he
impression one gets while singing. I began to ponder, why were some of
my records poor and others good?

After deep thought for a very long period of time, I commenced to make
certain postulates which I believe I have since proved (to my own
satisfaction at least) to be reasonable and true. They not only
resulted in an improvement in my voice, but they enabled me to do at
command what I had previously been able to do only occasionally. They
are:

I. Tone creates its own support.

II. Much of the time spent in elaborate breathing
exercises (while excellent for the health and valuable
to the singer, in a way) do not produce the
results that are expected.

III. The singer's first studies should be with his brain
and ear, rather than through an attempt at
muscular control of the breathing muscles.

IV. Vocal resonance can be developed through a
proper understanding of tone color (vocal timbre),
so that uniformly excellent production of tones
will result.

TONE CREATES ITS OWN SUPPORT

The first two postulates can be discussed as one. Tone creates its own
support. How does a bird learn to sing? How does the animal learn to
cry? How does the lion learn to roar? Or the donkey learn to bray? By
practicing breathing exercises? Most certainly not. I have known many,
many singers with splendid voices who have never heard of breathing
exercises. Go out into the Welsh mining districts and listen to the
voices. They learn to breathe by learning how to sing, and by singing.
These men have lungs that the average vocal student would give a fortune
to possess. By singing correctly they acquire all the lung control that
any vocal composition could demand.

As a matter of fact, one does not need such a huge amount of breath to
sing. The average singer uses entirely too much. A goose has lungs ten
times as large as a nightingale but that doesn't make the goose's song
lovely to listen to. I have known men with lungs big enough to work a
blast furnace who yet had little bits of voices, so small that they were
ridiculous. It would be better for most vocal students to emit the
breath for five seconds before attacking the tone. One of the reasons
for much vocal forcing is too much breath. Maybe I haven't thought about
these things! I have spent hours in silence making up my mind. It is my
firm conviction that the average person (entirely without instruction in
breathing of a speci