ive. The gist
of the whole thing is what the teacher's ear will stand for. If a tone
does not offend his ear he will allow it to continue. If it does offend
his ear he will take measures to stop it.

More is known of vocal mechanism today than at any other time in the
world's history, and yet who dares to say that voice teaching has been
improved by it? Is voice teaching any more accurate now than it was a
hundred years ago? Did the invention of the laryngoscope add anything of
value to the voice teacher's equipment? No. Even the inventor of it said
that all it did was to confirm what he had always believed. An enlarged
mechanical knowledge has availed nothing in the studio. The character of
the teacher's work has improved to the degree in which he has recognized
two facts--first, the necessity of developing his own artistic sense as
well as that of his pupil, second, that the process of learning to sing
is psychologic rather than physiologic.

When the student takes his first singing lesson what does the teacher
hear? He hears the tone the student sings, but what is far more
important, he hears in his own mind the tone the student ought to sing.
He hears his own tone concept and this is the standard he sets for the
student. He cannot demand of him anything beyond his own concept either
in tone quality or interpretation.

Young teachers and some old ones watch the voice rather than listen to
it. At the slightest deviation from their standard of what the tongue,
larynx, and soft palate ought to do they pounce upon the student and
insist that he make the offending organ assume the position and form
which they think is necessary to produce a good tone. This results in
trying to control the mechanism by direct effort which always induces
tension and produces a hard, unsympathetic tone.

The blunder here is in mistaking effect for cause. The tongue which
habitually rises and fills the cavity of the mouth does so in response
to a wrong mental concept of cause. The only way to correct this
condition is to change the cause. The rigid tongue we see is effect, and
to tinker with the effect while the cause remains is unnecessarily
stupid. An impulse of tension has been directed to the tongue so often
that the impulse and response have become simultaneous and automatic.
The correction lies in directing an impulse of relaxation to it. When it
responds to this impulse it will be found to be lying in the bottom of
the mouth, relax