ormally
constituted student to grasp the idea of mechanical vocal management.
Gifted with a fine voice, the natural impulse of any one is to sing. By
singing naturally the voice is bound to improve.

Just so soon as the student begins to understand the meaning of
attempted mechanical guidance of the voice, the evil effects of throat
stiffness begin to be manifest. The more earnest and intelligent
students are often the worst sufferers from throat stiffness. They more
readily grasp the mechanical doctrines of modern methods and apply the
mechanical idea more thoroughly.

There is in reality no problem of tone-production such as the accepted
theory of Voice Culture propounds. The voice does not require to be
taught how to act. Tone-production was never thought to involve any
mechanical problem until the attention of vocalists was turned to the
mechanical operations of the voice. This dates, roughly speaking, from
about 1800. Since that time the whole tendency of Voice Culture has been
mechanical. Nowadays the entire musical world is acquainted with the
idea that the voice must be directly guided; hardly any one has ever
heard this belief contradicted. To say that the voice needs no guidance
other than the ear would seem utterly preposterous to the average lover
of singing. It is even highly probable that this statement would not be
understood. Yet there is strong evidence that the old Italian masters
would have had equal difficulty in grasping the idea of mechanical vocal
management. How long it will take for the vocal profession to be
persuaded of the error of the mechanical idea only the future can
determine.

Probably the most important fact about vocal training is the following:
The voice is benefited by producing beautiful tones, and is injured by
producing harsh sounds. A tone of perfect beauty can be sung only when
the vocal organs are free from unnecessary tension. The nearer the tones
approach to the perfection of beauty, the closer does the voice come to
the correct action. Healthy exercise of the voice, with the throat free
from strain, strengthens and develops the throat muscles. Harsh and
unmusical sounds, produced by the voice, indicate that the throat is in
a condition of injurious tension. Singing under these circumstances
strains and weakens the muscles of the throat and injures the voice.
The harsher the tones the worse they are for the voice.

Beauty of tone is the only criterion of the correct voca