

QUALITY-SPEECH. 393 



arytenoid and transverse arytenoid muscles, the posterior portion 

 of the bands does not vibrate, and the anterior portion alone 

 vibrating produces a high note. The range of an individual voice 

 is about 2^- octaves, while 3|- octaves is very exceptional. The 

 range of the human voice is about 5^ octaves ; the lowest bass, 

 F iii., with 44 vibrations per second, and the highest note ever 

 sung, so far as is recorded, B ii., corresponding to 1980 vibra- 

 tions per second. This note was sung by the famous " Bastar- 

 della." 



Quality. Helmholtz defines the quality of a tone as " that 

 peculiarity which distinguishes the musical tone of a violin from 

 that of a flute, or that of a clarionet, or that of the human voice, 

 when all these instruments produce the same note at the same 

 pitch." The quality or timbre of the human voice is due to the 

 fundamental and overtones produced by the bands, reinforced by 

 those of the cavities of the head and chest acting as resonance- 

 chambers. 



Registers. The term register, as applied to the voice, has 

 two significations : (1) The range or compass of the voice ; and 

 (2) " a class or series of tones of a particular quality or belonging 

 to a particular portion of the compass of a voice." Behnke defines 

 a register as consisting of " a series of tones which are produced 

 by the same mechanism." In singing up the scale, it will be 

 noticed that at certain points there is a change or " break " in the 

 quality of the voice, and at these points the voice is said to pass 

 from one register to another. Thus, low notes belong to the chest 

 register , and when they are emitted the chest will be felt to vibrate 

 if one places one's hand upon it, and the voice produced is the 

 chest voice : above this is the middle register, and the highest of 

 all is the head register, in which the air in the head cavities acts 

 as a resonator. Some prominent authorities denominate the middle 

 register also falsetto, although this term is more commonly used 

 with reference to certain peculiar high-pitched notes not often 

 emitted, and said to be due to vibrations of the extreme edges of 

 the cords only. The falsetto may be considered as a fourth reg- 

 ister. Prof. Thos. R. French is of the opinion that " the female 

 voice has three registers; and that it is quite probable that in 

 voices with exceptional ranges there are four registers, but suffi- 

 cient evidence has not yet been obtained to make this demon- 

 strable." 



Speech. Phonation, or voice-production, is a faculty common 

 to all animals having vocal bands, while the faculty of speech is 

 peculiar to man. Channing says : " A man was not made to shut 

 up his mind in itself, but to give it voice and to exchange it for 

 other minds. Speech is one of our grand distinctions from the 

 brute." It is possible that this attribute of man may not be 

 solely his, as some recent observations on monkeys have been 



