asy. Here
is where the student finds his greatest difficulty in mastering English
diction.

The most frequent criticism of American singers is their deficiency in
diction. Whether it please us or no, it must be admitted that on the
whole the criticism is not without foundation.

The importance of effective speech is much underestimated by students of
singing, and yet it requires but a moment's consideration to see that
the impression created by speech is the result of forceful diction no
less than of subject matter. Words mean the same thing whether spoken or
sung, and the singer no less than the speaker should deliver them with a
full understanding of their meaning.

The proposition confronting the singer is a difficult one. When he
attempts the dramatic he finds that it destroys his legato. He loses the
sustained quality of the organ tone, which is the true singing tone, and
_bel canto_ is out of the question.

This is what is urged against the operas of Wagner and practically
everything of the German school since his day. The dramatic element is
so intense and the demand so strenuous that singers find it almost, if
not quite impossible, to keep the singing tone and reach the dramatic
heights required. They soon find themselves shouting in a way that not
only destroys the singing tone but also the organ that produces it. The
truth of this cannot be gainsaid. There is a considerable amount of
vocal wreckage strewn along the way, the result of wrestling with
Wagnerian recitative. Wagnerian singers are, as a rule, vocally shorter
lived than those that confine themselves to French and Italian opera.

But it will be argued by some that these people have not learned how to
sing, that if they had a perfect vocal method they could sing Wagner as
easily as Massenet. That they have not learned to sing Wagner is
evident, and this brings us to the question--Shall the singer adjust
himself to the composer or the composer to the singer? A discussion of
this would probably lead nowhere, but I submit the observation, that
many modern composers show a disregard for the possibilities and
limitations of the human voice that amounts to stupidity. Because a
composer can write great symphonies the public is inclined to think that
everything he writes is great. Let it be understood once for all that
bad voice writing is bad whether it is done by a symphonic writer or a
popular songwriter. In the present stage of human development there