Register

What it means

Register is a term with two main meanings. In the organ it denotes a rank of pipes of the same tone color extending across the whole keyboard: each key sounds one pipe in this stop. The player switches stops on and off with draw-knobs or switches and thus mixes the sound, for instance from principal, flute and reed.

In the teaching of singing and instruments, register also denotes a range of a voice or instrument in which the sound seems uniform, for example chest register and head register in singing or the low and high registers of the clarinet.

Musical use

The organ is the instrument with the most stops; a large organ often has several dozen up to more than a hundred. The selection and combination of stops is called registration and is an art of its own. Stops have foot lengths, such as 8 foot for normal pitch, 4 foot for an octave higher and 16 foot for an octave lower. In singing, a change of register describes the transition between two vocal qualities.

The organ stop should be distinguished from the division, the whole part of the organ with a keyboard of its own, and from the vocal range, which means the highest and lowest singable note.

Performance practice

As an organist you try out stops and combinations in the room, since their sound depends strongly on the acoustics. As a singer you practise the transition between registers so that it does not become audible.