Judging from methods of the past and pres ent we may believe that the voice for singing can best be trained on the following general lines, allowing, of course, that individual natures demand departures and special applications.
There are three general departments: phys ical, intellectual and spiritual. The latter refers to the intuitional and emotional action of the spirit of man. The physical training has in it development of respiration, freedom of the throat and reverberation of tone. Respiration demands that muscles of inspiration and expira tion shall be made free and strong and made to balance their action so as to deliver breath press ure to the vocal chords, which make initial tone, in such way that tone is made without ap parent effort. This corresponds to the way of the Old Italian method. It seems a simple thing, but the old singers evidently found it necessary to study and practise it every day for years and perhaps for a lifetime. Freedom of the throat means that tone of every gradation of power, from softest to loudest, shall be emitted in purity; that elasticity of muscles shall permit constant and instantaneous changes in the larynx; that the chambers above the larynx which influence quality shall be supple; and that the organs which regulate articulation shall not be interfered with, even in the slightest degree, while performing their duties. Reverberation has in it the whole matter of tone-placement, vibration and transmission of musical sounds. Such use of physical training draws, then, from the empirical ways of the old school, the scien tific method of the Garcia system and the ways of the ((overtone° method.
The intellectual department of modern method demands of the student knowledge of anatomy and physiology; directing power of the mind; and familiarity with psychology. Educa tion of the objective mind is the controlling factor in this part of vocal method. To small extent has it been used in any earlier methods. It is probable that in that department the strong-est factor in modern vocal method is found. For the intuitional or emotional side has ever been used and perhaps singers of the past (notably Farinelli) cultivated this side to perf ection.
Intuitional influence in modern method is not left to chance as possibly it has been before. A real student of our times is led to understand his relation to the controlling force of the universe and to utilize the power he may obtain through what is often termed (higher thought.) But it is not left to be expressed nintuitionally.1 That is, the student learns what imagination, sentiment, will and the like are, and then, through his objective mind (intellectual depart ment) directs their influence upon the physical parts. For it is now known that, however care fully, correctly and thoroughly the machinery of voice is used, there is a voice better and more beautiful than such machinery can, by itself, produce. The development of vocal method, thus very briefly outlined, is engaging the serious attention of the best American teachers who make teaching a profession, and there is evidence that such study is making a new vocal method.