Such misuse of the voice is bound to show injurious results.

Every throat specialist knows this, and an untold multitude of those who, beginning with promise, have had to give up singing as a career, learn it too late.
Singers are so accustomed to the sound of their own voices as to be usually quite unconscious of their own throat stiffness, though they may recognize it in their neighbor.
Unfortunately throat stiffness by its very nature tends to aggravate itself, to constantly increase while the voice becomes less and less responsive to the singer's demands.
There are a number of contributing causes to throat stiffness, but the principal cause is _throat consciousness_ and misplaced effort, due largely to current misconceptions regarding the voice.

A common notion is that we sing with the throat, whereas we sing _through_ it.

Akin to this error is the notion, as common as it is fallacious, that force of tone, carrying power, originates in the larynx, whereas the initial tone due to the vibration of the vocal cords is in itself comparatively feeble.

As shown at length in Chapters VI and VII, volume of tone, its color and carrying power, is acoustically and vocally a matter of _resonance_.
Many there are who sing by dint of sheer force and ignorance, but their careers are necessarily short.