ordinating the various activities. The necessary
associations between the hearing centres and the motor centres for the
control of voice have not been built up. But they can be so built, and
then the inability to sing vanishes. A person who can speak has the
necessary machinery for song, and to say that one has "no voice" is
mostly nonsense.

Many people possess quite good voices until they learn singing. Their
natural aptitude, which so largely depends upon the models they may have
had for imitation in the earliest days, is possibly quite excellent.
Then comes the Voice Specialist on the scene with his pet theories for
improving upon Nature, and he gets busy. He may have his ideas upon
"breaks," registers, and a thousand other details. Perhaps he has
written a book on the way in which Nature has made a botch of the voice,
creating it in a number of sections like a fishing rod, specially to
provide an interesting and lucrative profession for the voice trainer.
On the other hand he may be wise enough to thank Heaven when he finds a
good natural voice, and leave it alone. Voices when naturally used have
beauty, ease, compass, and an even tone without break throughout: this,
we assert, in spite of the fact that many a famous contralto possesses
apparently two voices, so marked is the break. There is a technical
alteration of the working of the vocal chords at a certain pitch, but
with a rightly-used voice this is automatic and unfelt: the whole body
is full of such wonderful adjustments. To be called upon to deal
consciously with such details is generally proof that they have gone
wrong. Your attention to your digestion is enforced by dyspepsia: nobody
notices a perfectly acting digestion.

Some voices are expressive and carry emotion easily, while others are
hard and inelastic. Some correspondence in the temperament will nearly
always be found. Therefore the teacher who works at the voice (which is
a means of expression of the temperament) without touching the inner
characteristics, is like the man who tries to make an ill-regulated
clock keep time by altering the hands. Lack of tone colour is not to be
cured by cultivating a number of different sizes and shapes for the
mouth and a selection of assorted smiles for the features. If a person
feels sad, he will talk sadly. Carrying the same principle into song, we
find that a voice naturally shows the timbre appropriate to the mood.
Therefore in order to ensure proper tone