ng demands
that the lungs be filled more quickly than in ordinary speech, and
perhaps a fuller inspiration is also required. This is readily mastered
with very little practice. It does not call for the acquirement of any
new muscular movements, nor the formation of any new habits.

What is left of all the materials of modern vocal instruction? To sum
them up in the order in which they were considered in Part I:

Breathing does not need to be mastered in any such way as is stated in
the theoretical works on the voice. Breath-control is a complete
fallacy. The doctrines of registers and laryngeal action are utterly
valueless. Chest resonance, nasal resonance, and forward emission, are
scientifically erroneous. The traditional precepts are of no value,
because nobody knows how to follow or apply them. Empirical teaching
based on the singer's sensations is of no avail.

In other words, modern methods contain not one single topic of any value
whatever in the training of the voice. It will be objected that this
statement is utterly absurd, because many of the world's greatest
singers have been trained according to these methods. No doubt this is
in one sense true; modern methods can point to many brilliant successes.
But this does not prove anything in favor of the materials of modern
methods.

Singers are trained to-day exactly as they were trained two hundred
years ago, through a reliance on the imitative faculty. The only
difference is this: In the old days, the student was directly and
expressly told to listen and to imitate, while to-day the reliance on
the imitative faculty is purely instinctive. A fuller consideration of
the important function of imitation as an unrecognized element of modern
Voice Culture is contained in Chapter V of Part IV.

CHAPTER V

THE ERROR OF THE THEORY OF MECHANICAL VOCAL MANAGEMENT

A fundamental difference was pointed out, at the close of the preceding
chapter, between the old Italian method and modern systems of vocal
instruction. This is worthy of repetition. The old Italian method was
founded on the faculty of imitation. Modern methods have as their basis
the idea of conscious, direct, mechanical control of the vocal organs.
All the materials of instruction based on this idea of mechanical
control were seen to be absolutely valueless. It is now in order to
examine still further the structure of modern Voice Culture, and to test
this basic idea of mechanical control.

As