e vast majority
of vocal teachers are thoroughly conversant with the highest standards
of artistic singing. They know what effects their pupils ought to
obtain. But the means they use for enabling the pupils to get these
effects have exactly the contrary result. When the student tries to open
the throat this obstinate organ only closes the tighter. Attempting to
correct a tremolo by "holding the throat steady" causes the throat to
tremble all the more.

Modern voice culture, in its practical aspect, is a struggle with throat
stiffness. Everything the student does, for the purpose of acquiring
direct command of the voice, has some influence in causing the throat to
stiffen. Telling the student to hold the throat relaxed seldom effects a
cure; this direction includes a primary cause of tension,--the turning
of attention to the throat. All the teacher can do to counteract the
stiffening influence is to give relaxing exercises. These are in most
cases efficacious so long as constructive instruction is abandoned, and
the relaxing of the throat is made the sole purpose of study. But soon
after positive instruction is resumed the tendency to stiffen reappears.
As lesson follows after lesson, the stiffness becomes gradually,
imperceptibly more pronounced. At length the time again comes for
relaxing exercises.

A single repetition of this process, relaxing the throat and then
stiffening it again, may extend over several months of study. During
this time the student naturally learns a great deal about music and the
artistic side of singing, and also improves the keenness of the sense
of hearing. This artistic development is necessarily reflected in the
voice so soon as the throat is again relaxed.

It usually happens that students change teachers about the time the
voice has become unmanageably stiff. In this condition the student, of
course, sings rather badly. A marked improvement in the singing
generally results from the change of teachers. This is easy to
understand because the new teacher devotes his first efforts to relaxing
the stiffened throat. Later on this improvement is very likely to be
lost, for the second teacher has nothing more of a positive nature to
offer than the first.

Vocal teachers in general seem to be aware of the fact that mechanical
instruction causes the student's throat to stiffen. A much-debated
question is whether "local effort" is needed to bring about the correct
vocal action. The term local