uch a teacher no
voice is safe. The very best natural voices have to follow some patent
plan just because the teacher has been taught in one way, is
inexperienced, and has not good sense enough to let nature's perfect
work alone. Both of my teachers knew that my high tones were all right
and the practice was directed toward the lower tones. They worked me for
over ten months on scales and sustained tones until the break that came
at E flat above the Bass Clef was welded from the lower tones to the
upper tones so that I could sing up or down with no ugly break audible.

I was drilled at first upon the vowel "ah." I hear American vocal
authorities refer to "ah" as in father. That seems to me too flat a
sound, one lacking in real resonance. The vowel used in my case in Italy
and in hundreds of other cases I have noted is a slightly broader vowel,
such as may be found half-way between the vowel "ah" as in father, and
the "aw" as in law. It is not a dull sound, yet it is not the sound of
"ah" in father. Perhaps the word "doff" or the first syllable of Boston,
when properly pronounced, gives the right impression.

I do not know enough of American vocal training to give an intelligent
criticism, but I wonder if American vocal teachers give as much
attention to special parts of the training as teachers in Italy do. I
hope they do, as I consider it very necessary. Consider the matter of
staccato. A good vocal staccato is really a very difficult
thing--difficult when it is right; that is, when on the pitch--every
time, clear, distinct, and at the same time not hard and stiff. It took
me weeks to acquire the right way of singing such a passage as _Un di,
quando le veneri_, from _Traviata_, but those were very profitable
weeks--

[Illustration: musical notation

Un di, quan-do le ve-ne-ri il
tem-po a-vra fu-ga-te
]

Accurate attack in such a passage is by no means easy. Anyone can sing
it--but _how it is sung_ makes the real difference.

The public has very odd ideas about singing. For instance, it would be
amazed to learn that _Trovatore_ is a much more difficult role for me to
sing and sing right than either _Parsifal_ or _Pelleas and Melisande_.
This largely because of the pure vocal demands and the flowing style.
The Debussy opera, wonderful as it is, does not begin to make the vocal
demands that such a work as _Trovatore_ does.

When the singer once acquires proficiency, the acquisition of new roles
comes ver