arts, it is eminently so of the art of voice and of song.

Artistic tone, as we have found, is the result of certain conditions
demanded by Nature. These conditions are dependent upon form and
adjustment; and form and adjustment, to be right, must be automatic. All
writers and teachers agree that correct tone is the result of form and
adjustment; but here, as we have said, comes the parting of the ways. One
man attempts, by directly controlling and adjusting the parts, to do that
which nature alone can do correctly; result--hard, muscular tone. Another
attempts, by relaxation, to secure the conditions of tone; result--vocal
depression, or depressed, relaxed tone.

If artistic tone be the result of conditions due to form and adjustment,
and if form and adjustment, to be right, must be automatic, if these things
are true, and they are as true as the fact that the world moves, then there
is only one way under heaven by which it is possible to secure these
conditions; that way is through a flexible, vitalized body, through
flexible bodily position and action.

The rigid, muscular school cannot secure these conditions, for they make
flexible freedom impossible. The limp, relaxed school cannot secure them,
for there is no tone without tonicity and vitality of muscle. Vitalized
energy _can_ secure these true conditions, but through flexible bodily
position and action only.

The rigid school is muscle-bound, and lacks life and vitality. The limp
school, of course, is depressed and lacks energy. The world is full of dead
singers,--dead so far as vitality and emotional energy are concerned.
Singing is a form of emotional or self-expression, and requires life and
vitality. Life is action. Life is vital force aroused. Life in singing is