vague terms. Psychology
of song and psychological action in general may seem indefinite and
unintelligible. They become, however, absolutely definite and
intelligible when the part played by the nerves as intermediaries
between mind and muscular action of a subtle and highly refined order
is appreciated. The mind presses the button, the nerves carry the
messages, and muscle acts instantaneously and responsively.

The student need not despair because so many separate acts seem
necessary to the production of even a single tone. It is true that air
has to be taken into the lungs and emitted from them; that it must be
controlled by the singer as it passes up the windpipe; that the vocal
cords and other parts of the larynx must be given their specific
adjustment for each note; and the cavities of resonance shaped in
sympathetic coordination with those numerous adjustments, while the lips
also have their function to perform. But it is equally true that correct
instruction supplemented by assiduous practice merges all these separate
acts into one. The singer thinks the note, forms what may be called a
sounding vision of it in his mind, and straightway the vocal tract
adapts and coordinates all its parts to the artistic emission of that
note. It is auto-suggestion become habit through practice.

Because the larynx is so important a factor in generating voice,
writers on voice-production have described it with much minuteness,
and because of these minute descriptions readers may have obtained an
exaggerated idea of the size of this organ. But one of the marvels of
voice-production is the smallness of the organ in which voice is
generated, the size of the average larynx being about two inches in
height by an inch and a half in width. Yet so numerous are the
adjustments in shape of which this small organ is capable that the
phenomenal soprano, Mara, could make 100 changes in pitch between any
two notes in her voice, and as this had a compass of twenty-one notes,
it follows that she could produce no less than 21,000 changes in pitch
within a range of twenty-one notes. While in Mara's day this no
doubt was attributed to a natural gift of voice, modern study of
voice-physiology and of the metaphysics of voice-production readily
accounts for it. It needs an ear naturally or by training so
delicately attuned to pitch that not only all the fundamental notes of
a voice, but all the numerous overtones at infinitesimal intervals are
hear