I can very low in falsetto - down to the G or F under middle C. I can't sing as high as I once did in falsetto, but getting to the C or D an octave higher than middle C isn't a problem. "Voce misto" - mixed voice - is very desirable in Bel canto singing. What we get from modern Italianate tenors like Pavarotti is more like "can belto"! haha!

I can sort of get to a high Bb in chest voice, but it isn't a note I'd sing in public anymore.

Some modern tenors used quite a lot of falsetto - Carlo Begonzi used loads of falsetto (he started his singing career as a baritone and he always needed some falsetto to get "up there") and Canadian tenor, Jon Vickers, used a lot of falsetto and head voice in his great interpretation of Peter Grimes.

Mar 11, 2011 -- 6:27PM, JCarlin wrote:

I switched to tenor for the Christmas Oratorio, (original instruments, Kammerton) and had no need for head voice.  In other works I had to learn to use it and as you say it is a nice place to sing.  But... Bach seemed to think that you got into head voice with an octive key and I haven't really learned that yet.   Dvořák has the same problem you are singing along comfortably in the lower register and in a semiquaver a run on A's and B's.  I am learning to take head voice much lower now and that helps. 

Mar 11, 2011 -- 5:46PM, steven_guy wrote:

Anyway, as you know, tenors all used falsetto or head voice for note above F of G before around 1820. I am a tenor myself and this is a much more relaxing means of vocal production.

Feb 12, 2008 -- 8:42AM, ceveazey wrote:

steven_guy wrote:

More music I like on my profile. If any of you liked the music I posted on my profile, I posted another three tracks by Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber, Giovanni Gabrieli and Michael Praetorius.

I'd made full performing scores of most of these works.

I wish I could hear the music, but DANG my audio was not hooked up by the tech who set me up, and I don't know how to do it.  Anyway, you are a musician?  What instrument to you play?

Steven Guy,
I'm back and Ceveazey is me Christine over at A D Atheism.  I didn't get to answer your question because the computer went dead on me and I didn't get another one until recently.  I am, or was a musician, taught classical violin.  But haven't done a lot of playing for awhile and my fingers are changing (fatter) and makes more of an effort to get the notes in tune, plus dexterity/coordination are going, and the brain not what it used to be (much much slower!).  I still enjoy great music in different styles.  If it's good it's ageless.  I just saw Lady GaGa on television, scary.  What do you think about her?

Jul 7, 2011 -- 4:14PM, christine3 wrote:

For my tastes in music, I need a little more than suggestive, risque, monotonous.  It is boring, of not shocking to me.

I don't think that Lady GaGa is "suggestive", "risque" or as "monotonous" as most Rock music I hear these days. God, I hate Rock music! (I should add that for me "Christian" rock/pop music comes close to proving the existence of Satan, and Country & Western music IS Satan's music of choice. Okay, fat elderly white men in striped waistcoats and straw boater hats playing Dixieland Jazz give me the heebie-jeebies, too)

Lady GaGa is just fairly enjoyable club music (try dancing to it in a club or at a party) and her image is totally camp.

If I want shocking or risque I put on my DVD of Berg's Lulu or Shostakovich's "Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District" or the good old Karl Böhm video of Richard Strauss's "Elektra".

Actually one can go back even further - the scene in Monteverdi's "L'incoronazione di Poppea" when Ottavia blackmails Ottone into murdering Nero's whore lover is pretty full-on. And Jean-Philippe Rameau's opera, "Les Paladins", features two of the male protagonists of marrying and living happily ever after. Rameau's last opera, by the way, was banned for its unbridled feminism and a song in which a peasant girl sings "All power to the individual!" and she's joined by the chorus.

Jul 14, 2011 -- 3:47PM, steven_guy wrote:

I've been attempting to play the piano again. Probably a fruitless task and I will be lucky if I manage to entertain my cats. I've managed to struggle through Bach's famous minuet in G - it only makes me wish I owned a harpsichord.

I managed to get the sheet music for Joe Hisaishi's piece, "One Summer's Day" and I am managing to struggle through it. It is deceptively simple.

 

Lovely little piece, Steven. It reminds me of the writing of some of the better quality pianists on Windham Hill Records like William Matthieu and Philip Aaberg. Presently I'm working on a couple of difficult jazz pieces by Bill Evans, which is a handful in itself, not counting being able to improvise on them. I hope you are recovering quickly from your stint in hospital.