How to Begin.—Many people never make a good start when beginning to sing any piece. Now a very good remedy for a part of this evil is not to prepare yourself too soon. Use the bar immediately preceding that in which your part commences to gather up your faculties, and, to use a common phrase, "to pull yourself together;" then let the muscles of the body gently settle down. The ease and freedom acquired by this momentary call upon the system is very remarkable; and for the singer especially the hint cannot be too often acted upon.
Variety Indispensable.—An unchanging volume of sound is very soon wearying to the ear; and therefore a singer who scarcely ever varies the pitch of his voice will find that however loudly he may sing, his audience will have a feeling of dissatisfaction, as though they could not hear him distinctly—the fact being that their ears, being fatigued with the uniformity of the noise, cannot do their proper work, and the attention therefore flags. One great secret of being agreeably heard by an audience is to vary the body of tone (not the quality of it, observe). As a rule singers are left tolerably free to do as they like in this respect. Composers of songs rarely give them any help in the matter. In fact, nowadays so many people compose "vocal music" without knowing anything about the vocal instrument for which they compose, that it is not wonderful that they ignore their power of helping the singer by properly combining duly marked forte, piano, and mezzo-voce passages, so as to ensure a variety of effect. Therefore, in most modern music, a singer has to take his own "reading" of a song, and to make it as effective as he can by varying the power of his voice. It might even be taken as a rule that every forte passage should be succeeded by a soft one. The voice should rise and fall, and be varied in its inflexions in that agreeable manner which is so marked in good orators and dramatic elocutionists.
Chorus Singing.—If you are studying seriously for solo singing, you must discontinue all chorus singing, especially during training. Singing in church choirs and choral societies must be abandoned. And this not because there is no good to be learned there, but because the little good is by no means commensurate with the great amount of harm which is acquired along with the good. To enumerate here all the evil habits so easily learnt would be impossible. Not the least of them, however, is the tendency to shout louder than your neighbour, to use yourself to the bad habits of those on each side of you; to produce a bad tone; to "chop" the passages instead of phrasing them; to attack notes carelessly; to sing coarsely; to depend on others; to get into a machine-like regularity of rendering the music. All these evil habits are the result of chorus singing; and while many of them are detrimental to the voice itself, it may be safely said that any one of these habits is fatal to good solo singing.
Humming.—Some people have a wretched habit of continually humming tunes. Pray do not get into this habit of singing unconsciously—than which nothing is more prejudicial to the voice. You should never sound a note without being perfectly aware of what you are doing, and that it is being done in the right manner. The faults acquired by "humming over," as it is called, are of the worst kind, and, moreover, they are far sooner acquired than eradicated.
Studying Songs.—Be careful, in studying a new song, not to waste either time or strength by a trifling and superficial treatment of it. "Whatever is worth doing at all, is worth doing well." First of all, sol-fa the melody a few times in a full mezzo-voce. Then study it with rather stronger tone, paying attention to lights and shades, yet at the same time being chiefly occupied with the melody itself. Then make your breath-marks, and adhere to the same unfailingly. Then sing the melody once throughout, in order to find the weak places; having found which, you need no more practise the whole of the melody, but give all the attention to these latter phrases. Having mastered these, the melody will be complete. It will then be necessary to determine where the notes shall be made to bend into each other, to add the nuances, a few graceful figures and effects which belong alone to the true artist.
Imitation.—By no means the worst lesson which you can have will be gained by imitation of some acknowledged first-rate singer, whose voice is of the same kind as your own. Before going to a concert at which any such artist is announced to sing, procure copies of his songs (if possible), and make yourself acquainted with the compositions first of all. Then go and hear how those works are rendered by the singer who is to be your model; listen with your copy in your hand; make notes of any points which strike you, and while the impression made upon you is still fresh, go home and imitate them as closely as you can.
General Musical Study.—If you want to be a good singing artist, many more things besides singing should be studied. You should be sufficiently acquainted with the pianoforte to play your own accompaniments, even of the most difficult songs, well enough to get an idea of them. Then a knowledge of harmony, counterpoint, and orchestration is of the greatest value. The study of the best scores, orchestral and vocal, should not be neglected, and further, the student should make himself or herself otherwise familiar with the rise and progress of the art, by reading all the best books on the subject, whether historical, critical, or biographical.