te laryngeal muscles are
specially subject to the injurious effects of strain. These effects vary
in extent and character, according to the degree of throat stiffness, to
the extent and duration of the faulty use of the voice, and to the
individual characteristics of the singer. A very slight degree of undue
tension may not sensibly injure the voice. Even a fairly marked
condition of tension, such as is evidenced by the uniformly throaty
quality of many baritones and mezzo-sopranos, may be persisted in for
years without perceptibly straining the throat or destroying the musical
value of the voice. But a misuse of the voice is bound, in the course of
time, to show its injurious results on the throat. How many promising
young singers are forced to abandon their careers in early life, at the
time when their artistic and dramatic powers are just ripening to
fruition! A misused voice "wears out" years before its time.

Most of the throat troubles of singers are directly caused by throat
stiffness and muscular strain. Dr. Mills, among others, touches on this
fact. "All the author's experience as a laryngologist tended to convince
him that most of those evils from which speakers and singers suffer,
whatever the part of the vocal mechanism affected, arise from faulty
methods of voice production, or excess in the use of methods in
themselves correct." (_Voice Production in Singing and Speaking_,
Phila., 1906.)

For the purposes of artistic singing, a voice loses all its value when
the injurious effects of throat stiffness become very pronounced. On
this account singers are obliged to give up appearing in public before
the condition reaches the extreme. It follows therefore that only in the
case of public speakers do we see the extreme results of persistence in
the wrong use of the voice. "Clergyman's sore throat" is the name
usually applied to this condition. The sustained use of the voice, under
conditions of extreme strain, is exceedingly painful both to the speaker
and to the hearer.

Singers are usually unconscious of throat stiffness unless the condition
be very pronounced. Neither the sense of hearing nor the muscular sense
informs the singer of the state of tension. Accustomed to the sound of
his own voice, the singer may be unaware of a throaty or nasal quality
which he would instantly detect in another voice. This is also true of
the muscular sensations of tone-production; habit makes the singer
inattentive to the se