cest thing to wear is a gown; if you do not wear one,
try to have your waist and skirt correspond in shade. The so-called
shirtwaist effect, which is produced by waist and skirt of different
colors, is not effective on the stage.

Wear hose and slippers of the same color if possible.

Amateurs when on the stage frequently rearrange a tie or smooth back a
stray curl, etc.; this is but a form of nervousness and looks bad.
Finish your toilet at home.

For ease and grace take dancing lessons.

The graduate from dancing and dramatic schools never appear ill at ease
before company.

WHAT AND HOW TO PRACTICE.

It is not so much =what=, but =how= you practice. The average beginner takes
up his practice in an aimless sort of way. Every action should have some
result in view. After taking your lesson, if you find you are not
positive as to the proper course to be pursued at home, you must ask
your teacher the questions necessary to put you on the right path. You
should have all your work laid out for you and go about it in a
systematic manner. Only in this way can you hope to achieve any degree
of success.

A beginner should not practice much more than five minutes at a time on
each construction, neither would much less than that be sufficient to
accustom that set of muscles to that one construction. Never practice
your limit tones at either end of your range as much as you do your
middle register. What I mean by middle register is low enough to
produce chest and high enough to produce head tones. If you can produce
a fine middle register, the high tones will naturally follow in time.
Melba says, "On days when my high tones do not come easily in practice,
I do not sing them." Do not show or cover your teeth because you have
seen some singers do so; individual construction differs.

Pronounce your words naturally and distinctly, never forgetting the
consonants at the end of the words. Don't think because you are singing
from a Marchesi book that you are studying her method. You are getting
the method of the teacher with whom you are studying. There are but two
ways of singing--"right" and "wrong"--and it makes little difference
from what instruction book you are taking your lesson, they are all good
and all constructed on the same principles. The main thing is knowing
=what= you are trying to do.

Many pupils who are poor readers worry through several exercise books,
and at the end of that time have only memoriz