The fear of nasal twang and failure to distinguish between it and true nasal resonance has been the stumbling block. They are very different,--one is to be shunned, the other to be cultivated. The first is an obvious blemish, the second is an important essential of good singing. Nasal tones are caused by a raised or stiffened tongue, a sagging soft palate, a stiffened jaw, or by other rigidities that prevent free tone emission and which at the same time--note this--prevent true nasal resonance. As tone, or vocalized breath, issues from the larynx, it is divided into two streams or currents by the pendent veil of the soft palate. One stream flows directly into the mouth, where it produces oral resonance; the other stream passes through the nasopharynx into the hollow chambers of the face and head, inducing nasal and head resonance. It is commonly supposed that tone passing in whole or in part through the nasal cavities must be nasal in quality; whereas a tone of objectionable nasal quality can be sung equally well with the nostrils either closed or open. Browne and Behnke state the matter thus: "However tight the closure of the soft palate may be, it is never sufficient to prevent the air in the nasal cavities being thrown into co-vibrations with that in the mouth. These co-vibrations are, in fact, necessary for a certain amount of the brilliancy of the voice, and if they are prevented by a stoppage of the posterior openings of the nasal passages, the voice will sound dull and muffled. This is of course due, to an _absence of nasal resonance_, and must on no account be described as nasal _twang_. It is, indeed, the very opposite of it." Nasal tone quality and nasal resonance must not be confounded. A nasal tone is constricted, while a tone with nasal resonance is free. Again, a tone may be unmarred by the nasal quality, yet if it lacks nasal resonance it lacks vibrancy, carrying power. Nasal tones are produced, not because the vibrations pass through the nasal passage, but because they are obstructed in their passage through them. A nasal tone is always a cramped tone, due to impediment, tension, or muscular contraction, particularly in the nasopharynx. The congestion and consequent thickening of the mucous membrane lining the cavities of the nose and head, resulting from a cold, make the tone muffled and weak, owing to the inability of the parts to respond to the vibrations and add to the tone normal nasal resonance. The elder Booth (Junius Brutus), about 1838, suffered from a broken nose which defaced his handsome visage and spoiled his splendid voice. His disability was so great that afterward he seldom played. That the cause of this impairment of Booth's voice was due to the contraction and more or less complete obstruction of the nasal passages is too evident to call for comment.