Frankie Valli or Brian Wilson - who had the better falsetto?

[Joshilyn Hoisington]

"it's a wise man who knows when to say "**** it !"".

Wise words, indeed, but, not being a wise man myself, I'm not sure what will happen next.  Besides, I have nothing else to do, besides a crushing amount of research to do for school tomorrow, so you know how that goes.

[pixletwin]

It's not really a theremin on "Good Vibrations", you know...  

Surely you would like to be precise with terminology, AGD?  I would think you would get this, as a tireless corrector of misconception and misguided historiography, the desire to question long-held ideas in search of truth.

Just throwing a little humor into the pot, as things were getting a tad heated.  I see your point, but in this instance, "falsetto or not ?" is considerably less cut and dried than looking at something and saying "that's not a theremin".  To Joe Q. Public, saying "falsetto" is akin to saying "xerox" or "hoover", in that he's not thinking of the absolute technical term, but rather "singing in a high voice" as a catch-all phrase.  You're right, very probably, but you'll never convince 99.9% of the listening public - or even fans - of that, so the battle is, in essence, doomed to failure. Or as my father used to say, "it's a wise man who knows when to say "**** it !"".

Amen... Pronounced Ah-men.. rather than the popular A-men. But nothing you can do to change people's minds. 

[monkeytree5]

Listen, I know you all have better things to do than read scholarly articles on the voice, but I can tell none of you have read those links and very likely not listened to my clip.  I don't expect you to.  But unless you do, how do you expect to understand the distinction?  eless, it's still not that important of a debate, rather silly in fact, but there you go.

I read every link you sent and watched/listened to both of your singing videos.  That's why I offered up a laundry list of people most known for what everyone calls falsetto, but you call head voice. (again, Brian Wilson, Del Shannon, Frankie Valli, Jackie Wilson, Barry Gibb, Marvin Gaye, Al Green, Lou Christie, Jeff Lynne, and Michael Jackson). And bear in mind, I have never said that you are wrong; just because the majority believes something certainly doesn't make it true.

But, according to the criteria you suggest, you're not talking about just changing minds about Brian Wilson, you are talking about
redefining the notion about almost every popular "falsetto" singer, not only in the listeners' minds, but in the minds of the artists themselves. 

[Mike's Beard]

What about when Prince and Mick Jagger went through their high voice phases? Would that be considered falsetto?

[Joshilyn Hoisington]

That's why I offered up a laundry list of people most known for what everyone calls falsetto, but you call head voice. (again, Brian Wilson, Del Shannon, Frankie Valli, Jackie Wilson, Barry Gibb, Marvin Gaye, Al Green, Lou Christie, Jeff Lynne, and Michael Jackson).

To be clear, out of that list, I am making no judgment of vocal mechanism use except for Brian Wilson, because he is the only one I have listened to for hours and hours, often a capella.  I do not know nor do I claim to know how those other people are producing their high voices.

[Joshilyn Hoisington]

But, according to the criteria you suggest, you're not talking about just changing minds about Brian Wilson, you are talking about
redefining the notion about almost every popular "falsetto" singer, not only in the listeners' minds, but in the minds of the artists themselves. 

That's really not what I'm trying to at all.  I'm not really trying to change minds or anything.  I don't care what people want to call the various registers and modes of the voice.  I'm just trying to transfer a more precise vocabulary into the discussion of a community who is generally concerned with precision, exactitude, and specialized knowledge.  We are, in a sense, Beach-Boysologists, and as such, we have a technical vocabulary that is specialized beyond popular use.  It's like any subfield.  Let's say we were academic philosophers.  To us as philosophers, things like "will", "intuition", "volition", etc, mean different things than the first entry in the dictionary.

To Beach-Boysologists, terms like "Hal Blaine", "AFM Sheet", "WIBN(TLA)", and "Shortenin' Bread" are either meaningless to the guy on the street, or mean something different.

So, the basic music listener out there can get away with saying something like "Brian Wilson and Mike Love wrote a song called 'Wouldn't It Be Nice' that was recorded in 1966 in a Los Angeles recording studio by the Beach Boys."

But we're specialists, so that's not good enough for us.  We would say "Brian Wilson wrote a song called 'Wouldn't it be Nice', which was recorded in 1965 and 1966, the track in late '65 at Gold Star, the vocals later at CBS on Sunset and Gower.  The track was laid down by session musicians and the Beach Boys came in and put down their vocals later."

Does that make sense?  So it's fine for someone to say, "Brian had a nice falsetto," but for me, that's not specific or indeed correct enough, and I supposed that Beach-Boysologists would be interested in pursuing an investigation like this.

[TdHabib]

It just makes my head wanna explode to think that Brian's high vocals weren't falsetto--I completely believe they were not. What a MONSTEROUS voice he must've had to have hit those notes in chest voice. It's a gift from....well heaven at least.

I also heard Stevie Nicks say in a Fleetwood Mac documentary that she was gonna put a "high falsetto harmony" on top of the vocal stack--which made me laugh out loud.

[filledeplage]

But, according to the criteria you suggest, you're not talking about just changing minds about Brian Wilson, you are talking about
redefining the notion about almost every popular "falsetto" singer, not only in the listeners' minds, but in the minds of the artists themselves.  

That's really not what I'm trying to at all.  I'm not really trying to change minds or anything.  I don't care what people want to call the various registers and modes of the voice.  I'm just trying to transfer a more precise vocabulary into the discussion of a community who is generally concerned with precision, exactitude, and specialized knowledge.  We are, in a sense, Beach-Boysologists, and as such, we have a technical vocabulary that is specialized beyond popular use.  It's like any subfield.  Let's say we were academic philosophers.  To us as philosophers, things like "will", "intuition", "volition", etc, mean different things than the first entry in the dictionary.

To Beach-Boysologists, terms like "Hal Blaine", "AFM Sheet", "WIBN(TLA)", and "Shortenin' Bread" are either meaningless to the guy on the street, or mean something different.

So, the basic music listener out there can get away with saying something like "Brian Wilson and Mike Love wrote a song called 'Wouldn't It Be Nice' that was recorded in 1966 in a Los Angeles recording studio by the Beach Boys."

But we're specialists, so that's not good enough for us.  We would say "Brian Wilson wrote a song called 'Wouldn't it be Nice', which was recorded in 1965 and 1966, the track in late '65 at Gold Star, the vocals later at CBS on Sunset and Gower.  The track was laid down by session musicians and the Beach Boys came in and put down their vocals later."

Does that make sense?  So it's fine for someone to say, "Brian had a nice falsetto," but for me, that's not specific or indeed correct enough, and I supposed that Beach-Boysologists would be interested in pursuing an investigation like this.

What you wrote was really interesting...some of the technical stuff, like approaches to recording and this whole concept of falsetto were probably things that the Boys learned as "on the job training" by trial and error and practical experience, along with the experimentation, contemporaneous to the time periods in which they composed.  

A lot of us tend to look at what what going on in society at the time all this music evolved...Frankie Valli is an unquestioned force in the music sphere, and worked with far more "Four" Seasons than there ever were of Beach Boys...the list on wiki was mind-boggling...

Brian's vision of the effect and the message, I think, affected and affects the way he sings.   The non-composer is not from the same vantage point as Brian, even if he has an "off" night, sings from his heart which may be where his music comes from. That takes nothing from Frankie who is a great performer.  

And, I also liked what you discussed about the vocal register...it brings back the list of keys which a young child's voice would be capable of tone-matching when choosing music for them to sing, which we learned in teacher training in college.   Great post.  Thanks!      

[Pinder's Gone To Kokomo And Back Again]

How bout, who had the better falsetto: Brian Wilson or Barry Gibb??

[Runaways]

that's definitely brian.  gibb's nice, but still like kermit.

[Pinder's Gone To Kokomo And Back Again]

I always though it was Robin who sounded like Kermit 

[Beekeeper]

I am really fascinated by Brian's early voice and was wondering if he isnt just using his head voice in the song "Barbie"? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6JO-dQh1WsU

One thing Ive noticed is that his voice is not doubled as it was done in later more well known Beach Boy songs. To me that might be the difference.

In other words, even though Brian is singing in his head voice its when his voice has been doubled that it sounds more airy and a falsetto.



BK  

[Andrew G. Doe]

I always though it was Robin who sounded like Kermit 

No, Robin was Kermit's nephew.

[monkeytree5]

That's why I offered up a laundry list of people most known for what everyone calls falsetto, but you call head voice. (again, Brian Wilson, Del Shannon, Frankie Valli, Jackie Wilson, Barry Gibb, Marvin Gaye, Al Green, Lou Christie, Jeff Lynne, and Michael Jackson).

To be clear, out of that list, I am making no judgment of vocal mechanism use except for Brian Wilson, because he is the only one I have listened to for hours and hours, often a capella.  I do not know nor do I claim to know how those other people are producing their high voices.

I don't think you have to listen to any of those artists for hours and hours to make the comparison.  Pick a song.. listen to Del singing Runaway.  Listen to Jackie singing Higher and Higher.  They're not blowing out any candles with breathy falsettos.  They are just singing well in that upper range, in what you call head voice.  So are all the others.   Per your standards, falsetto is quite a rarity.