Quick question about whistle register:

My voice teacher is in her early sixties, I believe. She's a mezzo-soprano with a pretty large voice, and an excellent range into her lower and upper extension.


I was talking to her about something... the larynx tilting in the head voice, I think... and she demonstrated for me how you couldn't really see it happening so much on the outside, but she felt it happening inside.

She hit something in whistle register... I don't even know what it was... maybe an F/G6. The note came out, definitely, but it sounded extremely... 'dry'. That's the best word I have for it.


I'm not sure if that was just caused by her not using that range very much, or does the whistle register take on a dry sound with age?

Don't start believing fallacies. It's up to each individual person to maintain their voice. If maintained and worked properly, you can do whistle notes at any age.

JV

Heh, that's not quite what I was asking ;).

I was just asking if the quality of the whistle tone might change with age, not saying it does, and my teacher certainly didn't make any such statement.

Also as a side note: She's an opera singer. Loves opera more than any other style, so she's not a pop singer, and as a mezzo she is only rarely called on to utilize her upper register with the rep. that she enjoys.


However, I've heard her hit some very high notes effortlessly, and she certainly had no sign of physical strain when she hit the whistle note for me.

She has no reason to work on her whistle register outside of possibly vocalizing with it on occasion. Hence my question about whether it was an issue of the tone changing with age, or simply that she hasn't practiced with it much.

I think you just answered your own question! It's probably a matter of not practicing that register very much. I have the same problem. I can hit some whistle notes but I think it sounds bad cause I don't practice it and don't really intend to!!

That's it. I had to record some whistle examples for the new book and I haven't practiced them for a long long time. I think they suck for the example, hahaha, because I've nailed some pretty brutal whistl tones that would probably shatter chandeliers...if that's how you spell it;)

JV