produced without effort, and that a
considerable amount of it is necessary, especially in the upper voice.

It will be readily admitted that the application of force is required to
produce tone, but how much force? Certainly not that extreme physical
effort that makes the singer red in the face and causes his upper tones
to shriek rather than sing. Such a display of force discloses an
erroneous idea of how to produce the upper voice. When there is the
right relation existing between the breath and the vocal instrument,
when there is the proper poise and balance of parts, no such effort is
necessary. On the contrary the tone seems to flow and the effort
required is only that of a light and pleasant physical exercise.

The pianist does not have to strike the upper tones any harder than the
lower ones in order to bring out their full power. Why should the upper
part of the voice require such prodigious effort?

Now _all voices should have a head register_. It is a part of nature's
equipment, and this calls for a word on the classification of voices. It
ought not to be difficult to determine whether a voice is soprano, alto,
tenor, baritone or bass, but I find each year a considerable number that
have been misled. Why? A number of things are responsible. One of the
most common is that of mistaking a soprano who has a chest register for
an alto. This singer finds the low register easier to sing than the
upper, consequently she and her friends decide she is an alto.
Thereafter she sings low songs and takes the alto part in the choir. The
longer she follows this plan the less upper voice she will have, and
when she goes to a teacher, unless he has a discriminating and
analytical ear, he will allow her to remain in the alto class. There is
always something in the fiber of a tone, even though it be badly
produced, that will disclose to the trained ear what it will be when
rightly produced.

Again, the human voice can produce such a variety of tone qualities that
sometimes a soprano will cultivate a somber style of singing and a
majority of people will call her alto. It requires a trained ear to
detect what she is doing. The baritone also, because he often sings the
bass part in a quartet, tries to make himself sound like a bass; this he
does by singing with a somber, hollow quality which has little or no
carrying power.

Another mistake is that of classifying a voice according to its compass.
This is the least reliable met