n of registers for the speaker must be considered,
but this can be done to greater advantage in a later chapter.

SUMMARY.

All good definitions of a register must recognize two things: change
of quality in the voice, and change of mechanism in the vocal
apparatus. A break is not a register, but occurs because of the
existence of registers. The abrupt transition, or break, is to be
avoided by covering, or modification of the upper tones of the lower
(at least) register.

For an adequate scientific examination of the question of registers,
many qualifications are required in the investigator; and the student,
when not an investigator, should endeavor to weigh the evidence
presented so as to choose with caution from among conflicting
opinions. He should be suspicious of those who scout the value of
scientific study of this or any other subject, and also of those who
claim that experience is of no importance in settling such a question.

Though several well-qualified persons who have written on the subject
differ in some respects, they are in agreement as to many of the more
important points. They are practically all convinced that there is
commonly a change of register for all voices, at or near one point in
the scale (F), and that if this be practically disregarded, dangerous
straining may result.

Conclusions drawn from trained singers, alone, may be misleading. All
classes of persons should be examined with the laryngoscope, if
correct and far-reaching generalizations are to be safely made.

The precision and rigidity of physics and mathematics cannot be
introduced with safety into a subject of this character; otherwise the
division and limits of registers will be fixed with a narrowness of
margin that does not comport with Nature's methods.

In all questions of register, the method of breathing--_i.e._, the
nature of the application of the expiratory blast--must be duly
considered.

With male voices, the subject is usually considered much simpler than
in the case of female voices. Men sing mostly in the chest register;
basses and barytones wholly so, with the rarest exceptions. Tenors are
taught to do so. Whether there might not be a subdivision of this
register made to advantage in training, the author leaves as an open
question; but about straining, in the case of tenors and all others,
and as to the importance of recognizing three registers for female
voices, there is in his mind no question. The fact t