The record-union., 1897-08-07
AMERICAN SINGERS.
THEIR VOICES GIVE OUT EARLY
IN LIFE.
Like Her Beauty, the Voice Of the
American Girl Soon
Passes.

ANltdkC, iS IiiC dfOi oG =
young woman of twenty in this country
has a refinement of feature that is
noticeable TO the foreigner, though we
who see her constantly are SO accus-
toned to her good looks that we are
hardly aware how pretty she is.
Go into any large gathering, look
around you in the theater-not the op-
era house where a large proportion OF
the young heiresses are exceedingly
plain looking-look around you at the
theater or in any place where the ay-
erage American girl is to be found in
numbers and notice how many pretty
young faces you see. Go even in the
larger shops, and, without indulging in
the ungentlemanly and reprehensible
practice of staring at the 'salesladies,' .
see how many really handsome young
people are behind the counters. And
then, if you have been abroad, call to
mind how much above the foreign
standard is the American girl in the
way Of good looks.
And note another point at the same
time-that if she is pretty she is from
twenty to twenty five years old, but
that her good looks are short lived; at
thirty she had faded, and very little
later-if any woman is ever impolitely
supposed to be older-her good looks
have completely gone
YOUNG AMERICAN VOICES.
Another Characteristic of the aver
age American girl is that she is apt to
be endowed with marked vocal tall
ents. There are a larger number of
naturally good voices in America than
in any other country outside of Italy,
where the women seem to sing as nat
urally as they breathe, but the Ameri-
can voice, like American beauty, of
feature, is apt to be of short duration.
Many of the foremost vocalists of the
day are American girls, but their voices
do not last as do those of other nation
alities, and they are often silenced in
what should still be the day of their
robust professional youth.
There is a freshness, a sweetness, a
sympathetic quality of tone, in a very
large proportion of these voices that
is not SO readily found in other cCun
tries. Ask the great vocal tachers of
Europe, and they will tell you the
same-what rare quality they have
found in the American voices that have
come under their notice
Some of the most beautiful voices
have ever heard were those of young
American women" said Nine. Marche-
81. Heaven seems to have created rare
vocal gifts in Americans - said L.amper-
ii. Two Of my American pupils have
the most divine voices 1 have heard"
said Mime. Gerster recently
HAVE NOT LASTING QUALITY.
But no one hears about the lasting
quality Of these gifts of our young
women There are individual excep-
tions, but when you recall yocalists
who have long maintained their pre-
eminence before the public they are, as
a rule, others than Americans
What is the reason of this? Is it
our inherent lack of vocal health and
strength? Lack of vocal health, yes;
lack Of natural vocal strength. no.
I'VE are as sturdy of limb, as strong
of muscle, as well supplied with vital
energy as our brother or sister of other
lands. We should and do, possess at
the outset, am equal endowment of
vocal strength, but of vocal health. the
ability not only to nurse and build up
the voice, but to maintain it in health
e1Aio AOAA pONOi VIC iCOiiy hifON little
or nothing.
There are hundreds, thousands, of our
young singers who have spent years
of time and a little fortune in money.
that could only be afforded through
pinching economy. whose voices have
gone all to pieces in few years after
they began to win back in their pub
lie career the fruit of long labor and
privation What is here said in the
way OF advice to these young singers
is the result of interviews with some of
the leading throat specialists of New
York, the eminent physicians and sur
geons to whom the concert or operatic
star turns for aid and advice in the
hour of vocal illness.
SOME GOOD ADVICE.
One of the main causes of throat
trouble in our young singers is that
they know little or nothing of the laws
of health as applied to their particular
requirements. They give all their time
to the study of music, to the develop
ment of their voice, and none whatever
to the requirement of knowledge in re-
gard to building up the physical re-
sources on which. in singing, they make
heavy demands
Nine out of ten young women will
practice hours daily to correct technical
vocal faults and will not give one mo-
ment to studying now to repair the
physical wear and tear that has result
ed from prolonged vocal effort. When
any slight vocal trouble, from all this
overwork, makes itself apparent, the
singer, under the foolish idea that she
O 70 a f0, -r-l; 1,
she has paid, will rush to keep her ap-
pointment with her singing master She
will strain her voice through the whole
sixty minutes under the idea that she
otherwise would have lost her-let us
say@S5 worth of lesson. Just let this
foolish young woman bear in mind
that she has done her voice ten times
that amount of harm, possibly sowed
the seeds of vocal disease that will bear
more or less deadly fruit in the fu-
ture
Then again, the American singer is
naturally subject to the national affec-
ton, catarrh of one sort or another,
under which, if neglected, the voice
rapidly deteriorates. American meth
cd of life, too is always initiating
against voice preservation. Living in
overheated rooms in winter, drinking
quantities of iced liquids in summer,
induiging at all times in diet largely
composed of pastry and rich starchy
foods, to say nothing of sugared con-
fections by the boxful, all these tend
to bring about the constitutional weak
ness of stomach and nerve system that
make the voice of the American girl,
like her beauty, a short lived blessing
that might have been "a thing of