a satisfactory science of Voice Culture is not in
any way dependent on obtaining an answer to these questions. This much
is definitely known:

1. If the resonance of the air in the nasal cavities exerts any
influence on the tones of the voice, this influence cannot be increased,
diminished, or prevented by any direct action on the part of the singer.
Shutting off the entrance of the breath, by raising the soft palate, is
possible as a muscular exercise. But it is impossible to perform this
action, and to sing artistically, at the same time. To produce any kind
of tone, while holding the soft palate raised, is extremely difficult.
In a later chapter it will be seen that this action has no place
whatever in the correct use of the voice.

2. As the nasal cavities are fixed in size and shape, the singer cannot
control or vary any influence which they may exert as a resonator.

3. Independent of any thought or knowledge of how the nasal quality of
tone is caused, the singer has perfect voluntary control over this
quality by the simple, direct influence of the will. A singer may
produce nasal tones, or tones free from this faulty sound, at will, with
no thought of the mechanical processes involved. All that is required is
that the singer have an ear keen enough to recognize the nasal quality
in his own voice, as well as in the voice of any other singer.

CHAPTER IV

THE FUTILITY OF THE MATERIALS OF MODERN METHODS

Of the strictly scientific or mechanical materials of modern methods,
four have been seen to be utterly erroneous. The remaining topics of
instruction, mechanical and empirical, may with equal justice be
submitted to a similar examination.

Several of these topics have already been critically examined. The rules
for registers and laryngeal management were seen to be of no value to
the student of singing. So also was it observed that all instruction
which attempts to utilize the singer's sensations is futile. All that is
left of the materials of modern methods, in which any valuable idea
might be contained, are the rules for breathing.

Without undertaking to decide whether one system of breathing can be
right, to the exclusion of all other systems, one general remark can be
applied to the whole subject. It has never been scientifically proved
that the correct use of the voice depends in any way on the mastery of
an acquired system of breathing. True, this is the basic assumption of
all the discussio