Mariah Carey doesn’t squeak! Scientists are debunking the theory that high-pitched singers need to make sounds like rodents to hit the top notes

Singers like Mariah Carey have long been accused of whistling to hit seemingly impossible high notes.

It was thought that in order to hit the highest notes, singers adopt a singing style similar to the way mice and rats make their high-pitched squeaks.

In normal singing, the vocal folds in the voice box vibrate to make sound, but in rodents they are held still to create a pipe-like shape that makes the whistle.

But now new research among opera singers shows that even though the high notes sound like whistling – and are even known as ‘the whistle register’ – the sopranos sing in a conventional way.

Professors Christian T. Herbst of the University of Vienna and Matthias Echternach of the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich discovered that the high-frequency sounds of operatic sopranos are produced according to the same principle as speech and most other forms of singing.

And they say that while they haven’t studied her personally, this is probably also true of shrill pop singers like Mariah Carey, whose pitch is among the highest known in pop music.

The study, published in the journal Scientific Reports, looked at nine professional opera sopranos who were asked to sit in a laboratory and insert an endoscope – a thin tube with a video camera on the end – up their noses while they sang the G6 note .

The research showed that, depending on the pitch sung, the vocal folds in the throat vibrate and collide with each other 1,000 to 1,600 times per second – depending on the desired sound frequency.

this is “in stark contrast” to the alleged (but now disproven) “whistling mechanism,” which “requires that the vocal folds would be immobile during voice production,” the authors say.

They add that the ‘default’ mechanism of voice production in humans and most mammals also applies to the higher pitches of operatic singing.

Rossana Monti, better known by the stage name Georgia Brown, is a Brazilian singer known for her extensive vocal range.

However, the authors found that singers, who used a computer model to simulate the highest pitches, can produce their highest frequencies only with greatly increased tension in the vocal folds, supported by high expiratory air pressures.

The authors write that “the commonly used term ‘flute register’ does not reflect the physical principle of a flute with respect to voice generation in high-pitched classical singing.”

Professor Herbst added: ‘This finally dispels a long-standing myth,’ adding: ‘It is remarkable that such extreme sounds can be produced with a fairly general voice production mechanism – this is only possible with excellent muscular fine control of the singers.’ vocal instrument.’

Lead author Matthias Echternach added that it is still not clear why only some sopranos can reach the highest frequency notes.

He said: ‘It is truly amazing how some singers can generate the extremely high tensions in their vocal folds required to produce these high notes without causing vocal health problems.

‘Why some singers succeed and others do not must remain open for the time being.’

He added that although he had not studied Mariah Carey – who can hit even higher notes than the G6 – he found it “unlikely” that she would be any different from the opera singers.

He had studied Georgia Brown, the Brazilian singer who is in the Guinness Book of Records for having the highest singing voice in the world.

He said: ‘What we can say is that G6 classical singers do not exhibit a whistling mechanism at least up to these extreme pitches.

‘For higher notes, such as Georgia Brown or Carey, we cannot rule out such a whistle.

‘But even here it seems quite unlikely due to the quite strong energy of overtones.

‘We tried to analyze Georgia Brown a few years ago: until A6’s pitches it was also oscillation and not a whistle.

‘Unfortunately she couldn’t sing higher notes with an endoscope in her throat.’