as well
as singing without adequate breath, all induce tension that is
reflected at once in the sensitive throat.

Impatience of results, American hurry, beget unnatural effort and
tension. "Unclasp the fingers of a rigid civilization from off your
throat." The student of the violin or the piano soon learns that only
by a long and patient preparation can he fit himself to entertain even
his admiring friends. The embryo singer, on the contrary, expects with
far less expenditure of time and effort to appear in public.

The human voice is a direct expression of the man himself; it
registers spontaneously his mental and emotional states, even when he
would wish them hidden. Mental conditions tinged with impatience, with
fear, or with anything that begets tension of any sort are reflected
instantly in the voice, robbing it of its better qualities and
inducing stiffness in the throat.

Reduced to its lowest terms voice culture to-day is a struggle with
throat stiffness.

The causes indicate the remedy. Foremost, then, is dropping all throat
consciousness, all thought of the throat, all drawing of attention to
it. The larynx must be left uncramped, unhindered to do its work in
free unconsciousness, which it will do if not disturbed by tension in
its neighborhood, or by misdirected thought.

The stream of consciousness must in singing be directed to the
breathing which is below the throat, and to resonance and
pronunciation which are above it. These functions are more or less
consciously controlled until at last mastery makes their action
automatic.

I would once more emphasize the fact that the free use of all the
resonance chambers, and the recognition of the great function of
resonance, will do more than anything else to set the voice free and
emancipate the singer from all interfering rigidity.

CHAPTER X

SOME GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS

THE NATURAL VOICE

Pupils are constantly urged to sing and speak naturally, because the
"natural" tone is correct. This is exceedingly indefinite. It is
natural for a child to imitate the first sound it hears, whether it be
correct or incorrect. In either case the child imitates it, and for
that child it becomes the natural tone. The child reared in the
wilderness, beyond the hearing of a human voice, will imitate the
notes of the whip-poor-will, the chatter of the monkey, and the hoot
of the owl, and for him they are natural tones.

To be natural is the hardest lesson