th-current, separate the vowels, and thus lay the foundation
for the expression of ideas. Ideas imply differences; a new idea is
conveyed by a new word, which in its simplest form is a syllable.

When a consonant is introduced after a vowel sound, a momentary arrest
is produced in the breath-flow, and this has its corresponding effect
on the mind. It is, in fact, equivalent to a pause--say a comma or a
period. If introduced before a vowel, it is marked off in a more
definite way. The effect of this is to enable the ear the better to
grasp the sounds. There is the principle of differentiation and the
principle of rest, both highly important in all sensory and other
psychic or mental processes.

Consider the sentence "He is a man"--composed purely of monosyllables.
Remove the consonants, and we have the following: "e i a a." Their
ineffectiveness in conveying ideas is at once plain, for though "a
man" conveys two ideas, such are not expressed by the vowels, which
are identical, while "e" and "i" are common to too many words of one
syllable to serve any useful purpose, alone, in the conveyance of
_definite_ ideas. The consonants at once mark off the limitations;
they fence around the ideas, so to speak. For the communication of
ideas they are indispensable; nevertheless, being largely noises, they
are musically abominable.

It follows that voice-production should begin with vowel sounds, and
not words--not even syllables. For successful intonation, the first
steps should be made as simple as possible, as we have already
endeavored to show, hence no such complication as a consonantal noise
should be introduced. Upon this point there is room for no difference
of opinion, though as to which vowel sound is best suited for the
beginner, and for more advanced voice-production, there has been great
diversity in teaching--a diversity which we propose to show, in the
next chapter, need not exist to any appreciable extent.

Certain vowel sounds may be said to be common to most of the languages
used by civilized peoples. These are _u_ (_oo_), _[=o]_, _a_ (_ah_),
_[=a]_, _i_ (_ei_), and _[=e]_. There is, fortunately, among teachers
considerable agreement as to the question of the best vowel sound with
which to begin intonation, or the process of forming musical tones.
There can be no question that _a_ (ah) is for general purposes the
best, the reason for which will appear later. Unfortunately, there is
not in the minds of students