CHAPTER V

QUALITIES NEEDED

Next comes the question: What are the qualities which the vocal aspirant, professional or amateur, should possess?

A famous teacher who was once asked this question made answer: “Voice! Voice! Voice!” I agree, and in the case of the professional I should be inclined to add also: “Work! Work! Work!” and then Faith, Hope, and Charity. Without hard work nothing can be done, and the practice of these three virtues will undoubtedly prevent one growing weary in his effort to attain the highest success.

But the truth is, of course, that many other qualities besides voice and industry are necessary here. There are, indeed, so many that I hardly know which to name first.

Lamperti on this point used to say: “First there must be a voice and good ear, but also an artistic soul and a musical disposition.” Further, he used to insist upon sound judgment, deep conscientiousness in study, and untiring industry.

Very necessary also are general intelligence and keen perception, because no matter how good a teacher may be the greater part of the work must be done through the brain of the student himself.

On the necessity of sound health it is hardly necessary to insist, while good looks and a fine presence naturally go for much also, though these are not absolutely indispensable, as many notable instances have gone to show.

Then, in addition, there are those temperamental qualities which mean so much: imagination and feeling, sympathy and insight, magnetism and personality. Perhaps, indeed, next to voice and ear these are the most important qualities of all. But unfortunately they cannot be acquired by any amount of study.

How often has it not happened, indeed, that artists have been endowed in all other respects but these! They may have the most beautiful voices, they may sing with the most finished art, but for lack of these incommunicable attributes of the soul they never attain the highest places. They leave their audiences cold because they are cold themselves.

These are artists of the type which Lamperti used to refer to as mere “voice machines”--singers who, as Gounod once put it, are not artists at all in the true sense of the word, but merely people who “play upon the larynx,” achieving great results perhaps in the purely vocal and mechanical sense, but never touching the hearts of their hearers for lack of those elemental human qualities which are essential if this result is to be attained.

Let the student do all in his power, therefore, to develop the higher side of his nature. By the study of literature and art, by the reading of fine poetry, by going to good plays, and in every other way let him cultivate his imagination and give play to his finer sensibilities.

For though such qualities as I have referred to may not be acquired when they are non-existent, they may be drawn out and developed if they are merely latent; and in the case of members of the northern races especially this is not infrequently the case.

Another quality of a different kind which is none the less very valuable, indeed essential, is the power of self-criticism; and I attach great importance also to having abundant faith in oneself. Even if it be pushed to the point of vanity and conceit--as I am afraid it occasionally is--this helps enormously when it is a case of withstanding the jolts and jars almost inseparable from the practice of vocal art.