which has ancient French/Latin roots and means flute or even "to blow"). Falsetto on the other hand even has different roots as a word and means false, so actually refers to a different use of the vocal folds. So I would rather say whistle and flautino are the same, falsetto is something different.

But I am willing to be taught otherwise if that's overcome. Then again, terminology and especially the subject of registration has always been a tricky one in vocal pedagogy - ask three people, get four different opinions

I might open another thread for this though, because it might actually fuel confusion here ....

There is certainly messa di voce up there, but it is like opening up a completely new space, and yet it blends down so easily into my normal head voice. Mezzo it is hard to describe, I just do it!

One thing I know it isn't harmonics.

...opened a new thread