Page:Essentials in Conducting.djvu/134

122 a boy choir is therefore to keep the boys singing high, beginning with the higher tones and vocalizing downward, instead of vice versa. The main reason for the necessity of this downward vocalization is what is known as the movable break. In an adult voice, the change from a low register to a higher one always takes place at approximately the same place in the scale; but the child's voice is immature, his vocal organs have not formed definitely established habits, and the chest register is often pushed upward to c′′, d′′, or even e′′  This is practically always done in singing an ascending scale loudly, and the result is not only distressing to the listener, but ruinous to the voice. In former days this type of singing was common in our public schools, the result being that most boys honestly thought it impossible to sing higher than c′′ or d′′ this being the limit beyond which it was difficult to push the chest voice. The head voice was thus not used at all, and the singing of public school children in the past has in most cases been anything but satisfactory from the standpoint of tonal beauty. But most supervisors of music have now become somewhat familiar with the child voice, and are insisting upon high-pitched songs, soft singing, and downward vocalization, these being the three indispensable factors in the proper training of children's voices. The result is that in many places school children are at the present time singing very well indeed, and the present growing tendency to encourage public performance by large groups of them makes available a new color to the composer of choral and orchestral music, and promises many a thrill to the concert-goer of the future.

It is the head register, or thin voice, that produces the pure, flutelike tones which are the essential charm