The real artist has no idea that he is sacrificing himself for art. He does “what he does for one reason and one reason only-he can't help doing it”
Just as the bird sings or the butterfly soars, because it is his natural characteristic, so the artist works.
The student who deceives himself into thinking that he is giving his life like an ascetic in the spirit of sacrifice for art, is the victim of a deplorable species of egotism.
When the student has her voice under complete control, it is safe to take up the lyric repertoire of Mendelssohn, Old English Songs, etc. How simple and charming they are!
We are rich in the quantity of songs rather than in the quality. The singer has to go through hundreds of compositions before he finds one that really says something.
The sincerity of the art worker must permeate the song as naturally as the green leaves break through the dead branches in springtime.
Inspired by the purse rather than the soul, the mercenary side fairly screams in many of the works put out by every day American publishers.
In the piano, one has the instrument complete before he begins; but in the case of the voice, the instrument has to be developed by study.
Vocal study before age 20 is likely to be injurious, though some survive it in the hands of very careful and understanding teachers.
If the student could give up her work on my advice, she had better give it up without it. One does not study for a goal. The goal is a mere accident.
French is, in many ways, more difficult for an English-speaking person to sing. It is so full of complex and trying vowels. It requires the utmost subtlety.
A student will send me an urgent appeal to hear her, saying she is poor and wants my advice as to whether it is worth while to continue her studies. I invariably refuse such requests.
Acquiring a repertoire in these days, when the vocal literature is so immense, so overwhelming, that the student with sense will devote all his energies to work and not imagine himself a martyr to art.
One does not study for a goal. The goal is a mere accident.
