placing" exercises are not used to any such extent as in
the strictly scientific methods just described, the voice-placing work
being usually done on vocalises, songs, and arias. No system whatever is
followed, or even attempted, in the sequence of topics touched upon. The
directions, "Breathe deeper on that phrase," "Bring that tone more
forward," "Open your throat for that _ah_," "Feel that tone higher up in
the head," may follow one after the other within five minutes of
instruction.

Teachers of this type are frequently charged, by the strict advocates of
mechanical instruction, with a practice commonly known as "wearing the
voice into place." This expression is used to indicate the total
abandonment of system in imparting the correct vocal action. It means
that the teacher simply has the pupil sing at random, trusting to
chance, or to some vague intuitive process, to bring about the correct
use of the voice. To the vocal scientist, "wearing the voice into place"
represents the depth of empiricism.

The great majority of teachers occupy a middle ground between the two
types just described. Teachers of this class touch, more or less, on
every topic of instruction, mechanical, empirical, and interpretive.
Their application of most of the topics of instruction is not quite so
mechanical as in the first type of method considered. The student's
attention is always directed to the vocal organs, but the idea of direct
muscular control is not so consistently put forward. As a rule, the
attempt is made in the first stages of instruction to follow a
systematic plan. Breathing, and perhaps breath-control, are first taught
as muscular drills, and then applied on single tones. Attack is
generally taken up next, then simple exercises in the medium register.
Following this, the chest and head registers are placed, and the
attention is turned to emission and resonance. But in most cases, when
the pupil has covered three or four terms of twenty lessons each, all
system is abandoned. The method from that time on is about of the type
described as empirical.

It must be remembered that this classification of methods is at best
very crude. It would not be easy to pick out any one teacher who adheres
consistently to any of the three forms of instruction described. All
that can be said is that a teacher usually tends somewhat more to one
type than to another.

Further, the degree of prominence given to the idea of direct mechanical
c