le half-hour lesson
usually includes explanations and exercises on several topics of
mechanical tone-production, as well as hints on agility, style,
execution, etc. As merely one of this variety of subjects, the
registers usually receive rather desultory attention.

Some teachers profess to ignore the subject of registers entirely. They
maintain that, when properly trained from the beginning, the compass of
the voice is one homogeneous whole; "breaks" and changes of quality are
in their opinion merely the results of bad instruction. But the general
belief of vocal authorities is overwhelmingly against these teachers.
The condition which they describe is without doubt the ideal of vocal
management; but the vast majority of teachers believe that this
condition cannot be attained without some attention being paid to the
individual registers.

Most teachers recognize either two registers,--chest and head; or
three,--chest, middle, and head. Comparatively few extremists recognize
more than three. Several sets of names for the registers have been
proposed by vocal theorists,--thick and thin, long reed and short reed,
high and low, etc. But these names have not been adopted by teachers to
any extent.

One important phase of the registers has not received much attention
from the laryngoscopic investigators. This is, that most of the notes of
the voice's compass can be produced at will in more than one register.
Vocal teachers as a rule recognize this fact. Julius Stockhausen for
instance, in his _Gesangsmethode_ (Leipzig, 1884), says: "The registers
cross each other. The two principal registers of the voice have many
tones in common. The perfect blending of the registers on a single tone
leads to the _crescendo_, called in Italian the _messa di voce_."
Teachers generally do not set hard and fast limits to the extent of each
register; they direct that in singing up the scale the student pass
gradually from chest to middle, middle to head voice, etc.

In most practical methods the chest register occupies about the same
position; this is also true of the head register. Even those teachers
who profess to ignore registers recognize these two distinct qualities
of tone; they instruct their pupils to sing low notes in one quality,
and high notes in the other. This is in fact the general practice. In
this connection the topics of registers and resonance are often
combined. The terms "head voice," "head register," and "nasal
resona