ormer
to the latter. This means simply the elastic form, which the breath
must fill in every corner of resonating surface without interruption,
as long as the tone lasts.

[Illustration: Red line denotes softest point on the palate.]

If the singer will control his tone,--and in practising he must always
do so,--he needs only to test it to see whether he can easily make it
softer without perceptible change in the position of the organs, and
carry it higher toward the nose and the cavities of the forehead; that
is, prepare a form for its continuation upward.

_In this way he can learn how much height a tone needs without being
too high, and how much it often lacks in height and duration to sound
high enough._

In this way remarkable faults become evident! The reason why a tone
sounds too low--the so-called transition tones from the lower to the
middle range and from this to the higher, come up for consideration
chiefly--is that the pillars of the fauces are raised too high toward
the back, preventing the head tones from sounding at the same time; or
the soft palate is lowered too far under the nose, which results in
pressing the tone too long and too far toward the teeth. This fault is
met with in very many singers, in all kinds of voices, and in almost
the same places. It comes only from an unyielding retention of the
same resonating point for several tones and a failure to bring in the
resonance of the head cavities. The "propagation form," or continuing
form,[2] must always be prepared consciously, for without it artistic
singing is not to be thought of.

[Footnote 2: "Fortpflanzungsform": the preparation made in the vocal
organs for taking the next tone before leaving the one under
production, so that the succeeding tones shall all be of like
character and quality.]

The neglect of this most important principle usually results in
overstraining the vocal cords and throat muscles. This is followed
first by singing flat, and later by the appearance of the hideous
tremolo (see Tremolo) to which so many singers fall victims. The
cause of a tone's being too sharp is the dwelling too long on the
resonance of the head cavities, where the tone should already have
been mixed with palatal resonance. With very young voices this can
easily happen, and can also result from weariness, when the bodily
strength is not developed sufficiently to endure the fatigue of
practising. A very circumspect course must then be followed.