rt is to
be found in song, the most natural, the most fluent and the most
beautiful form of musical expression. How much every instrumentalist can
learn from the art of singing!

"It is a physical impossibility for the voice to produce two notes in
succession exactly alike. They may sound very similar, but there is a
difference quite perceptible to the highly trained ear. When a singer
starts a phrase a certain amount of motive power is required to set the
vocal apparatus in vibration. After the first note has been attacked
with the full force of the breath, there is naturally not so much weight
or pressure left for the following notes. It is, however, possible for
the second note to be as loud, or even louder, than the first note. But
in order to obtain the additional force on the second note, it is
necessary to compensate for the lack of force due to the loss of the
original weight or pressure by increasing what might be called the
nervous energy; that is to say, by expelling the breath with
proportionately greater speed.

MUSCULAR AND NERVOUS ENERGY

"The manifestation of nervous energy in this manner is quite different
from the manifestation of muscular energy, although both are, of course,
intimately connected. Muscular energy begins at its maximum and
gradually diminishes to the point of exhaustion, whereas nervous energy
rises in an inconceivably short space of time to its climax, and then
drops immediately to nothing. Nervous energy may be said to be
represented by an increased rapidity of emission. It is what the athlete
would call a 'spurt.'

"What I have said about the voice applies equally to all other
instruments, the piano and the organ alone excepted. It is obvious that
the playing of the wind instruments must be subjected to the limitations
of the breath, and in the case of the violin and the other stringed
instruments, where the bow supplies the motive power, it is impossible
for two notes played in succession to sound absolutely alike. If the
first note of a phrase is attacked with the weight of the whole bow
behind it, the second note will follow with just so much less weight,
and if the violinist desires to intensify any of the succeeding tones,
he must do so by the employment of the nervous energy I have mentioned,
when a difference in the quality of tone is bound to result. The pianist
should closely observe and endeavor to imitate these characteristics,
which so vividly convey the idea of o