ining of baritones is difficult,
and should be determined by the tendency of the individual baritone
voice--whether it inclines toward bass or toward tenor. For example,
Jean de Reszke was at the beginning of his career the victim of faulty
voice diagnosis. He was pronounced a baritone and trained for baritone
roles, with the result that he suffered from an exaggerated condition
of fatigue after every appearance. Later the probable tenor quality of
his voice was discovered, and when it had been developed along
physiological lines best suited to its real quality, undue fatigue
after using it ceased.

The division of the vocal scale into registers is not an artifice. It
is Nature's method of assisting vocalization, her way of relieving
the strain of the voice. A certain portion of the vocal scale lies
naturally in the chest register. But if this open adjustment is carried
up too far, the tones are strained and eventually ruined. On the other
hand if, at the proper point, the singer passes into the middle
register, the strain is relieved; and the relief experienced is even
greater when passing from middle into head, entirely releasing one set
of muscles and calling an entirely new set into play.

The so-called "breaks" in the voice occur at points where one register
passes into another; and it should be the aim of proper instruction in
voice-culture to eliminate the breaks. They are due to the change in
adjustment which each register calls for. The best method of "blending
the registers"--of smoothing out the breaks--is to bring a higher
register several tones down into the one below and thus bridge over the
passage from one adjustment to another. To do this consciously would
defeat its aim. It must be done in spontaneous response to the mental
conception of the tone or phrase to be emitted. It must become second
nature with the singer, a physiological adjustment in answer to a
psychical concept--a detail, in fact one of the most important details,
in that true physiology of voice-production which also takes psychical
conditions into consideration.

CHAPTER IX

THE STROKE OF THE GLOTTIS

The _coup de glotte_, translated as "stroke of the glottis," refers to
the manner in which a note should be attacked. This matter of attack
already has been covered by inference many times in the course of this
book. For, as the effectiveness of vocal attack depends upon the way in
which the air-column strikes the vocal cords