cords drop down to within a quarter
of an inch of the true cords and even closer, reducing the cup space in
the larynx to its dimensions before mutation. To secure a good quality
of tone in falsetto the singer must have complete control of the cup
space--be able to diminish it not only by allowing the false cords to
drop down almost upon the vocal cords, but also by contracting it
laterally. If he can do this, he can produce some genuinely artistic
effects in falsetto. When a tenor cannot control the muscles that
contract the cup space, his falsetto will be of a poor quality--a
mere "dodge" to add some higher notes to those of his legitimate vocal
range.

There are singers whose control over the registers is so expert that,
when they are called upon to follow a loud, singing, vibrant head tone
with a _pp_ effect on the same note, they can accomplish this by
imperceptibly changing to falsetto. They can glide from head into
falsetto and back again without a break and add the charm of varied
tone-color to natural beauty of voice. This is especially true of
dramatic tenors. If they can vary the naturally full and sonorous
quality of their head tone with an artistic falsetto, they are able to
secure many beautiful effects by an interchange of registers. Whenever
the high tones of a lyric tenor sound thin, it is because high head
tones do not lie naturally within the singer's range and he is obliged
to substitute falsetto for them. "Baritone tenors" usually cannot
achieve their higher notes in head register and are obliged to adopt
falsetto, but as their voices are naturally fuller than those of the
lyric tenor their falsetto is more agreeable.

Falsetto is a remnant of the voice before mutation, the male singer who
can produce falsetto having such control over the larynx that he can
contract the cup space until it reverts to its original boy size. This
accounts for the peculiar quality of the male falsetto--its alloy
of the feminine. Boys sing soprano or alto; and a man's voice must be
naturally high and possess such a genuine tenor quality that nothing can
rob it of its true timbre, to be effective in falsetto. This is why the
average "baritone tenors"--singers who begin as baritones but whose
voices lend themselves to being trained up--rarely are able to penetrate
an ensemble with a clear, ringing high note of genuine tenor quality. A
good tenor falsetto is in fact a reversion to boy-soprano with, however,
the quality o