l errors. Let this be
understood, that there is nothing in correct breathing that should make
one tired. On the contrary the practice of breathing should leave one
refreshed. Above all, the student should never make himself rigid when
trying to control the flow of breath. This is not only of no advantage,
but will effectually defeat the end for which he is striving.

REGISTERS

In securing right conditions the teacher is often confronted with the
problem of registers. The literature on this subject is voluminous and
varied. Opinions are offered without stint and the number of registers
which have been discovered in the human voice ranges from none to an
indefinite number. How one scientist can see two, and another one five
registers in the same voice might be difficult to explain were it not a
well known fact that some people are better at "seeing things" than
others.

But here again the teacher soon learns that laboratory work is of little
value. His view point is so different from that of the physicist that
they can hardly be said to be working at the same problem. The physicist
tries to discover the action of the mechanism, in other words, how the
tone is made. The voice teacher is concerned primarily with how it
sounds. One is looking at the voice, the other is listening to it, which
things, be it known, are essentially and fundamentally different; so
different that their relationship is scarcely traceable. The ability to
train the voice comes through working with voices where the musical
sense, rather than the scientific sense, is the guide. It is a specific
knowledge which can be gained in no other way. It begins when one takes
an untrained voice and attempts to make it produce a musical tone.

The problem of registers is, in short, how to make an even scale out of
an uneven one. It must be solved in the studio. Anatomical knowledge is
of no avail. The teacher who has learned how to produce an even scale
possesses knowledge which is of more value to the student than all of
the books ever written on vocal mechanism.

The depressions in the voice known as "changes of register" result from
tension. With one adjustment of the vocal cords the singer can, by
adding tension, make a series of four or five tones, then by a change of
adjustment he can produce another similar series, and so on to the top
of his compass. These changes occur when there is such an accumulation
of tension that no more can be added to that