Hey everyone,

for a few days now, I haven't been able to vocalise comfortably above C5 (in falsetto) without breaking into a WHISTLE VOICE note about one octave higher. I used to be able to hum really high lines effortlessly, but now the note just "isn't" there.

This morning, I managed to slide all the way up...but only barely. It took alot of concentration, and the sound wasn't as free as it usually was. What can I do?? Could this be a result of vocal fatigue?

Remember, I'm talking about falsetto here. In full voice, I can still screetch my way up there. ;-)

I've heard about something like this happening to coloratura sopranos when they're learning to access the whistle register.

You might check out this guy: http://www.voiceteacher.com/whistle_register.html

I don't know that I agree with everything he says about some things in his other articles, but he seems to have plenty of good advice.

He suggests using tongue and lip trills to reconnect the upper register so that the whistle voice doesn't kick in when it shouldn't be.



Also, it -could- just be vocal fatigue. I'd suggest backing off of the upper register for a few weeks and see if it doesn't come back.

Wow, scary article. It's difficult to know if he's describing my problem, since he mostly talks about female break points. I would like to hear Jaime's thoughts on both my situation and the article.

I haven't been singing in my head voice for a day now. Let's hope this goes away with time.

That was a good read. The problems he is decribing are quite unusual I would hope; especially the part where he says the singers sing almost an octave higher than intended... That is simply weird; it most feel very uncomfortable and stressful to engage the false vocal chords in such a way.

I liked the part where he suggested to do both the lip and tongue trill at the same time. I had never thought of trying both together!

Acctualy I had this idea of lip/tongue trill few monthes ago thought never saw this video before. At the time I had even crazy idea to do li trill+tongue trill+ water gargling at the same times. But I didn't try it! Someone wants to do it ?

Legato,

I think the a good possibility is that it's vocal fatigue or swelling of the chords for some reason or another (maybe even a cold or something) The reason I say this is that I once lost my voice due to a bad cough, but I distinctly noticed that my falsetto was the first thing to be affected. For a few days my full voice was fine, but eventually it caught up with me and I lost my voice all together.

I've also had much milder cases where I abused my voice (shouting at a bar or something) and the next day, again, my falsetto was affected, but the rest of my voice not.

I don't know why this is, it seems counter-intuitive, but I think that when vocal fatigue sets in, the fasletto is the first to go. At least that's my experience.

I'd recommend (like already mentioned) taking some rest and seeing what happens.

Maybe because when ur using falsetto ur only using part of ur vocal cords so any little damage is more noticed. When usign full voice ur using all ur cord, so maybe it helps make up for the damage part. I dunno. I also notice if my falsetto gets shity, I can tell my voice isn't gonna treat me so well that day.

Thanks for the replies, everyone.

Now for my update: *Whew*....After many days of resting, my high falsetto register is coming back! I guess it really was a case of vocal fatigue. It's only getting better very slowly, though. If I sing in falsetto for any considerable amount of time, the high notes go away again. I can't sing as freely as I did before.

It seems as though there could be two reasons for this, resulting in two possible courses of action:

1. I was REALLY over-singing in the past few weeks, and I just needed to recover from that. So once I've completely recovered, I will be able to sing in falsetto as "freely" as I did before.

2. I've been using a bad falsetto technique all of my life, and only NOW it is catching up to me. Now I must change my technique in order to prevent more damage.

What do you think I should do?

Reprogram your brain properly singing the right way. Do this very slowly' one note at the time. Do you know how to sing falsetto properly now though? Cause you seem to have understood where your difficulty was. So, practice just a few minutes at the time. Every time you fall back into your old pattern, stop. Take a break. Than breath slowly to concentrate and start singing on one note at the time again. The key word here is: take it SLOW!

Thanks oiselle! But I actually meant the (1) and (2) as two POSSIBLE reasons...I'm not really sure if it's (1), or (2), or both.

I think I'll record a clip of me singing in falsetto...maybe some of you can tell me if it's ok or not.