coloring, but also to straining, to
which we have before alluded. Though this process may not be at once
obviously injurious, it _invariably_ becomes so as time passes, and no
vocalist who hopes to sing much and to last can ignore registers, much
less make the change at a point to any appreciable extent removed from
those that scientific investigation and equally sound practice teach
us are the correct ones at which to make the changes.

Why is it that some artists of world-wide reputation sing as well
to-day as twenty years ago, while others have broken down or have
become hopelessly defective in their vocal results in a few years?
There is but one answer in a large proportion of these cases: correct
methods in the former and wrong methods in the latter class of
singers--and "correct" in no small degree refers to a strict
observance of registers.

The author has known a professional soprano to sing every tone in the
trying "Hear, O Israel" (_Elijah_) in the chest register. How can such
a singer hope to retain either voice or a sound throat? But so long as
audiences will applaud exhibitions of mere lung-power and brute force
the teachings of physiology and healthy art will be violated. But,
surely, all artists themselves and all enlightened teachers should
unite in condemning such violations of Nature's plain teachings!

The question of the registers is generally considered now a somewhat
simpler one for males than for females. Basses and barytones sing in
the chest register only; tenors are usually taught to sing in the
chest register; but few teachers believe that the high falsetto is
worth the expenditure of the time and energy necessary to attain
facility in its use.

Probably in many male voices there are the distinctions of register
Madame Seiler alludes to--_i.e._, first chest and second chest, or
some change analogous to the middle of females; but, from one cause
and another, this seems to readily disappear. Whether it would not be
worth maintaining is a question that the author suggests as at least
worth consideration. Certain it is that, speaking generally, there is
no change in males equally pronounced with the passage from the lowest
to the next higher (chest to middle) register in females.

What, then, are the views that the author believes so well grounded,
in regard to the registers, that they may be made, in all confidence,
the basis of teaching?

Without hesitation, he recommends that arrangement