d the nervous, irritable teacher. The teacher who becomes
impatient or ruffled because a pupil cannot instantly grasp his meaning,
walking up and down the floor with clenched fists chastising the air,
and in every way displaying his own nerves and lack of self-control, is
not a =teacher=, but a =fool=. Such a person has either forgotten his own
earlier struggles or had never studied.

Avoid the teacher with a hobby. There is nothing so barren in the world
as one idea, spring from one idea, nourished by one idea and aiming at
one idea. This includes the teacher who believes in keeping the pupil on
one tone for six months. While your tone needs more than six months to
become perfect, dwelling on that one tone alone for that length of time
would be decidedly wrong.

We frequently accept students who have acquired numerous bad habits in
breathing or singing. They often know their trouble and ask how long it
will take to undo this work and get back into the right way. They seem
to think it is a matter of a certain time working back to the beginning
and then starting over again. This is not true. It is a matter of
beginning =now= and beginning right. The thoughts of a pupil should be
=advance=, not =retreat=. You must not think of what you =have done=, but
what you =must do=.

Avoid the teacher who advances theories and mechanical contrivances. A
laryngoscope in the hands of a physician might save many lives, but in
the hands of a singing teacher may ruin many voices. The perfect teacher
uses the simplest demonstrations, realizing that technical terms go
entirely over the heads of the beginner. The following suggestions are
entirely useless:

Sing the tone forward.

Sing the tone on the teeth.

Sing over your larynx.

Sing that tone with the epiglottis lowered, the palate raised, and on
the end of the breath.

I have personally heard these instructions given to pupils, and I assure
you the pupil did not gain anything by it.

It is positively absurd to insist on a beginner knowing the structures
of the vocal chords, neither will the patting, pinching or massaging of
the neck and facial muscles, that some teachers advocate, make you sing
any better. It is undoubtedly of some benefit to "wrinkles," but not to
the voice.

Garcia, admitted to be one of the greatest singing masters of his time,
said, regarding the position of larynx being higher or lower or the more
or less raising of the palate, that the singer need o