THE VOICE AND SPEECH. 645 
may be considered as the natural method of singing a certain 
range of notes which leads to the least expenditure of energy; 
and certain rules may be laid down for the average man, with, 
- however, a good deal of latitude for special cases, as we have 
said, But certainly any method that disorders the larynx or 
I II Ill 
Fic. 483.—Laryngoscopic appearances during production of (1, II) falsetto-voice and (III) 
head-tones. I. Falsetto production (after Mandl). II. Falsetto production (after Holmes). 
Ill. Larynx of female during production of head-tones, as seen by the author. 
the general health can not be correct. Hence clinical and 
pathological observations become of great importance. One 
of the commonest faults consists in persons, whose laryngeal 
mechanism does not permit of the necessary changes within 
the power of those specially endowed, using a method of voice- 
production for higher tones, which is really, in their case at 
least, adapted only to lower ones, hence straining, congestions, 
fatigue, catarrh, and a host of attendant evils. 
It does not come within our province to treat of the artistic 
side of the question; but we may point out that nearly all the 
compositions of the greatest masters of music are written with- 
in a comparatively small range of notes; and when it is remem- 
bered that these are such as are most heard in the intercourse 
of daily life by the speaking-voice, or at least do not depart 
widely from them, we may understand how it is that such 
music has ever stirred, and does still appeal to, the heart (and 
ear) of man so generally, alike in the cultivated and unculti- 
vated. , 
Attempts have been made to explain the falsetto-voice by 
the action of the vocal bands alone; but any one who will com- 
pare his sensations, his consciousness of altered muscular ar- 
rangement, and consequent changed relative position of parts 
in the supra-laryngeal cavities, even without the use of a 
laryngoscope at all, can not fail to perceive that the vocal 
