late, which, through
the power of habit, is cultivated especially by the French to an
extraordinary degree, and which affords the breath an enormous space
as a resonating surface to act upon, their voices often sound
tremendous. The tenor Silva is a good example of this. Such voices
have only the one drawback of easily becoming monotonous. At first
the power of the organ astonishes us; the next time we are
disappointed--the tone color remains always the same. The tone often
even degenerates into a hollow quality.

[Illustration: Red lines denote movement of the tongue and palate for
the nasal tone.]

On the other hand, voices that are not sufficiently nasal sound clear
and expressionless. Madame Melba, for instance, whose voice is
cultivated to favor the head tones, and sounds equally well in all its
ranges, apparently lowers the pillars of the fauces too much, and
has her chief resonance in the head cavities; she cannot draw upon the
palatal resonance for single accents of expression. Consequently she
loses in vocal color. This procedure, as soon as it becomes a habit,
results in monotony.

In the first case somewhat less, in the second somewhat more, nasal
resonance would help to a greater variety of effect.

There are singers, too, who pursue the middle path with consummate
art. Thus Madame Sembrich, in recent years, appears to have devoted
very special study to nasal tones, whereby her voice, especially in
the middle register, has gained greatly in warmth.

To fix the pupil's attention on the nasal tone and the elasticity of
the palate, he should often be given exercises with French words.

SECTION VIII

SINGING TOWARD THE NOSE. HEAD VOICE

When the peak of the softest part of the palate is placed forward
toward the nose, instead of being drawn up high behind the nose, as in
the head voice (see plate, head voice and nasal tone), it forms a kind
of nasal production which, as I have already said, cannot be studied
enough, because it produces very noble tonal effects and extraordinary
connections. It ought always to be employed. By it is effected the
connection of tones with each other, from the front teeth back to a
point under the nose; from the lower middle tones to the head tones.
In truth, all the benefit of tonal connection depends upon this
portion of the soft palate; that is, upon its conscious employment.

This is all that singers mean when they speak of "nasal
singing"--really only singing