Are their specifics on when high-pitched singing becomes falsetto?
McKoijion: Your normal voice is modal. It’s “the optimal combination of airflow and glottal tension that yields maximum vibration.” It’s basically the way you hold your vocal cords to give yourself the maximum vibration.
Falsetto is when you vibrate “the ligamentous edges of the vocal cords, in whole or in part.” This create a higher pitched sound.
So the normal voice uses the mucus membrane part of your vocal cords to produce sound. Mucus membrane is the kind of tissue you feel on the inside of your gums. It’s different from ligamentous tissue, which is the tough fibrous elastic tissue that connects bones and cartilage inside your body.
So if you are using your normal, comfortable voice, it’s going to be modal since that’s the optimal balance point for making a vibration. If you purposefully try to speak in a high pitched voice and end up using the ligamentous part of your vocal cords, it’s falsetto.
[This video has a lot of great examples of someone using his modal and falsetto voices.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDlhk6BFYwo) You can really tell the difference between the way they sound.
workpuppy: Falsetto is literally from the word falso (false) coupled with the diminutive “etto” to add kind of a cutesy ending. “Falseie”? Something like that.
It means, not a high voice, but a fake screechy high voice.