In song the singer himself is the instrument of free and direct expression. Freedom of expression, complete utterance, is prevented only by the singer himself. No one hinders him, no one stands in the way but himself. The business of the teacher is to _set free_ that which is latent. His high calling is by wise guidance to help the singer to get out of his own way, to cease standing in front of himself. Technical training is not all in all. Simple recognition of the existence of our powers is needed even more. Freedom comes through the recognition and appropriation of inherent power; recognition comes first, the appropriation then follows simply. The novice does not know his natural power, his birthright, and must be helped to find it, chiefly, however, by helping himself, by cognizing and re-cognizing it.
No student of the most human of all arts--singing--need give up if he has burning within him the _song impulse_, the _hunger to sing_. This inner impulse is by its strength an evidence of the power to sing; the very hunger is a promise and a prophecy.
DETERRENTS
The deterrents to beautiful singing are physical in appearance, but these are outer signs of mental or emotional disturbance. Normal poise, which is strength, smilingly expresses itself in curves, in tones of beauty.
_Mental discord_ results in angularity, rigidity, harshness.
_Impatience_ produces feverishness that makes vocal poise impossible; and impatience induces the modern vice of forcing the tone. Growth is a factor for which hurried forcing methods make no allowance.
_Excess of emotion_ with its loss of balance affects the breathing and play of the voice.
_Exertion_, trying effort, instead of easy, happy activity induces hampering rigidities.
_Intensity_, over-concentration, or rather false concentration, emotional tension, involves strain, and strain is always wrong.
_Over-conscientiousness_, with its fussiness about petty detail, and insistence on non-essentials, is a deterrent from which the robust are free. _Over-attention to the mechanics_ of voice production is a kindred deterrent. Both deterrents prevent that prime characteristic of expression--spontaneity.
_Anxiety_ is a great contractor of muscle, a great stiffener. Anxiety always forgets the _power_ within, and falsely says to the song-hunger, "You shall never be satisfied."
_Self-repression_ is a great deterrent that afflicts the more sensitive, particularly those of puritanic inheritance. It is a devitalizer and a direct negative to expression, which is vital, is _life_.
All of these deterrents are negative and may be overcome by fuller recognition of the inner power that by its very nature must perpetually seek positive expression.
CONCLUSION
In conclusion, the student can perpetually find encouragement in a number of happy facts.
Man is endowed by nature, except in rare instances, with a perfect vocal apparatus. When abnormal conditions are found they are usually in the adult voice, and are due solely to misuse. In other words defects are not inherent but acquired and _can be removed_.
By nature the human voice is beautiful, for the tendency of nature is always in the direction of beauty. Whatever is unlovely in singing, as in all else, is _un_natural. True method is therefore never artificial in its action, but simple, because the natural is always simple.
Finally, no, not finally, but firstly and secondly and thirdly and perpetually, every student of singing and every teacher of it must constantly bear in mind the happy law:
=THE RIGHT WAY IS ALWAYS AN EASY WAY=