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ne, each quality best adapted to be sung only in a portion of the voice's compass. In the early decades of the nineteenth century the registers of the voice received much attention from vocal theorists, especially in Paris. Garcia's first published work, _Memoire sur la Voix humaine_, was presented to the Academy of Sciences in 1840. This Memoire gives the results of observations which Garcia made on his own pupils; it deals mainly with the position of the larynx during the singing of tones in the various registers. Garcia describes how the larynx is raised and lowered in the throat, according to the register in which the tones are produced. He also notes the position of the tongue and the soft palate. Widespread interest was awakened by the account of Garcia's laryngoscopic investigations of the registers, published in 1855. The attention of the great majority of vocalists was at once drawn to the subject, and the actions of the vocal cords in the different registers were studied by many prominent physicians and voice specialists. Exhaustive treatises on the registers have since been published by Mme. Seiler, Behnke, Curwen, Mills, Battaille, Curtis, Holmes, and by a large number of other investigators. All the results of the laryngoscopic investigation of the vocal action have been disappointing in the extreme. In the first place, no two observers have obtained exactly the same results. Writing in 1886, Sir Morell Mackenzie says: "Direct observation with the laryngoscope is, of course, the best method at our disposal, but that even its testimony is far from unexceptionable is obvious from the marvelous differences as to matters of _fact_ that exist among observers. It is hardly too much to say that no two of them quite agree as to what is seen." (_The Hygiene of the Vocal Organs_, London, 1886.) Wesley Mills, in his latest work, endeavors to show a substantial agreement among the best equipped observers of the registers, but his attempt can hardly be called convincing. (_Voice Production in Singing and Speaking_, Philadelphia, 1906.) Opinions on the subject of registers, held by the leading voice specialists to-day, are fully as divergent as in 1886. Widely different statements are made by prominent authorities as to the number of registers, the vocal cord action by which each register is produced, and the number of notes which each one should properly include. Another deficiency of the doctrine of registers is
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