MENTALITY
The mentality of the individual forms the organ through which it can express itself, and this mentality is the accumulation of all of the experience which has preceded it. Further, muscles and cartilages are not all of the same texture. Thyroid cartilages vary in size and shape. The vocal cavities, pharynx, mouth and nasal cavities are never exactly the same in any two people. The contours of the upper and lower jaw and teeth, and of the palatal arch are never found to be exactly alike. All of these variations are a part of the vocal instrument and determine its quality. Every vocal organ when properly directed will produce the best quality of which that particular instrument is capable. An attempt to make it produce something else must necessarily be a failure. The structure of the instrument determines whether the voice is bass, tenor, alto or soprano with all of the variations of these four classes. The individuality of the voice is fixed by nature no less definitely.
The effort to standardize tone quality discloses a misapprehension of what it means to train a voice. Its advocates look upon man as so much matter, and the voice as something which must be made to operate according to fixed mathematical rules and ignore completely its psychology.
But the rich humor of it all appears when the propagandists of standard tone meet to establish the standard. It is soon observed that there are as many standards as there are members present and the only result is a mental fermentation.