The Voice: Its Production, Care and Preservation

by Frank E. Miller

REGISTERS OF THE VOICE

The subject of vocal registers is a difficult one—difficult to understand and, when understood, difficult to make intelligible to others. In fact, it is so difficult that some people get rid of it by calmly asserting that there are no registers. This is unfortunate, because the blending of the registers, the smoothing out of the voice where one register passes over into another, the elimination of the "break" between them, is one of the greatest problems which the teacher of voice-production is obliged to solve. Like so many other branches in the art of voice-production, the subject is complicated by initial misunderstandings. Numerous people suppose, for example, that the vocal registers are synonymous with the different kinds of voices, and speak of the alto, soprano, bass or tenor register as if register stood for quality, which it does not. Another complication results from the fact that certain phenomenal voices, chiefly tenor, literally rise superior to the law of vocal registers. Thus, a phenomenal tenor like Duprez sang with ease the whole tenor range, including the

high C, in the powerful, vibrant "chest" register, whereas the average tenor, while producing a great portion of his voice in the chest register, is obliged at a certain point in the ascending scale to pass into the "middle" and beyond that into the "head" register.

The breaks that occur in average voices at certain points of the scale have established the divisions of the voice into registers. These breaks can be accounted for on scientific grounds; and if the physiology of voice-production had done no more than explain the why and wherefore of vocal registers, it would have justified itself through this alone.

Suppose there were a man able to produce the entire male vocal compass, from deepest bass to highest tenor. While for every note throughout the entire compass there would be subtle changes in the adjustment of the vocal tract, the following also would be true:—That, beginning with the lowest note and throughout the first octave of his voice, the changes in the adjustment of the vocal tract would not alter the general character of the adjustment for that octave; that, on entering the second octave, there would be a tendency toward change in the general adjustment of the vocal tract; while, for the

production of the remaining notes above, an almost startling change in the adjustment of the vocal tract would take place. The same would be true if a woman, capable of producing the entire female vocal compass, were to begin with the lowest contralto and sing up to the highest soprano tone. It is the general character of the adjustment of the vocal tract for a certain range of notes in the vocal scale that determines each register, the two principal changes in adjustment causing two breaks in the smooth progression of the voice.

Allowing for the fact that the male voice is an octave below the female voice, but in all other respects corresponds with it in range, the adjustment of the vocal tract throughout each register is the same for both men and women singers. There is, I fear, a prevalent notion on the part of the musical public that each voice has its own separate registers; that, for example, the registers of the soprano voice are at different points of the scale from those of the alto, and those of the tenor at different points from both of these. But this is not the case. Always allowing for the octave difference between the male and female voice, the registers for all voices are at fixed points of the scale and are, or should be,

sung by all voices with the same adjustment of the vocal tract. A few examples will make this clear.

The lowest register for female voice is: