astery of the
supposed mechanical principles of tone-production, this teacher ascribed
his pupil's difficulties to their failure to grasp the same mechanical
ideas. As a natural consequence he labored even more energetically along
mechanical lines. Curiously, no teacher seems to have questioned the
soundness of the mechanical idea. Failure on the part of the pupil to
obtain the correct use of the voice served only to make the master more
insistent on mechanical exercises.

In direct proportion to the prominence given to the idea of mechanical
management of the voice, the difficulties of teachers and students
became ever more pronounced. The trouble caused by throat stiffness led
the teachers to seek new means for imparting the correct vocal action,
always along mechanical lines. In this way the progress of the
mechanical idea was accelerated, and the problem of tone-production
received ever more attention.

Faith in the imitative faculty was gradually undermined by the progress
of the mechanical idea. With each succeeding generation of master and
pupil, the mechanical idea became more firmly established. Something
akin to a vicious circle was involved in this progress. As attention was
paid in practical instruction to the mechanical operations of the voice,
so the voice's instinctive power of imitation was curtailed by throat
stiffness. This served to make more pressing the apparent need of means
for the mechanical management of the voice. Thus the mechanical idea
found ever new arguments in its favor, based always on the difficulties
itself had caused.

It is impossible to assign a precise date to the disappearance of the
old Italian method. The last exponent of the old traditions was
Francesco Lamperti, who retired from active teaching in 1876. Yet even
Lamperti finally yielded, in theory at least, to the mechanical idea. In
the closing years of his active life as a teacher (1875 and 1876),
Lamperti wrote a book descriptive of his method, _A Treatise on the Art
of Singing_ (translated into English by J. C. Griffith and published by
Ed. Schuberth & Co., New York). When this work was about ready for the
press, Lamperti read Dr. Mandl's _Gesundheitslehre der Stimme_,
containing the first definite statement of the opposed-muscular-action
theory of breath-control. At the last moment Lamperti inserted a note in
his book to signify his acceptance of this theory.

Vocal mechanics was at first studied by teachers of singin