VOICE AND SPEECH. 



433 



trasted with the "short-reed" register. 1 The middle register of all voices is 

 by some authors (Garcia, 2 Mme. Seiler 3 ) denominated the "falsetto," while 

 other writers use this term to distinguish certain higher notes of the male 

 voice of a peculiar quality not in ordinary use. The third and highest series 

 of vocal sounds is usually known as the " head " register. 



The lowest or chest register is that used in ordinary life. It is so called 

 from the strong vibrations of the chest-wall which may be felt while the voice 

 is sounded. In passing to the higher register the chest vibration is found to 

 diminish and that of the head bones to increase; in the one case the cavity of 

 the head acts strongly as a resonance chamber, and in the other that of the 

 thorax. According to Madame Seiler, in the lowest register both the vocal 

 ligaments and the vocal processes of the arytenoids vibrate. Iu -the middle 

 register the vocal processes are clamped together and the vibration of the liga- 

 ments seems confined chiefly to their sharp edges; while in the highest register 

 the ligaments themselves appear to be damped throughout the greater part of 

 their length, the vibrations being confined to the edges of an oval slit at their 



ABC 



Fig. 216.— The voicing (female) larynx (after Browne and Behnke). A, Small or highest register. B, 

 Upper thin or middle register. C, Lower thin or middle register: T,T, tongue; F,l\ lal.se vocal cords; 

 n.s, cartilages of Santorini ; W, W, cartilages of Wrisberg; V, V, vocal cords. 



anterior ends (Fig. 216). Within any definite register the quality of individual 

 voices is determined by the size and elasticity of the parts of the larynx, and 

 probably also by peculiarities of the resonating chambers; voices are accord- 

 ingly classified as base, tenor, alto, and soprano. 



A Whistling Register.— A friend and former pupil of the author's lias the remark- 

 able power of emitting from the larynx nuics which arc indistinguishable in quality from 



an ordinary whistle. He writes, " The whistle cannot he made to '.slide' into vocal tones 

 of any sort, nor can any other tones he produced simultaneously with it. Its range is 

 about one and a half octaves, or hall' an octave less than my Singing voice. 



"The lips have nothing to do with the .sound except as their position changes the reso 

 nance-quality of t he tone by ' reinforcement ' or otherwise, for I can whistle almost as read- 

 ily with the teeth closed and the lips wide parted as with the jaws and li|x lirinU closed as 

 in the ordinary position. Any other movement id' the air-column destroys the sound at 

 once." Some years ago the author made a laryngoscopic examination of this larynx while 



it was in the act id' whistling. No notes were written at the lime, hut the picture reineni 



bered is that of vocal cords closely approximated, except lor an oval slit between their 

 anterior and middle portions, as in singing head tones, the cords vibrating chiefly along 

 their free edges. 



Speech. — Language consists, in general, of a combination of short musical 

 sounds, vowel* or sonants, which arc produced purely by vibration of the vocal 



1 Mackenzie : Hygiene <</' the Vocal Organs, 1891, p. 55. 



2 Garcia; Lond., Edin., and Dull. Mag., vol. x. 1855, p. 218. (Quoted bj Seiler. 



3 Seiler : op. cit. 

 Vol. II.— 28 



