“When a singer is up before an audience, he or she can tell
whether the effect of the voice is pleasing or not by watching
the countenances of the listeners,” says Thomas A. Edison in
_Popular Mechanics_. “When, however, one sings into a
dead instrument like the phonograph, without the slightest
recognition as to whether the voice is properly tuned and
pitched, the singer becomes rather nervous. I know some very
capable singers who can sing splendidly before an audience, but
when it comes to getting their voice into the phonograph, they
are dumb. I have brought people of great note out to the works,
and paid them handsomely for their vocal efforts, only to find,
when I came to reproduce these attempts on the phonograph, that
the records were utterly worthless. One must have, indeed, a
regular phonograph voice in order to make a good record. Some
people can sing well into a phonograph who could not get up
before an audience to save their lives; and again, as I have
said, some people can sing before persons, but they can not
perform before a phonograph.”
(168)
=Audiences=--See FITNESS; OPPORTUNITIES IMPROVED.