Theoretically, the florid soprano produces the three lowest notes of its range in the chest register; the notes from [Music: F4-F5] in the middle; and the notes above these in the head register. In practice, however, the small larynx and the limited cup space found in florid sopranos make it difficult if not impossible for them to adjust their vocal tracts to the chest register. The problem is met by bringing the head register as far down as possible into the middle; and by singing what theoretically should be chest tones in the middle register. It hardly need be pointed out that the lower notes of florid sopranos are weak. This accounts for it. Florid soprano, the voice of the head register, is a voice of extraordinary agility--the voice of vocal pyrotechnics. To achieve it Nature appears to have found it necessary to sacrifice the heavier middle and chest registers which make for dramatic expression; with dramatic sopranos, on the other hand, to sacrifice the muscular flexibility which makes for agility. Mezzo-soprano is a voice that lies within the compass of dramatic soprano, usually extending neither quite so low nor quite so high, but governed by the same laws. For altos the ordinary compass is [Music: G3-C5]. A low alto or contralto is supposed to go down to the E below; while altos of unusual range go high as [Music: F5]. I even have seen the alto compass in notation run up to "high" C; but to control this high range an alto would have to be another Schumann-Heink who has cultivated upper notes in the head register. The tone-quality of some alto voices approaches so nearly that of the male voice, especially in the lowest tones of the chest register, that these altos are known as female baritones. In fact there is no voice in which register affects tone-quality as plainly as in alto. For in alto voices the chest register is apt to give tones that are heavy without corresponding vibrance and sonority, while tones produced in the adjustment of the head register are apt to be too thin. The middle register, however, produces in the alto voice a tone that is rich without being too heavy, so that it avoids undue heaviness on the one hand and on the other a thinness that is in no way comparable with the light tones of soprano, but simply a thin and unsatisfactory alto. Alto tone in the middle register therefore gives the standard tone-quality for alto voice; and when singing in chest or head register, an alto should endeavor to relieve the chest notes of their heaviness and the head notes of their thinness by giving them as much as she can the quality of tones in the middle register. This can be accomplished by bringing head tones down to middle and by carrying the middle register adjustment down into the chest register. But all this is as much a matter of correct ear and trained will power to make the voice reproduce the mental audition as it is of physical adjustment.