Reference having been made to vowels and consonants, it seems proper to add at this point something about diction in singing. The interpretation of a song is tone-production applied to the emotional significance of words. There seems little reason to doubt that the old Italian masters sacrificed many things, clarity of diction included, to beauty of tone. This they placed above everything. True, beauty of tone is the first essential of artistic singing, but it is not the only essential. If song is speech vitalized by music, then speech, the words to which music is set, has some claim to consideration. In fact, the singer's diction should convey the import of the spoken word with the added emotional eloquence of music.