merely to be able to sing high and
loud means nothing. All that is required for that is a strong physique
and determination. Such voice building requires but little time and no
musical sense whatever; but to be able to sing the upper register with
full power, emotional intensity, musical quality and ease, is the result
of long and careful work under the ear of a teacher whose sense of tone
quality is so refined that it will detect instantly the slightest degree
of resistance and not allow it to continue.

The ambitious young singer who has been told by the village oracle that
she has a great voice and all she needs is a little "finishing," balks
at the idea of devoting three or four years to the process, and so she
looks for some one who will do it quickly and she always succeeds in
finding him. To do this work correctly the old Italians insisted on from
five to eight years with an hour lesson each day. To take such a course
following the modern plan of one or two half hours a week, would have
the student treading on the heels of Methuselah before it was completed.

It is not always easy to make students understand that the training of
the voice means the development of the musical mentality and at best is
never a short process. To most of them voice culture is a physical
process and as they are physically fit, why wait?

Now the fact is that there is nothing physical in voice production save
the instrument, and a strong physique has no more to do with good
singing than it has with good piano playing. Voice production is a
mental phenomenon. It is mentality of the singer impressing itself on
the vocal instrument and expressing itself through it. The idea that the
vocal instrument alone without mental guidance will produce beautiful
tone is as fallacious as that a grand piano will produce good music
whether the one at the keyboard knows how to play it or not.

Let it be understood once for all that _it is the mentality of the
individual, not his body, that is musical or unmusical_. Both teacher
and student must learn that there is much more to do mentally and much
less to do physically than most people suspect. They must learn that a
musical mentality is no less definite than a physical body, and is at
least equally important; also that right thinking is as necessary to
good voice production as it is to mathematics.

At this point there will doubtless be a strenuous objection from those
who assert that tone cannot be