l. This
is true, even in the most common form of instruction, imitation and
mechanical doctrine combined. As regards the master, his only conscious
exercise of the imitative faculty is the reproduction of the pupil's
faulty tones. He seldom thinks of telling the pupil to imitate his own
correctly produced tones.

Imitation supplies the only practical means for training voices. All the
elements of Voice Culture are combined in one simple process, when the
master sings correctly, and the student imitates the master. This
exercise of the imitative faculty may be made to suffice for both the
training of the ear and the cultivation of the voice. On practical, as
well as on scientific grounds, imitation is the only rational basis of a
method of Voice Culture.

CHAPTER VI

THE OLD ITALIAN METHOD

To the believer in the necessity of direct mechanical management of the
voice, the old Italian method is a complete mystery. Modern vocal
theorists are at a loss to account for the success of the old masters in
training voices. Many authorities go so far as to assert that these
masters possessed some insight into the operations of the vocal organs,
along the lines of accepted Vocal Science. In their introductory
chapter, "A Plea for Vocal Physiology," Browne and Behnke attempt to
prove that the old masters studied the anatomy of the vocal organs. But
even if this could be proved, that would not solve the mystery of the
old method. Modern teachers are certainly as well acquainted with the
mechanical features of tone-production as the old masters were. Yet,
judged by their results, modern methods are distinctly inferior to the
old Italian method.

There is absolutely no ground for the belief that the old masters owed
their success to a knowledge of vocal physiology. This idea of ascribing
scientific knowledge to the early teachers results only from erroneous
belief that no other means of training the voice is possible. It may be
set down as absolutely certain that the old method was not based on the
principles of the accepted Vocal Science.

Yet the old masters undoubtedly possessed some means of training voices.
They must have known something about the voice. Their knowledge,
whatever it was, is commonly believed to have been lost. Many modern
teachers claim to have inherited the old method. Still these teachers
have nothing to offer beyond the well-known doctrines of breathing,
breath-control, forward tone, etc. How th