The voice is truly a unique instrument.

It is the only instrument: whose quality of sound and the name of the instrument are both identified by the same word that must be built by its owner whose structure is mostly hidden in the human body that contains within itself not one, but three separate mechanisms that is constructed of muscle, cartilage and bone whose component parts perform many different functions that are unrelated to singing that can produce words that is capable of developing either good or bad habits whose muscular components react to their environment that is directly connected to a brain that is naturally imitative in the sense that, with the aid of hearing, the voice will respond culturally in a recognizable fashion that must not ma e a sound while it is learning to ma e sounds that has two horns The voice is the only instrument that is identified by the same word used to describe its sound. !hen someone is singing it is quite acceptable to say, "That vocalist has a beautiful voice." !hen a violinist is playing it would sound strange to hear someone say, "That violinist has a beautiful violin." #oice is commonly used to identify both the sounds produced by the act of singing and the instrument producing the sounds$ violin identifies only the instrument. The %&ford 'niversal (ictionary defines instrument as: ") contrivance for producing musical sounds." )ccording to that definition the voice is certainly an instrument. *owever, the same dictionary defines voice as: "+ound, or the whole body of sounds, made or produced by the vocal organs of man or animals$ formed in or emitted from the human laryn&,. . . concretely, the organs by which it is produced." ,e-read what I have italicized and you will find that .ust one word is

used to describe the physical characteristics of the instrument "concretely, the organs by which it is produced" and the result of the activation of the physical characteristics "sound." /or our purposes we must avoid this ambiguity. The distinction between cause activating the vocal organs and effect sound must be definitely established in the student0s mind in order to clearly understand all that is to follow. !hen the terms "voice" or "vocal equipment" or "vocal instrument" are used in this boo they will mean the physical parts of the instrument. The result of the activation of the physical parts will be identified as "tone," "sound," "vocal quality" or "tone quality."

 The voice is the only instrument that must be built by its owner. I would li e to give my personal definition of the word singer: The instrument-ma er and player of the voice. In my opinion the definition must be bro en down into these two independent elements instrumentma er and player. !e cannot assume that the physical vocal instrument the instrument that can sing well already e&ists. If this were true, everyone would sound good naturally. %nly the parts 1the organs2 out of which the instrument is structured are naturally present. 3veryone does not sound good naturally because not everyone is using the parts correctly. The first thing the student of the voice must learn is to structure the vocal instrument. That is why my definition of singer begins with "the instrument-ma er." %nly after the instrument is structured can you begin to play it. !e are dealing with an instrument the voice which e&ists quite apart from and independent of the sounds it can or cannot produce. The voice the physical contrivance - is the cause. The sound the result of activating this physical contrivance is the effect. The voice is the only instrument whose structure is mostly hidden in the human body. )ll musical instruments e&cept the voice can be seen in toto. They are foreign bodies and when in use are simply e&tensions of the player. !ind instruments become e&tensions of the player0s lips and fingers. The piano becomes an e&tension of the pianist0s hands, and one footfor sustained pedalling. The only parts of the voice that can be seen on the outside are the )dam0s apple protruding from the throat, the .aw, the teeth, and part of the tongue. !hy is it important to mention this characteristic of the voice4 5ecause an instrument that is a foreign body does not involve the student0s ego during the developmental process. The student of the piano, for instance, can see, directly, his precise level of development. The voice student, on the other hand, usually relies mainly on his hearing to assess his developmenteither he sounds better, and so feels better, or he sounds worse and feels worse. In the e&ercise section of this boo I have tried to ta e the voice, as much as possible, "out" of the body and thus allow the student the opportunity to "see" the voice as if it too were a foreign body, consequently avoiding ego involvement. The voice is the only instrument that contains within itself not one, but three separate mechanisms: the sound-supporting mechanism$ the sound-producing mechanism$

and the word-producing mechanism. The voice is the only instrument that is constructed of muscle, cartilage and bone. !hen the voice0s three separate and independent mechanisms are correctly structured, e&quisitely balanced and simultaneously activated, they can ma e beautiful music. They are: the sound-producing mechanism, the sound-supporting mechanism and the word-producing mechanism. 6lic here to download complete speech level singing program