ished habits, and the chest register is often
pushed upward to c'', d'', or even e'' [music notation]. This is
practically always done in singing an ascending scale loudly, and the
result is not only distressing to the listener, but ruinous to the
voice. In former days this type of singing was common in our public
schools, the result being that most boys honestly thought it
impossible to sing higher than c'' or d'' [music notation] this being
the limit beyond which it was difficult to push the chest voice. The
head voice was thus not used at all, and the singing of public school
children in the past has in most cases been anything but satisfactory
from the standpoint of tonal beauty. But most supervisors of music
have now become somewhat familiar with the child voice, and are
insisting upon high-pitched songs, soft singing, and downward
vocalization, these being the three indispensable factors in the
proper training of children's voices. The result is that in many
places school children are at the present time singing very well
indeed, and the present growing tendency to encourage public
performance by large groups of them makes available a new color to the
composer of choral and orchestral music, and promises many a thrill to
the concert-goer of the future.

It is the head register, or _thin_ voice, that produces the pure,
flutelike tones which are the essential charm of a boy choir, and if
chest tones are to be employed at all, they must be made as nearly as
possible as are the head tones, thus causing the voice to produce an
approximately uniform timbre in the entire scale. This may be
accomplished with a fair degree of ease by a strict adherence to the
three principles of procedure mentioned in the above paragraph. In
fact these three things are almost the beginning, middle, and end of
child-voice training, and since they thus form the _sine qua non_ of
effective boy-choir singing, we shall emphasize them through
reiteration.

1. The singing must be soft until the child has learned to
produce tone correctly _as a habit_.

2. Downward vocalization should be employed in the early
stages, so as to insure the use of the head voice.

3. The music should be high in range, in order that the
child may be given as favorable an opportunity as possible
of producing his best tones.

When these principles are introduced in either a boy choir or a public
school system, the effect will at