How I Regained a Lost Voice
Evan Williams
There is nothing so disquieting to the singer as the feeling that his voice, upon which his artistic hopes, to say nothing of his livelihood, depend, is not a reliable organ, but a fickle thing which to-day may be in splendid condition but to-morrow may be gone. Time and again I have been driven to the verge of desperation by my own voice. While I am grateful to all of my excellent teachers for the many valuable things they taught me, I had a strong feeling that there was something which I must know and which only I myself could find out for myself. After a very wide experience here and in England I found myself with so little confidence in my ability to produce uniformly excellent results when on the concert stage, that I retired to Akron, Ohio, resolving to spend the rest of my life in teaching. There I remained for four years, thinking out the great problem that confronted me. It is only during the last year that I have become convinced that I have solved it. My musical work has made me well-to-do and I want now to give my ideas to the world so that others may profit if they find them valuable. I have nothing to sell—but I trust that I can put into words, without inventing a new and bewildering nomenclature, something that will prove of practical assistance to young singers as it has been to me.