Jimmy Sommerville
Freddie Mercury
Roger Taylor (Queen)
Mika
Operatic tenors are expected to sing in chest voice up to high C, maybe higher, many can't do so under most conditions. For the record that blind guy can't sing that high.
Hands down: Mado Robin.
You have to be admit, he's got a remarkable voice--and he looks absolutely fabulous in that drag outfit with the pearls. (Those women behind him sure look unhappy though)
I heard somewhere that singing falsetto isn't good for your voice. Is this true?
R7, it depends, it's possibly not so great for your chest voice. but it depends
But countertenors usually claim they are not singing falsetto--I think I've read.
John Travolta singing "Grease Is The Word" with aplomb while presenting.
The lead singer of "TRain" - Pat-something - can hit some great high notes; Adam Levine, Nate Fuess(sp?) also - but not sure if is falsetto or not...
R5, operatic tenors do not sing high Cs in chest voice, they sing it in a MIX. It's not pure chest or pure head.
[quote]But countertenors usually claim they are not singing falsetto--I think I've read.
i work with dozens and they would never claim that, countertenors are by in large male falsettists.
classical%20musician
Michael O'Haughey, the "South African Yma Sumac" for whom the role of Mary Sunshine in "Chicago" was written, has five full octaves of full voice, no falsetto. Every night the backstage crew at "Chicago" had a pool as to how long Michael would hold the penultimate note of his song -- sometimes it was a minute and a half.
R13,
I'll be honest with you: I didn't know there were dozens of countertenors.
David Peaston?
[quote]I didn't know there were dozens of countertenors.
i personally know dozens, there must be at least 400 hundred other professionals, who I don't know personally. Then again, it's my business to know.
R21,
That does surprise me--I had thought that agents had trouble pushing them into opera (because some audiences prefer to hear a mezzo in Strauss or Baroque) and that even Daniels's concerts had a good proportion of paper in the audience.
R12 - it is impossible to sing a top C in the chest and head simultaneously, so I'm not sure what you are saying. Most tenors today do sing wholly in the chest voice and are expected to be able to hit a ringing, powerful top C. From the later 19th century composers wrote for this voice, Puccini above all. It started in the mid 19th century, when it thrilled audiences. Pavarotti was the great modern exemplar of this and he pretty much never used head voice, so there is the very odd sound he makes in his recording of 'I Puritani' with Joan Sutherland, when he has to go falsetto to get a note Bellini wrote higher than top C. Ridiculously, some tenors transpose arias down so it can seem they hitting a chest voice top C, when they aren't (even when the notes wasn't actually written by the composer - the top C at the end of Di quella pira in Il Trovatore wasn't wanted by Verdi, but no tenor will ever sing it as written and he'd be booed if he did). The older tenors would indeed mix chest and head voices to happily sing Cs and upwards in their head voice, seamless moving across the register break. Nowadays its only the specialist 'Rossini' tenors that regularly sing like this, singers like Juan Diego Flores. There's an aria in Donizetti's La FIlle du Regiment with nearly a dozen top Cs in it and it sounded quite different when Pavarotti sang it than when Flores sings it.
R23,
Are you an Opera-l escapee?
R6, those backing whatevers give great bitchface.
[quote]Michael O'Haughey, the "South African Yma Sumac" for whom the role of Mary Sunshine in "Chicago" was written, has five full octaves of full voice, no falsetto.
You don't know what you're talking about. It's physically impossible to sing much more than 2 octaves in chest voice. Anything above that is head voice(falsetto). Some singers, like Patti LaBelle and Aretha Franklin, have an indiscernible jump between their chest and head voice, which makes it sound like their chest voice goes on forever, but they don't. Their super-high notes are actually sung in head voice.
It's really hard to do falsetto very loud. I try it in the shower all the time.
Is David Whitfield doing a high-C at the 3:02 mark?
R22, it's the line of work that I do. I just recorded a CD with Phillippe Jaroussky, but he's just one of lots.
R21
The late Freddie Mercury hands down. Listen to the note he hits in (approximately) the middle of the song "Under Pressure." What he does in "My fairy King" is actually the highest I ever heard him sing and it is not falsetto at all (I'm linking to it).
