12 THE FALSETTO VOICE. 



Diday * who offer an entirely different account of the cause of these 

 notes from any yet published. According to Professor Muller's account, f 

 the falsetto notes are produced by the vibration only of the inner 

 borders of the vocal cords, while in the production of the natural 

 notes, the entire thickness of the cords is thrown into vibration. In the 

 opinion of Petrequin and Diday, however, the falsetto notes do not result 

 from the vibrations of the vocal cords at all, but merely from those of the 

 air passing through the aperture between the vocal cords, which, during 

 their production, they suppose to assume the contour of the embouchure 

 of a flute. Their arguments in favour of this opinion are founded almost 

 entirely upon peculiarities observed during the production of the falsetto 

 voice. They remark, for example, that it is very common for high-chest 

 notes to pass into the corresponding falsetto notes, if the singer tries 

 to soften them ; for at such times the glottis is instinctively constricted 

 to prevent the note from falling, in consequence of the diminished force 

 of the current of air ; and if under these circumstances, the vocal cords 

 are rendered more tense in order to the production of a still higher note, 

 the current of air is unable to make them vibrate, but vibrates itself as it 

 passes through the glottis, and a falsetto note is thus produced the 

 glottis changing from a reed-like to a flute-like instrument. So also in 

 trying to strengthen a low falsetto note it almost invariably becomes a 

 chest note, on account of the vocal cords passing from a rigid to a vibrat- 

 ing state, while the air itself, which is impelled through the glottis, ceases 

 to vibrate. In illustration of their view, they also state, that if while 

 blowing a reed-instrument, such as a bassoon, the reed is taken hold of 

 and held with forceps so as to prevent it from vibrating, its notes which 

 before resembled chest-notes assume at once the falsetto character ; be- 

 coming acute, soft, and whistling. 



M. Cogniard Latour J has drawn attention to the circumstance that in 

 tongued instruments the number of vibrations, and consequently the height 

 of the tone, is dependent on the weight or other peculiarities of the tongue. 

 He found, for example, that under exactly similar circumstances a tongue 

 of brass vibrated 200 times, a tongue of wood 314 times, and a tongue of 

 elder pith 800 times. Reasoning from this, he believes that in persons 

 with deep voices the vocal chords will be thicker and heavier than in other 

 individuals ; and that the deep tone or hoarseness of the voice during a 

 catarrh is owing to the chords being swollen. From experiments with 

 double-tongued instruments he also concludes that the walls of the larynx, 

 as well as the vocal chords, take part in the production of the tones of the 

 voice ; and he believes that the small and weak voice of old people is to 

 be ascribed to the inelastic, more or less ossified, condition of the larynx. 



* Gazette Medicale, 1844. f Physiology, p. 1013. 



Canstatts Jahresbericht, Physiologic, 1845, p. 207. 



