ger is
unconscious of the muscular contractions? Not at all. Muscular sense
informs the singer, more or less distinctly, of the state of contraction
or relaxation of the various muscles of the vocal organs. The singer
always knows fairly well the condition of the various parts of the vocal
mechanism. What is meant is this: The singer does not consciously direct
the vocal organs to assume certain positions and conditions, and does
not instruct the various muscles to contract in certain ways. The singer
does not need to know, and in fact cannot know, what muscular
contractions are required to produce any desired tone.

Some connection exists between the organs of hearing and the vocal
mechanism. That this connection has a physical basis in the nervous
structure is fairly well established. "The centers for sight and for arm
movements, for instance, or those of hearing and of vocal movements,
have connecting pathways between them." (_Feeling and Will_, Jas. M.
Baldwin, 1894.) The psychological law of tone-production is that the
vocal organs adjust themselves, without conscious guidance, to produce
the tones mentally conceived. In actual singing the practical
application of this law is that the voice is guided by the ear.

This guidance of the voice by the ear is incessant. It must not be
understood that the mental ear simply conceives a single tone, and that
the vocal machinery then operates without further guidance. All the
characteristics of the vocal tones,--pitch, quality, and power,--are
constantly changing. These changes require corresponding changes in the
muscular adjustments. The muscular contractions in turn are guided by
the demands of the mental ear. As a psychological process, singing may
therefore be analyzed as follows: The singer mentally sings the
composition. In response to the ever varying demands of the ear the
vocal organs adjust themselves to produce actually the sounds thus
mentally conceived. The singer listens to these sounds and at every
instant compares them to the mental conception. If the tones actually
produced fail to correspond exactly to those mentally conceived, the
singer instantly notes this variation and bids the vocal organs to
correct it. The ear has therefore a dual function in singing. First, the
mental ear directs the voice in its operations. Second, the physical ear
acts as a check or corrective on the voice.

To sum up the psychology of tone-production, the singer guides or
man