MY experience in developing and placing the human voice extends from 1882 to 1912, thirty years. During that time I have had a wide and varied experience with men and women and girls and boys of all ages. The perfecting of the art of tone production in each individual case varies with each student. No two persons can be taught the general principles of the art only. The individual must be studied and the voice analyzed as a doctor diagnoses a special case. Every nation has also its peculiar way of using the voice in singing folk or national songs. As we have in the bay cities a cosmopolitan population, it has been my opportunity to study the different nationalities that have applied to me for private instruction. The Italian and Spanish are the most susceptible students. They live in the realm of music from childhood. It is a part of their existence; they seem to have a natural interpretation of songs and singing. After the first placement of the voice I have had only to lead and give them the picture of the work before them and my task was a pleasant hour spent in portraying the poetical application of sentiment to their own individual understanding. The English, Scotch and Welsh voices are known for their fine tone production, unusually strong voices, clear, high and sympathetic, especially the Welsh female voice. They sing high, most of them, and clear as the meadow lark. The Germans sing with enthusiastic spirit and most of them with Wagnerian effect, hearty and robust in their chorus singing, a loud tone quality is their aim. It is the teacher's art to bring out and to modify all these extreme faults and change all these varied ideas and different accents of speech into a harmonious blending and acceptable whole.

I have been obliged to reject many applicants for varied reasons. I have always felt sorry for those with good voices and without means or without encouragement at home. Many a fine natural voice has been lost to the musical world by being ridiculed by the very ones who should have given a helping hand. Had these parents known what music has done for the world and for individual beings they would have realized the advisability of giving their children a musical education. I have found the French pupils the most difficult to control in regard to the nasal quality of tone production. They use the nasal cavities universally in their speech and I never was quite satisfied in my mind about the tone quality. Being of the Bel Canto school, aiming for pure melody and the best tone to be produced by the human voice, I was never satisfied with the result and yet I have heard French artists who were splendid singers. But the tone was always too high in placement for my full appreciation. The American voices were satisfactory almost without exception. Instability was the great fault; they have not enough earnest concentration in their work and soon discontinue or change to other teachers and many of them who started out with a full determination to be singers have done nothing for themselves. Several of my pupils were negroes and while I found rare voices among them they were never in a financial position to do much for themselves. One of these had a rich contralto voice of the finest touch and was a fine pianist. Another had a still more beautiful voice but, unfortunately, her husband was not musical and she sang little after her marriage. This is a real tragedy.

I have often wondered why are we given these gifts and yet denied the opportunity to develop them. I find the rarest voices among the poor and middle classes. In relating to me many of the episodes of his travels around the world, my son told me of the children, eight, nine and ten years old, of Italy playing on the street corners the arias of the operas on their violins with skillful and artistic fervor to the astonishment of the travelers who visit their ports. It is a natural gift, music is their life. There are few places in the civilized world that have not produced singers of repute. Yet we have two nations that we never expect to hear from in this respect, for it is a known fact that the Japanese and Chinese are wholly unmusical. Five discordant tones compose their scale, unmusical and untrue chords, or, one might say, discord.

Knowing this, imagine my surprise when in January 1897, I received a call from several women of the Chinese mission. With Miss Mabel Hussy I had assisted in giving the Chinese pupils of the Presbyterian mission Sunday school an entertainment on New Year's eve. I sang them a Christmas story of Robin's return, descriptive of the coming home of the sailor boy, with the picture of an open fireplace, the singing of the children's carols, the wreaths of holly, the grandmother at the spinning wheel, the mother tearfully placing the evergreens on the wall and pictures, thinking all the while of her boy. At last the Christmas bells chimed the midnight hour to be followed with the raising of the latch and the happy return of the long expected son with the snow upon his hair. All this was listened to with rapt surprise as I carefully articulated the words so nothing of the story be lost. I accurately scanned the faces as I sang and I saw I had opened a new world to them. At the close of the number I was roundly applauded by these 50 old and young Chinese students, who, well groomed and in their best suits, sat prim and proper. I little thought that among my auditors was a young man, about seventeen years of age, the servant of Mrs. Zeno Mauvais, intently listening and satisfying his long cherished desire to become a singer. This boy was the first Chinese born in Watsonville, Cal. When he was small his parents removed to several smaller towns near by but, not liking any of them, they eventually settled in Ripon and started a Chinese laundry. Lee Tung Foo, or Frank Lee, as he was called, went to the Mission Sunday school and with the rest of the pupils learned to sing some of the Gospel hymns in his way. He wanted to go to day school but his father would not consent and placed him in one of the hotel kitchens to wash dishes. This did not suit the young man and after a short time he ran away to secure an education. He managed to get to Fresno where he became cook and servant in the family of Prof. S.B. Morse. He was so well liked that he was assisted in his desire for an education and through the kindness of the daughter of the house began piano lessons.

After some years he went to Oakland and was employed by Mrs. Mauvais. Having learned all of his notes he was able to read the Gospel hymns and play them on the piano. Because he was continually at the reed organ in the mission the other boys made fun of him and called him Crazy Frank. After having heard me sing it occurred to him that I was the very person to teach him and he importuned Mrs. Mauvais to find me and she and her friends came to ask me to teach this boy the art of singing. I only laughed at them as I was not particularly fond of the Chinese and never employed them in any way. I refused three times, explaining that it was useless to undertake such a task. I expected nothing more to come of it, but in a week I was asked once more and was told the boy was broken-hearted with disappointment so I unwillingly consented. I was obliged to teach him after his work was done and some times he came as late as nine o'clock, tired and unfit to sing, but nothing daunted, he was there.

At last I believed that I might be able to achieve something in the development of the Chinese that would be altogether new in the musical line. Because I have succeeded with "the impossibility" (as he put it) I have placed the teaching of this Chinese as one of my greatest achievements in the art of vocal culture. He had the most indomitable will and determination to succeed, and he was the most faithful and conscientious and upright pupil I ever taught. It would require many pages to tell of the difficulties in his pathway. His people were enraged at me for leading their son away to be like all the "white devils" of America. I had to hide him for a year. He was the oldest son of the family and was obliged to marry before any of the other members could marry and he appealed to me to help him. Mr. Waterman of the Berkeley high school allowed him to come there and the Misses Shaw, teachers, took him into their home where he did their work and went to school. When the year was over the way was once more clear for him to take up his music. He had not lost anything as he had joined a church choir and sang bass. When the school closed he was given a fine recommendation as a model pupil and all the teachers parted with him reluctantly.

Lee Tung Foo

After I changed my studio to Thirteenth street he worked for the family of Mr. H. Stedman of Alameda, manager of the Zeno Mauvais music store and went to school in Alameda. Later he worked for the Southern Pacific Company at Wright's station. This made another break in his progress for over a year. He began in earnest when he returned in 1903 and he steadily forged ahead. While he was away he studied and pondered over all the former instructions and with the aid of a pitch pipe he soon was busy at his songs and exercises. He returned in 1904 ill, discouraged to the breaking point. After my accident I was much exercised as to the outcome of all these years of preparation. He was ready to start out as a singer but his heart failed him at last and he became disconsolate. He could not work and had no money. I saw the situation was desperate and took things into my own hands. As a favor Mr. Carlton of the Empire Theater, Oakland, called and heard him sing October 24, 1904. He doubted his being a Chinese. I assured him he was. "Well, certainly he shows his training," was the reply. He was immediately engaged. He had a list of seventy-five songs, sacred and secular, of which he could be proud, and he sang them in English, German and Latin. For three months we had the excellent assistance of Director J.H. Dohrmann at the piano and twice a week we had a full rehearsal. By the time the engagement was secured we were ready for it. He opened at the Empire, January 30, 1905, with unbounded success and received many floral tributes from the pupils and friends. He sang a week, beginning February 13, at the Lyceum, San Francisco. On February 20 he was engaged by the Savage Opera Company in San Jose, February 27 in Sacramento and March 13 in Fresno. He went to Portland, Oregon on March 30 for three months and April 12 was in Astoria. I was in constant touch with him. In 1908 he sang in Brussels and later in London in the great Coliseum for 15,000 people in aid of the Typographical Union of Printers and Engravers. I received a letter from his manager who assured me I had reason to be proud of my singer for he was making good and had many friends among the theater goers and managers of the different circuits.

Before going abroad Lee Tung Foo had sung in all the larger cities of the United States. During all these years he had much difficulty in his art and in addition had to do all his booking single-handed. After filling out his work in 1911 he came to California for the first time in six years. He sang one week only at the Empress theater in San Francisco and having an engagement of forty-four weeks on the Eastern circuits soon left. When they were completed he came once more to his home in the early part of 1912. After his week in Oakland he sang all through the south and interior and later in Oregon and British Columbia, returning in September to fill out the engagement at the Empress, then again go on the Eastern circuit.

I have necessarily given more space to this special pupil and were it possible to state accurately all the circumstances in his life you would all agree with me that he deserved credit and recognition in a musical way and proved himself a hero during the years he was perfecting himself. He has never had any other instruction than mine and has been true to the first placement of voice and development in the art of singing. He goes to hear the best artists and takes his lessons from their work; sends his criticisms of them all marked upon the program to me for approval; keeps his ears and eyes open to all advancement in his art; has acquired a graceful and acceptable presence and personality on and off the stage. Musicians all like him; his managers praise him and give him work as an acknowledgment of his ability to entertain. I have still a circumstance to relate which makes his singing the more marvelous and marks an "O.K." on my efforts to make a Chinese with a dull, unmelodious, unmusical voice succeed. Of course he never had the clear, ringing tone that is in the gift of the white race and he could not always get the vowel sounds to suit me and I attributed the fact to his being a Chinese, so I was obliged to be satisfied with the result obtained. He made me a promise when he came home in 1911 that he would not sing for any one until I had heard him after all these years, for if he did not please me I would not let him sing. I was trying his tones and found he had developed wonderful deep and full tones and in the second series as high as E flat, but he could not take high F to my surprise after having two other F's so perfect in their tone color. I was so dissatisfied, I said, "What is the matter that you do not take this note?" and as I spoke I noticed he kept the tongue close to the front of his teeth. I said, "Why do you use the tongue like that," and he said, "I have always done so," and I was most impatient at that when I am so particular with pronunciation in a pupil. After an examination I found to my surprise that he had all these years been tongue tied. I simply stared at him with astonishment; to think that it was possible for any one to sing as well as he did with this affliction. I said, "Now, Frank, you have faithfully done everything I ever asked you. Will you do one more thing for me?" He replied, "Will it make me sing?" I said, "Yes, will you do it?" In an instant I had his promise and the next day his tongue was released and on the fifth day he had his high F. He tells me he can now sing it with power and hold it as he should. There is nothing left to be done by me in a technical way. He is now a singer and not a bad one.

Lee Tung Foo