sing that some pretend
to tell us that there are two, three, four, or five registers,
although as a matter of fact there can be at most three in any voice.
It will be much more correct to call every tone of every voice by the
name of a new additional register, for in the end, every tone will and
_must_ be taken in a different relation, with a different position of
the organs, although the difference may be imperceptible, if it is to
have its proper place in the whole. People cling to the appellations
of chest, middle, and head _register_, confounding voice with
register, and making a hopeless confusion, from which only united and
very powerful forces can succeed in extricating them.

As long as the word "register" is kept in use, the registers will not
disappear. And yet, the register question must be swept away, to give
place to another class of ideas, sounder views on the part of
teachers, and a truer conception on the part of singers and pupils.

SECTION XV

DEVELOPMENT AND EQUALIZATION

Naturally, a singer can devote more strength to the development of one
or two connected ranges of his voice than to a voice perfectly
equalized in all its accessible ranges. For this are required many
years of the most patient study and observation, often a
long-continued or entire sacrifice of one or the other limit of a
range for the benefit of the next-lying weaker one; of the head voice
especially, which, if unmixed, sounds uneven and thin in comparison
with the middle range, until by means of practised elasticity of the
organs and endurance of the throat muscles a positive equalization can
take place.

Voices which contain only one or two registers are called short
voices, for their availability is as limited as they are themselves.

Yet it must be remembered that all voices alike, whether short or
long, even those of the most skilful singers, when age comes on, are
apt to lose their highest ranges, if they are not continually
practised throughout their entire compass with the subtlest use of the
head tones. Thence it is to be concluded that a singer ought always to
extend the compass of his voice as far as possible, in order to be
certain of possessing the compass that he needs.

On the formation of the organs depends much of the character of the
voice. There are strong, weak, deep, and high voices by nature; but
every voice, by means of proper study, can attain a certain degree of
strength, flexibility, and co