not necessarily "a thing of beauty"
to the listener, while the result of its attainment is often the
converse of a "joy for ever" to the singer; for in those cases of
forcing up the voice above its natural compass, violence is done to the
throat, which in time results in some of the many ailments peculiar to
singers who use faulty methods. The middle range of the voice becomes
proportionately weaker and thinner as the cult of the extra "top notes"
becomes greater, until the anomalous position is reached of a voice with
two ends and no middle; while these superadded, artificial, high notes
are wanting in timbre, in purity, in strength, and in ease. It is easily
demonstrable by the laryngoscope that the forced and strained action of
the vocal ligaments, and of other laryngeal and throatal muscular
action, exercises an injurious influence upon the voice. The endeavour
to sing notes beyond the extreme of the compass, or notes which do not
naturally lie within any one register--particularly the chest
register--causes great fatigue of the tensor muscles of the vocal
ligaments, and serious congestion, extending to the windpipe and pharynx
has, in many cases, followed this practice.

More time and energy are devoted to the acquirement of what the late
Emil Behnke called "mere acrobatic skill" than is given to the purely
artistic side of voice use, and it follows that we get "the survival
_not_ of the fittest" but rather of those with exceptionally strong
physical organisations, instead of refined artists.

The deterioration throughout the whole compass of the voice is often
painfully noticeable during an entire song, but the forcible shouting of
a full, high-pitched note at its close seems to be intended to
compensate for all the misery previously endured by the sensitive
listener.

Now the maintenance of a healthy condition of the vocal muscles depends
to a great degree upon the right use of those muscles in the formation
of tone. There should never be any feeling of fatigue, strain, pricking,
tightness, aching, or of pain in the throat, nor yet of huskiness after
vocal practice. The method of voice use which produces such results, or
any one of them, is wrong. Nature is pointing out as forcibly as
possible the injury which is being done. Her warning should be heeded
before conditions, getting worse, lead up to the sad ailments from which
so many suffer, and which are disastrous to both voice and health.

The foregoing fac