The novice does not know his natural power, his birthright, and must be helped to find it, chiefly, however, by helping himself, by cognizing and re-cognizing it.
No student of the most human of all arts--singing--need give up if he has burning within him the _song impulse_, the _hunger to sing_.

This inner impulse is by its strength an evidence of the power to sing; the very hunger is a promise and a prophecy.
DETERRENTS The deterrents to beautiful singing are physical in appearance, but these are outer signs of mental or emotional disturbance.

Normal poise, which is strength, smilingly expresses itself in curves, in tones of beauty.
_Mental discord_ results in angularity, rigidity, harshness.
_Impatience_ produces feverishness that makes vocal poise impossible; and impatience induces the modern vice of forcing the tone.

Growth is a factor for which hurried forcing methods make no allowance.
_Excess of emotion_ with its loss of balance affects the breathing and play of the voice.
_Exertion_, trying effort, instead of easy, happy activity induces hampering rigidities.
_Intensity_, over-concentration, or rather false concentration, emotional tension, involves strain, and strain is always wrong.
_Over-conscientiousness_, with its fussiness about petty detail, and insistence on non-essentials, is a deterrent from which the robust are free.

_Over-attention to the mechanics_ of voice production is a kindred deterrent.