Now, can the thick voice be used in school-singing, and confined to the lower notes? And is it fairly easy to secure soft and pure vocalizations in this register? Let the experience of thousands of teachers in the public schools of this and other lands answer the last question.
It would be as easy to stop the growth of the average boy with a word, or to persuade a crowd of youngsters to speak softly at a game of baseball, as to induce them, or girls either for that matter, to use the voice gently, when singing with that register in which it is possible to push the tone and shout.
There should be some good physiological reason for the habitual recourse to the strident chest-voice so common with boys, and nearly as usual with girls. And there is a good reason. It is lack of rigidity in the voice-box or larynx. Its cartilages harden slowly, and even just before the age of puberty the larynx falls far short of the firmness and rigidity of structure, that characterize the organ in adult life. It is physically very difficult for the adult to force the chest-voice beyond its natural limits, which become fixed when full maturity of bodily development is reached, but the child, whose laryngeal cartilages are far more flexible, and move toward and upon each other with greater freedom, can force the chest-voice up with great ease. The altitude of pitch which is attained before breaking into the thin register is with young children regulated by the amount of muscular exertion they put forth. Even up to the change of voice, boys can often force the thick register several notes higher than women sopranos.
It must be borne in mind that the thick voice is produced by the full, free vibrations of the vocal bands in their entire length, breadth and thickness.
Imagine children six years of age carrying tones formed in this manner to the extreme limit of their voice; yet they do it. The tone of infant classes in Sunday-schools, and the tone of the primary schools, as they sing their morning hymns or songs for recreation, is produced in nine hundred and ninety-nine cases out of a thousand in exactly the way set forth. If the vocal bands of children were less elastic, if they were composed of stronger fibres, and protected from undue exertion by firm connecting cartilage; in short, if children were not children, such forcing would not be possible. If it were not for the wonderful recuperative power of childhood, serious effects would follow such vocal habits.
We are now prepared to understand that common phenomenon of the child-voice, termed the “movable break.” Every public school teacher who has had experience in teaching singing must be familiar with the meaning of the term, though possibly unaware of it. Allusion has already been made to the fact that, in primary grades, the thick quality, if permitted, will be carried as high as the children sing, to
for example. If they are required to sing the higher tones lightly, then the three or four tones, just below the pitch indicated, will be sung in a thin quality of voice. The place of the break or the absence of any break at all will depend upon the degree of loudness permitted.
Pass now to a grade in which the pupils average eleven years of age. These can use the thick tones as high as
