Cool post, like the way you broke it down. As for having that wall, you should know that Transcending Tones are friggin hard!!! And it may take many months to develop the muscle to freely expand past that wall. This is why I make you do falsetto, then TT, then full voice sirens to build the muscle gradually into the full voice contractions. Don't worry, just keep working, and even with all the jargon, you're right, too much. Simply focus on the sound and sensations and continue singing every day as you also do your muscle building work and it will all come together;)

I know this is an old post - how have you progressed? Have you found out how to lift your ceiling?

I think with all the technical - cross dictionary - cross theory - trying to make it all work together-ness you missed some important points. Too much information when not fully understood can be harmful to the task at hand.

Falsetto is not a place or a resonance, it's a breathy tone, it can not be equated with head voice - male or female and is quite different than whistle tones. I can have chesty falsetto, and heady falsetto.

I don't think of "Head Voice" and "Chest Voice" as places anymore either thanks to RYV - they are merely resonance placements that aid in tone production. The "breaks" are where you are unsure/unpracticed in shifting your resonance placements.

I think you have hit a ceiling because you equate falsetto with head resonance and therefore you aren't actually truly reaching head resonance because you perceive it to be falsetto which is false(etto... lol).

Resonance placement plays a key role in the tones and notes you are able to produce - it is not your chords alone that create what the ear hears and perceives as notes/tones(think of it as 1,3&5 make up a major chord - but instead of fingers on strings or keys, it's tones within your voice). You can keep your chords in one constant tone/position and manipulate the core resonance placement and breath pressure to move around each scale and octave - then use slight larynx adjustments to color those tones (so you were on 1,3&5 for the major, but drop the 3 to a 3b and now you're minor - the other 2 tones are still the same, but the shift of one changed the nature of the tone and the interaction of the 1&5). I found this out after MANY years of sounding "flat" in places - because I misunderstood the power of resonance, so I would bring in chest resonance in to add "something".. a little "thickness" and it would darken my tone too much and make me sound (and therefore BE by auditory perception) flat - I really only needed a slight drop of the larynx to get the richness I was after. It would irritate me to NO END listening to recordings thinking - I know I was mechanically in the right key - WTF happened - then I realized it was my resonance. Problem solved. BUT ANYWHO...

In your post you are also putting too much emphasis on what your throat is doing - I know what techniques use these M0-M4 theologies and through experience I honestly believe it's the mentality of these theologies that limit the students of such schools - or perhaps it's the way students interperate them, they are only meant as a tool for ease of correspondence, not to assume these are actually 5 throat/chord "placements" or even passages/breaks/passagios - whatever you'd like to call them. If you put too much responsibility on your chords and don't utilize your resonance cores and builders (including palate and larynx placement), sound placement and breath support you are flat out expecting too much from 2 little flaps of vibrating muscle.

The coordination of resonance creation, chord activity, sound placement and breath pressure should be fluent and rounded - don't think of it as "okay, I'm on this platform now... how do I get to the next one?" Think of notes more as SLIDING to them, not stepping to them - like a half pipe or a swing. The higher you go on a swing the more gravity pulls you forward and out - so too must the sound slide forward and out. I sometimes even have to put my chin down on high notes to "launch" the sound out of the top of my head - chin down also releases tension on your chords so they can vibrate more fluently.

In your basic Ultimate Vocal Warm-up exercises before you even begin your transcending tones make sure you're using those 4 elements properly. How can you tell? High or low you will feel the buzz in your mouth and sinus cavities (not resonance - but buzz from the pure sound production) - it'll tickle your lips during the hums, but you'll feel it in EVERY exercise...even the gargling tones. If you don't feel it the balance of those 4 things is off in that tonal area. Stop the exercises and try to find it again - reset and do over.

I noticed relaxation is also a HUGE key factor in the TT's - in anything really - if you anticipate or try too hard you just end up locking yourself up, pushing too much air, tensing your chords - it can get really frustrating. I would walk around and try to do them... start cleaning up or reading an uninteresting article or something so I wasn't focusing so much as feeling and just letting it flow. Overthought kills.

Also speaking from the experience of a "vocal program junkie" - put the rest of them away. Focus on RYV and Jaime's teachings. Every program tries to give you a different explanation of the same principals, the same tools but a different way of using them - some... go a little overboard and get WAY too technical for the sake of credibility and sounding more intelligent. Some ask you to manipulate your sound production muscles to achieve things. There is no need. Your voice makes MANY tones throughout the day when your talking to your friends, telling a story, etc. and you don't even have to try. There's no need for forced manipulation and the development of compensatory muscles - just strengthen the natural ones and you'll be much better off, with much less risk of strain or injury. Jaime has the most comprehensive, natural & complete way to develop your vocals that I have found... too bad it's been hundreds and hundreds of dollar later.

I can save your fingers a lot of typing by just requesting you post an audio clip of you ascending a scale from comfortable range to as high as you can and I will tell you exactly how to fix your issue. You say "let's throw out chest voice /headvoice terms" but you end up just using the same terms but calling them M1 or M2 or whatever. it's all the same stuff....whatever terms float your boat, all I need is to hear you and I can help.

Phil Moufarrege
Grow-The-Voice.com

Interesting and complicated.

My eyes just sort of glazed over when I read this because of all the terms and explanations.

I'm a bass baritone who could do a clear F6 in a strong headvoice and D6 (and sometimes E6) in full voice. The problem was my overall chest break was still A3 and it didn't matter how many transcending tones or sirens I did, the timbre was weak/weird and didn't bridge well with my chest. It would never sound anything like tenor.

Soooooo...

I decided to rebuild this voice and stretch out my chest and it presently goes A0 to G4 without fry (A1-F4 very comfortably).

BTW, you can't sing in whistle, it's weak, and if you aren't a girl the timbre is awful. My whistle also starts at C6 and isn't strong enough to go above E6 without training so for me what's the point? Plus on other forums little girls and teens squeak out 7 and 8 octave whistles--why try to compete with that?

The only reason I can think of is Mariah Carry and her supposed 7 octaves (or Georgia Brown and her 8). Instead consider Tim Storms and his supposed 10 octaves--its better to go lower because that actually helps build your singable chest voice.