son, as the music-lover continues to attend concerts, operas, and
recitals, his feeling for the voice becomes gradually more keen and
discerning.

Further, empirical knowledge of the voice can be acquired in no other
way than by actual experience in listening to voices. No matter how keen
and definite are the impressions of throat action felt by the
experienced hearer, these impressions cannot be described to the
uninitiated. In fact, these impressions are to a great extent of a
character not capable of being recorded in precise terms. The general
nature of a throaty tone, for example, is thoroughly understood. But of
the thousands of varieties of the throaty tone no adequate description
can be given. Each observer must learn for himself to hear these fine
shades of difference in tone quality.

Every experienced music lover has his own mental standard of tonal
perfection. The trained ear knows how a perfect musical tone should
sound, independent of the precise quality of the tone. The tone quality
is determined, of course, by the instrument on which it is sounded. But
along with the individual characteristics of the sound, the tones drawn
from every instrument, to be available in the artistic performance of
music, must conform to the correct standard. Knowing the general musical
character of the tones of all instruments, the cultured hearer can at
once detect any variation from this character. Further, he knows how the
tones of a badly-played instrument would sound if the instrument were
correctly handled. An unskilled trumpeter in an orchestra, for example,
may draw from his instrument tones that are too brassy, blatant, or
harsh. An observant hearer knows exactly what these tones would be if
the instrument were skilfully played.

In just the same way the mental voice has its own standard of vocal
perfection. Every voice which falls below this standard is felt by the
critical hearer to be imperfectly used. When listening to a nasal singer
we know that the voice would be greatly improved in quality if the nasal
sound of the tones were eliminated. We feel that the correction of the
faults of production indicated by a throaty voice would add greatly to
the beauty of the voice. More than this, we can also form some idea how
an imperfectly produced voice would sound if all the faults of vocal
action were to be corrected.

A perfectly produced voice affects the ear in a peculiar and distinct
way. Not only is such a voice