HOW I REGAINED A LOST VOICE

EVAN WILLIAMS

There is nothing so disquieting to the singer as the feeling that his
voice, upon which his artistic hopes, to say nothing of his livelihood,
depend, is not a reliable organ, but a fickle thing which to-day may be
in splendid condition but to-morrow may be gone. Time and again I have
been driven to the verge of desperation by my own voice. While I am
grateful to all of my excellent teachers for the many valuable things
they taught me, I had a strong feeling that there was something which I
must know and which only I myself could find out for myself. After a
very wide experience here and in England I found myself with so little
confidence in my ability to produce uniformly excellent results when on
the concert stage, that I retired to Akron, Ohio, resolving to spend the
rest of my life in teaching. There I remained for four years, thinking
out the great problem that confronted me. It is only during the last
year that I have become convinced that I have solved it. My musical work
has made me well-to-do and I want now to give my ideas to the world so
that others may profit if they find them valuable. I have nothing to
sell--but I trust that I can put into words, without inventing a new and
bewildering nomenclature, something that will prove of practical
assistance to young singers as it has been to me.

AN INDISPUTABLE RECORD

In 1908 I left Akron and resolved to try to reinstate myself in New York
as a singer. I also made talking machine records, only to find that
seldom could I make a record at the first attempt that was up to the
very high standard maintained by the company in the case of all records
placed upon the market for sale. This meant a great waste of my time and
the company's material and services. It naturally set me thinking. If I
could do it one time--why couldn't I do it all the time? There was no
contradicting the talking machine record. The machine records the
slightest blemish as well as the most perfect tone. There was no getting
away from the fact that sometimes my singing was far from what I wished
it to be.

The strange thing about it all was that my singing did not seem to
depend upon the physical condition or feeling of my throat. Some days
when my throat felt at its very best the records would come back in a
way that I was ashamed of. It is a strange feeling to hear one's own
voice from the talking machine. It sounds quite differently from t