The power of thought to exert influence is only in our day being understood. How to utilize it is not yet in such degree of comprehension that it can be told so that all are able to use the force which they contain. Thought is a tangible essence passing from the human mind and lodging upon the object toward which it is sent. Definite thought is more powerful than is illy defined thought. Speech enables us to crystalize thought and to empower it with added force. The time given to framing sentences enables us to put thought into definite form. A step beyond speech is obtained in singing. When learning our songs we revolve the thought to be expressed in mind. The measure of the music gives time to concentrate the thought contained into its most powerful form. The rhythm and vibration which accompany music and singing, enhance the power of thought. Whenever we sing in the true spirit of the sentiment uttered we send out shafts, so to speak, of pure thought. Not one of those is lost. It lodges somewhere, and as all good can never do harm, our good thought, sent in song, must do good to those who come within our influence to receive our good shafts. A singer who uses music for vain display loses the opportunity for good. There is no good thought in such singing. If there is any thought at all it is of the lower order. It lodges also, but it appeals to that which is vain and low in our hearers. What wonder is it, then, that ofttimes our hearers make unkind remarks about us and our singing! It is our fault that we have stirred up in them the spirit of vanity and criticism. Our thought has often challenged such spirit in them. Let our thought be changed, and only the good which is contained in poetic art sent out to them and their attitude toward us will change. There is no unpleasant thing which comes to us but that we stimulated it and created it. We can make our musical surroundings by sending out powerful shafts of pure thought.
Nature Seldom Jumps.
Nature seldom moves by jumps, and a student who reaches the best use of his voice learns that he must do that through natural laws. In other words, that he must acquire all things through naturalness. What wrongs have been done to students under the shield of so-called naturalness! Many teachers who claim that they are cultivating the voice by natural laws, know nothing of what it means to be natural. Naturalness means the expression of our own nature. If a teacher uses the natural method he but points out to his pupils their true natures and holds them to that correct use of such that they return to their normal condition. The necessities of our modern living have made most of us feel that we must put a side of ourselves outward which shows off well. In singing we develop abnormally something which we fancy will please our hearers and bring us applause. We try to hide our defects and admit that we do. Aside from the question of honesty, is it policy to do so. Most firmly, should be the answer, No! It destroys the naturalness of the singer and substitutes artifice. Any spurious issue will be detected sooner or later. Besides, is it not much more comfortable to have the real than the counterfeit? Be natural, then. Many students are impulsive. It was to these that the remark that "Nature seldom jumps," was made. In natural action everything is deliberate and restful; controlled and sure. Nature makes but few angles, but moves in graceful curves. Good quality of tone on one note and poor quality on the next, is not natural. Nature does not jump from one voice into another. Nature demands symmetric cultivation of the whole voice, and not the display of a favored part.
Be Perfect.
Do not be content to merely make progress. (If one feels that he is at a standstill, or worse, going backward, he should stop all study till he can go forward). Merely making progress means that to reach great result, a long time must elapse. To make a great artist requires years of musical and intellectual training; to be able to sing as perfectly as the body is capable of acting, requires but a few weeks, or at most, a few months. Why will students take lessons year after year and not sing any better than they did soon after they began? It is not necessary if the student is willing to go rapidly. "Be ye perfect," applies to singing as well as to anything else in life. If the injunction to be perfect has any meaning at all, and no one has any right to doubt but that it meant, when it was spoken, just what the words contain, that applies very thoroughly to singing. The very essence of life itself is more fully operative in singing than it is in anything else. If so, to be perfect in singing is to be perfect also in the essence of life. The injunction was not to become perfect by a long course of training. The present tense was used and it meant just what was said. "Be ye perfect," now. By proper mental conception of the true principle which underlies voice culture and by demonstration with concentrated thought, the possibility of any individual body can be at once brought out. On this account, the long years of wasteful practice which people use in cultivating the voice is not only unnecessary, but foolish and wicked.
CHAPTER IV.
PERFECT VOICE METHOD.
"Observe how all passionate language does of itself become musical,—with a finer music than the mere accent; the speech of man even in jealous anger becomes a chant—a song. All deep things are song." Carlisle.
IV.
PERFECT VOICE METHOD.
A teacher of voice and singing who does not believe his way is the best in the world is in one of two positions:—either he is a scamp, passing off spurious goods for real worth, or he is doing the best he can in his knowledge and present situation, waiting for the time when he can obtain instruction in a better method. If a teacher believes he has the best way of teaching he has a perfect right to so express himself, and to use that method in his teaching. He may be wrong in his opinion but that does not effect his right to work on the lines of his opinion. Some day something may show him he is mistaken and such a man will be very liable to correct his error and, taking the newly found way, progress in that.
A teacher who knows he is far from right and still works on, is not worthy of consideration as a teacher. One who uses the profession of voice teaching merely for livelihood and who cares not whether he does good or harm is little better than criminal. Such there be and such there will be until a time arrives in which teachers will be granted authority to teach from some recognized institution, without whose permission to teach, it would violate a law of the land to advertise as a teacher. Just such control as is kept over medical practice will some day be had, but not in our generation.