Can I digress long enough to say that I think that everybody should
sing? That is, they should learn to sing under a good singing
instructor. This does not mean that they should look forward toward a
professional career. God forbid! There are enough half-baked singers in
the world now who are striving to become professionals. But the public
should know that singing is the healthiest kind of exercise imaginable.
When one sings properly one exercises nearly all of the important
muscles of the torso. The circulation of the blood is improved, the
digestion bettered, the heart promoted to healthy action--in fact,
everything is bettered. Singers as a rule are notoriously healthy and
often very long lived. The new movement for community singing in the
open air is a magnificent one. Let everybody sing!
A great singing teacher with a reputation as big as Napoleon's or George
Washington's is not needed. There are thousands and thousands of unknown
teachers who are most excellent. Often the advice or the instruction is
very much the same. What difference does it make whether I buy Castile
soap in a huge Broadway store or a little country store, if the soap is
the same? Many people hesitate to study because they can not study with
a great teacher. Nonsense! Pick out some sensible, well-drilled teacher
and then use your own good judgment to guide yourself. Remember that
Schumann-Heink did not study with a world-famed teacher. Whoever hears
of Marietta von Leclair in these days? Yet I do not think that I could
have done any more with my voice if I had had every famous teacher from
Niccolo Antonio Porpora down to the present day. The individual singer
must have ideals, and then leave nothing undone to attain those ideals.
One of my ideals was to be able to sing pianissimo with the kind of
resonance that makes it carry up to the farthest gallery. That is one of
the most difficult things I had to learn, and I attained it only after
years of faithful practice.