oving appeal in the pure singing tone of the human voice that cannot
even be approximated by any other instrument. We have all heard voices
that were so beautiful that to hear one of them vocalize for half an
hour would be a musical feast. Such a voice is so full of feeling, so
vibrant with life and emotion that it moves one to the depths even if no
words are used. It is only natural that all singers should be eager to
possess such a voice, for it covers up a multitude of other musical
misdemeanors. While it does not take the place altogether of the
interpretative instinct, it does make the work of the singer much easier
by putting his audience in sympathy with him from the beginning, thus to
a considerable extent disarming criticism. The old Italians attached so
much importance to beautiful tone that they were willing to work
conscientiously for half a dozen years to obtain it. To the beautiful
tone they added a faultless technic. Altogether it required from five to
eight years to prepare and equip a singer for a career, but when he was
thus prepared he could do astounding things in the way of trills,
roulades, and cadenzas.

The stories of many of these singers have come down to us through the
musical histories, and the singing world has come to believe that the
teachers alone were responsible. Owing to her geographic location, her
climate, language, and racial characteristics Italy at one time
furnished most of the great singers of the world, and the world with its
usual lack of judgment and discrimination gave Italian teachers all of
the credit. That the best of the Italian teachers were as near right as
it is humanly possible to be, I have no doubt whatever, but along with
the few singers who became famous there were hundreds who worked equally
hard but were never heard of. A great voice is a gift of the creator,
and the greater the gift the less there is to be done by the teacher.
But in addition to what nature has done there is always much to be done
by the teacher, and the nature of the vocal instrument is such that its
training is a problem unique and peculiar. The voice can do so many
different things, produce so many different kinds of tone, in such a
variety of ways that the ability to determine which is right and which
is wrong becomes a matter of aesthetic judgment rather than scientific
or mechanical.

If the scale, power, quality, and compass of the human voice were
established as are those of the piano