oat feels. The critic just
mentioned did not sing some notes with "pinched glottis" in order to
learn how Mme. T---- sang her low tones. Evidently it is not necessary
actually to imitate the singer; the hearer gets the same result by
imitating the sounds mentally. In other words, when we hear throaty
tones we mentally imitate these tones; thus we know that we should have
to contract our own throats in order to produce similar tones.

But even here we cannot stop. To imitate the singer actually is one
thing; mental imitation is something entirely different. In the first
case, actual imitation, our muscular sense would inform us of the state
of throat tightening. But in the case of mental imitation there is no
actual tightening of the throat, nothing, at any rate, comparable to
what takes place in actual imitation. There is then a dual function of
the imagination; first, the mental imitation of the sound; second, the
imaginary tightening of the throat. The analysis of the mental process
must therefore be modified, and stated as follows: When we listen to a
throaty tone we mentally imitate the tone; an imaginative function of
the muscular sense informs us what condition the singer's throat assumes
for the production of the tone.

A similar operation takes place in listening to nasal voices. An
impression is conveyed by a nasal tone, through which the hearer is
informed of a condition of tightness or contraction somewhere in the
singer's nose.

The terms applied to the two most marked forms of faulty
tone-production, nasal and throaty, are derived from impressions
conveyed by the sounds of the tones. These names, nasal and throaty,
refer to a feeling of tightness or contraction experienced in
imagination by the hearer; in one case this feeling is located in the
nose, in the other, in the throat. But the terms nasal and throaty are
general descriptions of faulty tones. Each one covers a wide range of
tone qualities. There is an almost infinite variety of throaty tones,
and of nasal sounds as well. The knowledge of the voice obtained by
listening to vocal tones is of equally wide extent. Every throaty tone,
whatever its precise character, informs the hearer of the exact
condition of the singer's throat in producing the tone. In short, every
vocal tone is thus analyzed by the critical listener, and referred in
imagination to his own throat. An insight into the singer's vocal action
is imparted to the hearer through an imagi