For teaching me this scale--this guardian angel of the voice--I cannot be thankful enough to my mother. In earlier years I used to like to express myself freely about it. There was a time when I imagined that it strained me. My mother often ended her warnings at my neglect of it with the words, "You will be very sorry for it!" And I was very sorry for it. At one time, when I was about to be subjected to great exertions, and did not practise it every day, but thought it was enough to sing coloratura fireworks, I soon became aware that my transition tones would no longer endure the strain, began easily to waver, or threatened even to become too flat. The realization of it was terrible! It cost me many, many years of the hardest and most careful study; and it finally brought me to realize the necessity of exercising the vocal organs continually, and in the proper way, if I wished always to be able to rely on them.
Practice, and especially the practice of the great, slow scale, is the only cure for all injuries, and at the same time the most excellent means of fortification against all over-exertion. I sing it every day, often twice, even if I have to sing one of the greatest rôles in the evening. I can rely absolutely on its assistance.
If I had imparted nothing else to my pupils but the ability to sing this one great exercise well, they would possess a capital fund of knowledge which must infallibly bring them a rich return on their voices. I often take fifty minutes to go through it only once, for I let no tone pass that is lacking in any degree in pitch, power, and duration, or in a single vibration of the propagation form.
Singers, male and female, who are lacking velocity and the power of trilling, seem to me like horses without tails. Both of these things belong to the art of song, and are inseparable from it. It is a matter of indifference whether the singer has to use them or not; he must be able to. The teacher who neither teaches nor can teach them to his pupils is a _bad teacher_; the pupil who, notwithstanding the urgent warnings of his teacher, neglects the exercises that can help him to acquire them, and fails to perfect himself in them, is a _bungler_. There is no excuse for it but lack of talent, or laziness; and neither has any place in the higher walks of art.