1891.] on the Culture of the Singing Voice. 331 



theorists among teachers of singing, who on preconceived ideas believe 

 that it always occurs on one and the same point and who, in accord- 

 ance with this belief, force the whole natural mechanism of their 

 pupils' voices into their theoretical formulae, is only a small one. 

 But no doubt such teachers exist, and more than once I have heard 

 statements from pupils who come to consult me, to the eifect that 

 ever since they studied with Mr. So-and-so, and since they were told 

 that they had been wrongly taught with regard to the break in their 

 voice, and that they must begin to use the head voice or the falsetto 

 voice, either higher or lower than so far they had been accustomed to 

 take it, they f3t a great sense of fatigue after practising, and that 

 they distinctly thought they had suffered with regard to the character 

 of their voice. 



There can be nothing more dangerous, I venture to say, than any 

 mistake with regard to this point, i. e. any interference with the lavys 

 of nature, which in this question, I have not the least doubt, vary in 

 every individual case. There is no such thing as an absolute point 

 on which the voice breaks, in auy class of singers. No doubt the 

 break occurs in one and the same class of voice more or less in the 

 neighbourhood of a certain note, for instance, in contralto voices the 

 lower break as a rule occurs about the neighbourhood of E or F on 

 the line, but no doubt there are many voices in which it occurs either 

 at E flat or on the other hand at F sharp, and that the voice in which 

 it occurs at the higher part should now be forced into a lower break 

 because that corresponds with the theoretical ideas of the master, 

 would be a simply unpardonable mistake. 



The whole question of the registers is at the present time being 

 so ably treated by my friend, Dr. French, of Brooklyn, who earned 

 general and well deserved applause by a paper he read on that subject 

 on the occasion of last year's International Medical Congress at 

 Berlin, that I only wish I could in conclusion of tliis discourse read 

 to you verbatim the whole of it and show you all those splendid 

 photographs by mea,ns of which he illustrated it. But unfortunately 

 the time still left to me is so short that I must limit myself to giving 

 you a part only of his lecture in his own words, and to more briefly 

 deal with the remainder. 



Dr. French at the onset of his enquiries started from the very 

 just idea that the movements of the glottis are often so rapid that the 

 eye cannot appreciate them, or rather so numerous that the mind will 

 not retain them in the order of their occurrence. It is estimated 

 that the human eye can open and shut in the tenth part of a second, 

 but an impression formed upon the retina in that time lacks detail, 

 while an image of the interior of the larynx in all its detail may be 

 fully and clearly impressed upon the sensitive plate in the hundredth 

 part of a second. Those movements which the eye fails to appreciate 

 may easily be defined by taking a series of photographs at different 

 stages, which being viewed consecutively clearly shows such move- 

 ments in their entirety. 



