A _tone is something to hear_, and =hearing is mental=. An old French anatomist once said: "The eye sees what it is looking for, and it is looking only for what it has in mind." The same is true of the ear. We hear the tone mentally before we sing it, and we should hear it as distinctly as if it were sung by another. A tone first of all is a mental product, and its pitch, power, and quality are definite mental entities. When we wish to convey this tone to another we do it through the sound producing instrument which nature has provided for this purpose.
That everything exists first as idea has been the teaching of the philosophers for ages. That the idea is the controlling, governing force is equally well understood. Therefore, inasmuch as the aim of all voice building is to produce beautiful tone we must start with the right idea of tone. This is where the first and greatest difficulty appears. To most people a tone is intangible and difficult to define. One will rarely find a student that can formulate anything approaching a definition of a musical tone and I fancy many teachers would find it far from easy. Unless one has a grasp of the psychology of voice, and a great many have not, he will begin to work with what he can see. Here enters the long dreary mechanical grind that eventually ruins the temper of both teacher and student, and results in nothing but mechanical singing, instead of a joyous, inspiring musical performance.
In studying the pure singing tone we find the following: It is _smooth_, _steady_, _firm_, _rich_, _resonant_, _sympathetic_. We shall also find that all of its qualities and attributes are mental. It must contain the element of freedom (mental), firmness (mental), security (mental), sympathy (mental), enthusiasm, sentiment, joy, compassion, pity, love, sorrow (all mental). These are all qualities of the singing tone. They are not intangible. On the contrary, to the one who has them they are definite and are the things he works for from the beginning. They are basic and fundamental. All are combined in what I call _tone concept_, which is another word for musical ear, or musical taste. This tone concept is by far the most important thing in voice training. The student will not sing a tone better than the one he conceives mentally, therefore the mental concept of tone, or tone concept must be the basis of voice placing.