r of the critical listener as indicating the approach
to the perfect vocal action.

The critic could not impart to his untrained friend the impressions made
by the violinist's tones. Somewhat the same is true of the impressions
made by the tones of the voice on the critical ear. In voices of
extremely nasal or throaty sound these blemishes can, of course, be
detected by the ordinary hearer. But the fine shades of difference in
vocal tone quality, heard by the trained critic, cannot be noted by the
inexperienced listener.

This fine ability to discriminate between musical sounds comes only
through experience in listening to music, better still, when this has
been combined with the actual study of music. But the ability to judge
the vocal actions of singers, through the sympathetic sensations of
tone, does not depend on any actual exercise of the listener's own
voice. For the developing of this ability the exercise of the ear
suffices. The mere exercise of the ear, in listening to singers, entails
also the training of what may be called the "mental voice." Attentive
listening to voices, involving as a natural consequence the
sub-conscious impressions of sympathetic sensations, results in the
development of a faculty to which this name, the mental voice, very
aptly applies.

A music-lover whose experience of hearing singing and instrumental music
has been wide enough to develop the mental voice in a fair degree,
possesses in this faculty a valuable means for judging singers. The
mental voice carries on a running commentary on the manner of production
of all the voices to which this music-lover listens. At every instant he
is informed of the exact condition of the singer's throat. For him there
is an almost infinite variety of throaty tones, each one indicating some
degree and form of throat tension or stiffening. A perfect vocal tone,
on the other hand, is _felt_ to be perfectly produced, as well as
_heard_ to be musically perfect.

Equipped with a highly trained sense of hearing, and the resulting
faculty of mental voice, the lover of singing has an unfailing insight
into the operations of the vocal mechanism. This understanding of the
workings of the vocal organs is the empirical knowledge of the voice.

This empirical knowledge of the voice can be possessed only by one who
is equipped with a highly cultivated ear. The keener the ear the more
precise and definite is this understanding of the voice. Season after
sea