nt has examples of how those
using correct methods, and not worshipping at the shrine of mere vocal
power, may retain the vocal organs uninjured and the voice unimpaired
after the lapse of well-nigh a score of years of exacting public
singing. Teachers will do well to encourage their pupils to hear the
best singers; for do not students need inspiration as well as
discipline?

Granted that the ear can at once determine what register the pupil
herself or another singer may be using, what other guide has she?

There are certain sensations, as already said, felt within the
resonance-chambers and larynx, which are sure guides. In a person who
had learned to recognize the correct register formation by the help
of the ear and those sensations now referred to, the latter would
suffice to be a partial guide, at least, even had he become deaf.
While these sensations are absolutely characteristic, it is difficult
to describe them; they must be experienced to be understood. To
attempt to describe the taste of a peach to one who knew that of an
apple but had never eaten a peach would be, perhaps, not absolutely
useless, but would certainly serve little purpose. The sensation must
accompany the correct formation of the tone. The term "straining"
carries with it the idea of unpleasant sensations; all understand
practically what this term means; yet the sensation of strain in a
tenor carrying his chest register too high is no more marked than the
sensation of relief when he changes to the falsetto.

When once the voice has been well placed, little attention need be, or
is usually, paid _consciously_ to the sensations associated of
necessity with all changes in the vocal organs. When one becomes
unduly conscious of any of the normal sensations of the body, he is no
longer a perfectly healthy person. At the same time, as we have
pointed out in Chapter II., and shall do more at length shortly,
sensations are absolutely essential guides for all muscular and other
processes of the body; but they should enter just so much into
consciousness, and no more.

It is practically helpful to the voice-producer and the teacher to
think of the resonance-chambers and the ear as bearing a close
relationship to the movements essential to tone-production. The
sensations from these parts are of importance above all others in
voice-production. They are the chief guides, and the attention may to
advantage be concentrated on them.

No doubt the questio