The author would recommend all students who have begun a serious practical study of the registers to hear, if possible, some singer of eminence who observes register formation strictly. In this way more can often be done in getting a clear notion of their characteristic qualities, in a single evening, than by listening to an ordinary amateur, or to such a voice as an otherwise excellent vocal teacher can bring to her work, on many occasions; better one hour listening to a Melba, with her observance of registers, covering, etc., as set forth by the author in this chapter, than a score of vocalists of indifferent, even if not incorrect production. One then has before her an individual who, after long and careful training, attains results not, indeed, within the reach of all, but such as may be approached if the same methods are pursued long enough; and in Madame Melba, and others that might be named, the student has examples of how those using correct methods, and not worshipping at the shrine of mere vocal power, may retain the vocal organs uninjured and the voice unimpaired after the lapse of well-nigh a score of years of exacting public singing. Teachers will do well to encourage their pupils to hear the best singers; for do not students need inspiration as well as discipline?
Granted that the ear can at once determine what register the pupil herself or another singer may be using, what other guide has she?
There are certain sensations, as already said, felt within the resonance-chambers and larynx, which are sure guides. In a person who had learned to recognize the correct register formation by the help of the ear and those sensations now referred to, the latter would suffice to be a partial guide, at least, even had he become deaf. While these sensations are absolutely characteristic, it is difficult to describe them; they must be experienced to be understood. To attempt to describe the taste of a peach to one who knew that of an apple but had never eaten a peach would be, perhaps, not absolutely useless, but would certainly serve little purpose. The sensation must accompany the correct formation of the tone. The term "straining" carries with it the idea of unpleasant sensations; all understand practically what this term means; yet the sensation of strain in a tenor carrying his chest register too high is no more marked than the sensation of relief when he changes to the falsetto.
When once the voice has been well placed, little attention need be, or is usually, paid consciously to the sensations associated of necessity with all changes in the vocal organs. When one becomes unduly conscious of any of the normal sensations of the body, he is no longer a perfectly healthy person. At the same time, as we have pointed out in [Chapter II.], and shall do more at length shortly, sensations are absolutely essential guides for all muscular and other processes of the body; but they should enter just so much into consciousness, and no more.
It is practically helpful to the voice-producer and the teacher to think of the resonance-chambers and the ear as bearing a close relationship to the movements essential to tone-production. The sensations from these parts are of importance above all others in voice-production. They are the chief guides, and the attention may to advantage be concentrated on them.
No doubt the question of registers for the speaker must be considered, but this can be done to greater advantage in a later chapter.
SUMMARY.
All good definitions of a register must recognize two things: change of quality in the voice, and change of mechanism in the vocal apparatus. A break is not a register, but occurs because of the existence of registers. The abrupt transition, or break, is to be avoided by covering, or modification of the upper tones of the lower (at least) register.
For an adequate scientific examination of the question of registers, many qualifications are required in the investigator; and the student, when not an investigator, should endeavor to weigh the evidence presented so as to choose with caution from among conflicting opinions. He should be suspicious of those who scout the value of scientific study of this or any other subject, and also of those who claim that experience is of no importance in settling such a question.
Though several well-qualified persons who have written on the subject differ in some respects, they are in agreement as to many of the more important points. They are practically all convinced that there is commonly a change of register for all voices, at or near one point in the scale (F), and that if this be practically disregarded, dangerous straining may result.