The Female Falsetto

Vic Priestner

Once upon a time, all falsettos were made equal. Without mass production of music, musicians were free to adapt their voice to whatever style they pleased. But when the music industry was born and quickly became heavily male-dominated in the early 20th century, a lie was perpetuated - that men were better at singing higher notes than women were. This notion was told through the tale that a man’s falsetto range was ethereal and cherubim-esque, and something that requires great skill. All in all, it presented the male falsetto as extremely impressive, whereas a woman’s “falsetto” was left to be questioned or ignored. Rumours subsequently surfaced that women weren’t even able to produce a falsetto. It wasn’t until the 1950s that primary research proved its existence, and consequently labelled all nay-sayers as spewing falsities. But the loose ties of such claims still hang over the heads of female singers - especially contraltos like myself who have a very clear distinction between head and chest voice. Is it finally time we lay the contrarians to rest? Or does the frantic gainsaying of the female falsetto speak to wider misogyny in music?

For those of you who were also confused between the terms “head voice” and “falsetto” ranges, I’ll quickly explain the difference. I like to think of the voice as using two instruments - the guitar and the flute. The lower parts of the voice are guitar-like, and as you move up through the vocal register, you move up the strings. But when you get to, say, the upper third of your voice, men and women alike have a decision to make - to stay with the tried and true guitar, or switch to the lighter flute. If you stay with the proverbial guitar, you’re remaining in your chest voice - opting for power and clarity over precision and tone. However, if you switch into your head voice (the figurative flute), you’re choosing a breathy and hollow voice. 

Falsetto often gets labelled as a vocal part (e.g. Bon Iver is a falsetto singer), but is in fact a way to sing. It’s a method, not a grouping. By labelling some male vocalists as falsetto singers, the musical world inadvertently excludes female singers - because no woman has ever been labelled as a falsetto vocalist. Despite having some of the most recognisable whistle notes in their repertoire, Mariah Carey, Celine Dion, Ariana Grande and Minnie Riperton are not labelled falsetto singers. They’re called divas. They’re told they show off too much. Because the switch from chest voice to head voice (guitar to flute) is less noticeable in women, an exaggerated whistle tone is the only available option for vocal variation, but lands you in a whole heap of criticism. It’s an impossible situation. 

Consequently, women were told that the falsetto was unavailable to them, or that such a breathy tone was too emotional. Their natural chest voice usually covers the male falsetto range, and whistle notes were always an option, so women were pigeonholed into choosing one of two. But this is a false narrative. Charlie Puth’s ‘We Don’t Talk Anymore’ and Queens of the Stone Ages’s ‘I Sat By the Ocean’ falsettos are replicable by women. Video studies of laryngeal (vocal chord) action prove that women can and do produce falsetto, and speech pathologists and vocal pedagogists have confirmed further evidence in electromyographic studies. If falsetto is simply a breathy head voice, then, logically, it should be agendered. Billie Eilish’s ‘What Was I Made For?’ was perhaps recent pop music’s first foray into the female falsetto - and garnered a huge amount of praise. It spells good news for the rest of us. 

But the controversy of the female falsetto reminds us that women still face a lot of admonishment within music. What is often revered in male voices is ignored in female voices - an alto or soprano man will always be seen as more impressive than a female bass. 

Do I think there is some validity to this inequality? Yes. A tenor/alto voice has a certain je ne sais quoi to it, a certain power, yet a certain honesty and innocence. It can be wholly enticing. But when a woman sings low, the strength and power she needs to harness is somewhat out of reach - as a woman’s vocal chords are smaller than a man’s. It often makes for a less convincing performance. But the music world needs to stop penalising women for this biological difficulty. We constantly get marked down, even reprimanded for an absence of bass notes - and when we attempt to stoop to their level, we’re often met with criticisms. In A Capella, the consequence is that we struggle to place in many competitions. Judges, without recognising that a female bass will frequently be weaker than her male counterpart, thus fail to be judicious. Subsequently, we see time and time again that mixed groups are praised for their range, and all-male groups are revered when they have a male alto they show off like a trophy. All-female-voiced groups are left to sit out of the top 3 and drown their sorrows. Maybe we don’t have the charisma, maybe we don’t have the power (maybe we don’t have the penises). Those are fair critiques. But to consistently be locked away from the top spots for reasons out of control - that a mixed and wide vocal range always sounds better to our brains than the opposite - is understandable, but entirely unfair. I think the solution lies in bass-boosting mics and a general acknowledgement when judging that single-sex groups tend to sound less satisfying on stage. I wouldn’t want to suggest we need three different competitions - mixed, all-female, all-male - because that would be divisive and a little disheartening, but it would be the easy fix.

I could have spent this entire article explaining at length why the female falsetto is an entirely valid feature of a woman’s voice; but neither of us signed up for a Medicine lecture (and as an anthropology student, it’s entirely out of my wheelhouse). My aim instead was to unpack the controversy behind the female falsetto. The controversy doesn’t lie in the existence of the female falsetto - it lies in the acceptance that a female musician is always pitted against her male counterpart. Men who are supposed to be surly, steadfast and strong singing in a high vocal register goes against what society tells men to be and do, and so are praised for it. But women, who are supposed to sit still, shut up and look pretty, singing light and breathy, are too “childlike” and submissive to take seriously. If our voice is too airy or flute-like, it’s weak, and a strong whistle tone is often labelled as overbearing and “showing off” - or in other words, too dominant. Does that mean that women are confined to the two choices? Do we have to tread the line between airy and arrogant forever? Unless Billie Eilish’s exploration into female falsetto changes the narrative, women may be subject to this prejudice forever.