Haley's Vocal Range

[rmd1064]

I searched the forum and did not see any mention of this blog from "Diva Devotee" published on June 22. In it, the author describes Haley's range, tone, pluses and negatives. I am no expert on vocal ranges but obviously some folks on this forum understand this topic quite well. All I know is that I love Haley's voice.

The link to the site is below and I found the comments interesting, many people questioned why the author even covered Haley (who is she?) while others noted that they loved her on Idol.

Link to Diva Devotee:

Text From Blog:

HALEY REINHART

Vocal Type: Light Lyric Soprano
Vocal Range: D3-E6 (3 octaves, 1 note)
Tessitura: D4-E5 (1 octave, 1 note)
Whistle Register: No

Vocal Pluses: An emotive singer, this Diva demonstrates great control over her instrument in its upper reaches. Her voice is characterized by its ability to growl emotively, and go from a sweet whisper, to a belt at forte. Her voice also has a nice natural rasp that gives the voice a false sense of thickness.

Haley Reinhart's lower register, is thin and lacks resonance, though the tone is nasal, reedy, and sweet. She loses resonance as she dips below B3. Despite this fact, she wields it with nice artistry; using the thinness of this register to give the voice a great sense of dynamics, being able to go from a low whisper-like note to an elastic belt easily [Hear: Oh My]. However, her technique in this region is questionable, with notes often being reached by forcing the larynx down.

Her mid voice, spanning C4-C5, is still light in both weight and volume which gives her voice an overly delicate and youthful sound [Hear: Wasting Tears]. The voice breaks at around C5 where her falsetto gives way. Her tone in this area is rather guttural and edgy at times [Hear:Wasting Tears] but can be softer, and cooler [Hear: Hit the Ground Running ]. This area is quite easily accessed, though at times she can sound monotone.

Her belting register is her strongest suit, spanning from B4-G#5. She uses this part, combined with her ability to mix and her extensive volume control, to give the voice added dynamic [as heard in the D5 of Oh My and the C#5 of the chorus of Undone]. She has quite a durable voice, being able to "growl" for extensive periods with little if any resulting vocal deterioration. She also has extensive stamina in this region, being able to sing difficult lyrical passages [as heard in her many American Idol covers and her song Keep Coming Back]. Her tone in this region is very reedy, though its texture is very raspy.

Haley has a well developed mix and relies heavily on falsetto, rather than true head voice. It extends upwards to Soprano E. Her tone here is a dead ringer for a piccolo, and is in contrast to the rest of her voice. It is warm and has a light weight fragility to it. She can switch to head tones within the space of a breath and exhibits great dexterity here. Her mix is stellar and uses great technique to achieve this sound. (Just about every single song she has created shows off her head tones.)

Vocal Negatives: Thin light voice, is a very acquired taste and has trouble being heard over instrumentation in a live setting. Her technique in her belting register needs polish, as there is questionable technique and a lack of mixing involved when singing. Her growling, similarly, employs questionable technique. A listener may also take issue with the nasal and bight tone present in her full voice, her rasp, and her weak lower register.

[Himm2]

I can narrow down all that jibberish with one sentence: "I love what she does to my ears, eyes, brain and heart!!!"

[mercfan3]

Wow..that write up is full of errors. We can start with..yes she does have a whistle register...

[My Alter Ego]

Wow..that write up is full of errors. We can start with..yes she does have a whistle register...

Well, that and a bizarre use of "falsetto" in between her chest and head voice.

On the other hand, despite many years being involved in music, with the last six singing with one of 4 choirs of a private university in town that had an incredibly gifted and knowledgeable director, I had never heard of the phrase "whistle notes" (or "whistle register") until last year -- on this site. I suspect it's a layman term. It's not one that I or a circle of musician friends have heard. (Mind you, I'm not saying that there is no such thing. And I can understand why the label was applied. What I am saying, probably poorly, is that I don't think that it's an "official, technical term.")

And, I still don't believe that women have a "falsetto" range - unless it might be that "whistle range."

[midnightblues]

I can narrow down all that jibberish with one sentence: "I love what she does to my ears, eyes, brain and heart!!!"

Yeah keep it simple. Hales is all in one

[mercfan3]

Wow..that write up is full of errors. We can start with..yes she does have a whistle register...

Well, that and a bizarre use of "falsetto" in between her chest and head voice.

On the other hand, despite many years being involved in music, with the last six singing with one of 4 choirs of a private university in town that had an incredibly gifted and knowledgeable director, I had never heard of the phrase "whistle notes" (or "whistle register") until last year -- on this site. I suspect it's a layman term. It's not one that I or a circle of musician friends have heard. (Mind you, I'm not saying that there is no such thing. And I can understand why the label was applied. What I am saying, probably poorly, is that I don't think that it's an "official, technical term.")

And, I still don't believe that women have a "falsetto" range - unless it might be that "whistle range."

Really? Hmm, I've heard it since I was a child. BUT I was pretty much brought up on Mariah, and she's famous for it. Although, wikipedia has it listed as flageolet or flute register or whistle tone..any of those?

Maybe it's a pop term? I've also heard it get a bit discredited some, because it's usually pretty useless..as people can typically only do vocal runs in it. (Although, Mariah is a different story. She's got songs where the entire chorus is in her whistle register.) So perhaps you haven't heard it because musicians don't care about it nearly as much as fans of pop singers do.

I always thought that when people used "Falsetto" they meant "head voice." Maybe not realizing that Head voice creates that false/flutey sound that a male's falsetto does.

[My Alter Ego]

Because of the popularity of grunge and rap, I quit trying to stay in touch with the current popular music scene in the 90's - when Mariah was shooting to stardom.

"Falsetto" is the range above a modal or normal range (a "false voice" if you will). What I don't know (from that definition) is whether the normal range is generalized, as in the general range of the average tenor for example, (I suspect so) or specific to an individual.

But, as "Diva Devotee" used it (as a "false voice" between chest and head voice) is simply not accurate.

Sometimes Haley does seem to sort of "muscle her way through" the uppermost limits of her chest voice, when she could switch to her head voice. After Camden had asked how Haley's voice would be labeled and during the ensuing discussion in this thread, I did realize that, at least what I've heard from Haley in the past year/ year and a half, she seems to prefer singing in her chest range and doesn't often venture in the head voice (which is perfectly lovely and crystal clear -- she loses her rasp, when she's in her head voice). I wonder why.

[mercfan3]

Right, people would call something a female singer used Falsetto...it was actually there head voice. (For example, I've seen parts of Carrie's voice being labeled as Falsetto, when they are actually notes she's fully capable of belting, she's just singing in her head voice.) Usually because it sounds very similar. And that's what I assume this person was talking about.

I think part of why Haley stays is probably as you said, she loses her rasp. And her rasp is trademark Haley.

[My Alter Ego]

Right, people would call something a female singer used Falsetto...it was actually there head voice. (For example, I've seen parts of Carrie's voice being labeled as Falsetto, when they are actually notes she's fully capable of belting, she's just singing in her head voice.) Usually because it sounds very similar. And that's what I assume this person was talking about.

I think part of why Haley stays is probably as you said, she loses her rasp. And her rasp is trademark Haley.

Her rasp is her trademark, but so are those stratospheric notes that she pulled out when singing Moanin while on AI. My concern is reflective of the "use it or lose it" adage: the (ahem) "maturing" process will likely rob her of some part of her upper range soon enough; she doesn't need to help that process by not using it while it's still very much available to her.

[Tom22]

I thought I'd chime back in here... in relation to the Bloggers comments about Haley and the subject in general

We got lost a bit in arguments about Word choice (semantics) which made it particularlly dificult to discuss particular stenghths and sounds in different "voices" (we also got derailed by "but she sings it beautifully even if she doesn't do it that way" statements put a little more definitively questioning the very idea of criticizing elements of where her voice gives out (everyone's voice gives out at the end of ranges...its rarely all or nothing although the transition can be abrupt)

Here is a good video I found on Male voices. The first take away is that everyone uses very different terms. One person's definition of Falsetto might be different from another.

Stay with this video.. (maybe start 1:50 in ) it gets kind of fun hearing him do Freddie Mercury to demonstrate his personal definitions



Or Jump to second video but you really want to hear him finding his RangeS on the piano

he shows how they mostly overlap in 2 low and high groups (soft and opera, and falsetto and head largely the same.. yet they sound different)

Then he shows where each sounds better in a smaller range



you can see , he defines the types of "voices" within a range differently than some.. especially his distinction between "soft voice" and "loud voice(interchangely he uses "operatic voice" ).

-- on to the critque.

For the most-part . The critique (not the video) is really quite glowing about Haley's artistry and his negative comments are usually qualified with "acquired taste" "sweet" .

However I do think it is kind of dumb to discuss the way a singer doesn't sound as good at the limits of her range, especially those more Alto range notes. We discussed how songs call for some low notes to start to achieve an artistic effect later.

"She's not an alto but can sing some notes in the alto range using the aspects of the strain to reach those notes for artistic effect" might have been better than

He gets lost with how he uses the words falsetto and head voice but I think I got what he was trying to praise and contrast negatively.

If instead the writer guy used terms more like the video I linked above, it might have felt more true.

(IMO) If Haley tried to sing "paradise city" like Fergie she'd suck

.. and not because of "range" but of qualities of voice in that "loud/operatic?" type of sound the song was written to call on[/b]

Same with a straight-on "loud voice" (opera voice) run at God Bless America (lol nice contrast with Paradise city , huh?)

In that context (which was the type of voice I believe the writer was generally pointing out contextually) - I think , "delicate, thin and overly youthful" might apply to whatever you want to call that full/loud/operatic chest voice. We certainly wouldn't want her to employ a "growl" to make the loud voice more varied in the middle of "god bless america". LOL that would not be "my taste" either in that context.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1z2pp_sFMM

BUT this is one of the places (which make up 2/3 rds of his remarks) the writer gets it dead on!:

From the blog voice critique

...It extends upwards to Soprano E. Her tone here is a dead ringer for a piccolo, and is in contrast to the rest of her voice. It is warm and has a light weight fragility to it. She can switch to head tones within the space of a breath and exhibits great dexterity here. Her mix is stellar and uses great technique to achieve this sound. (Just about every single song she has created shows off her head tones.)

There are zillions of songs that play to Haley incredible strengths... and she can ever interpret rock songs in different softer ways. She doesn't need to go where she isn't best at.. but there are a couple places she isn't best at.