It is not always easy to make students understand that the training of the voice means the development of the musical mentality and at best is never a short process. To most of them voice culture is a physical process and as they are physically fit, why wait?
Now the fact is that there is nothing physical in voice production save the instrument, and a strong physique has no more to do with good singing than it has with good piano playing. Voice production is a mental phenomenon. It is mentality of the singer impressing itself on the vocal instrument and expressing itself through it. The idea that the vocal instrument alone without mental guidance will produce beautiful tone is as fallacious as that a grand piano will produce good music whether the one at the keyboard knows how to play it or not.
Let it be understood once for all that it is the mentality of the individual, not his body, that is musical or unmusical. Both teacher and student must learn that there is much more to do mentally and much less to do physically than most people suspect. They must learn that a musical mentality is no less definite than a physical body, and is at least equally important; also that right thinking is as necessary to good voice production as it is to mathematics.
At this point there will doubtless be a strenuous objection from those who assert that tone cannot be produced without effort, and that a considerable amount of it is necessary, especially in the upper voice.
It will be readily admitted that the application of force is required to produce tone, but how much force? Certainly not that extreme physical effort that makes the singer red in the face and causes his upper tones to shriek rather than sing. Such a display of force discloses an erroneous idea of how to produce the upper voice. When there is the right relation existing between the breath and the vocal instrument, when there is the proper poise and balance of parts, no such effort is necessary. On the contrary the tone seems to flow and the effort required is only that of a light and pleasant physical exercise.
The pianist does not have to strike the upper tones any harder than the lower ones in order to bring out their full power. Why should the upper part of the voice require such prodigious effort?
Now all voices should have a head register. It is a part of nature’s equipment, and this calls for a word on the classification of voices. It ought not to be difficult to determine whether a voice is soprano, alto, tenor, baritone or bass, but I find each year a considerable number that have been misled. Why? A number of things are responsible. One of the most common is that of mistaking a soprano who has a chest register for an alto. This singer finds the low register easier to sing than the upper, consequently she and her friends decide she is an alto. Thereafter she sings low songs and takes the alto part in the choir. The longer she follows this plan the less upper voice she will have, and when she goes to a teacher, unless he has a discriminating and analytical ear, he will allow her to remain in the alto class. There is always something in the fiber of a tone, even though it be badly produced, that will disclose to the trained ear what it will be when rightly produced.
Again, the human voice can produce such a variety of tone qualities that sometimes a soprano will cultivate a somber style of singing and a majority of people will call her alto. It requires a trained ear to detect what she is doing. The baritone also, because he often sings the bass part in a quartet, tries to make himself sound like a bass; this he does by singing with a somber, hollow quality which has little or no carrying power.
Another mistake is that of classifying a voice according to its compass. This is the least reliable method of all. The mere fact of having high tones does not necessarily make one a soprano, neither is a voice always to be classified as alto by reason of not being able to sing high. It is quality that decides what a voice is. Soprano is a quality. Alto is a quality. The terms tenor, baritone, bass, refer to a quality rather than a compass. These qualities are determined primarily by the construction of the organ.
But when voices are properly trained there is not so much difference in the compass as most people suppose. For example: the female head voice lies approximately within this compass