Intelligible as these movements are in practice, it is difficult to describe them. To be able to make all ornaments in singing beautifully and easily requires long practice, for in a thoroughly artistic piece of vocal music it is essential, as the great artist _Schröder-Devrient_ said, that all the notes of ornamentation (_Coloratur_) should be like a string of pearls on black velvet, each distinct in itself, round and beautiful, and yet so connected with the rest in one whole that no gap is discernible. Carefully and correctly directed exercises in ornamentation are in the highest degree necessary to the formation of tone; they tire the voice far less than sustained notes, and accustom it to an exact enunciation of the tones. But because persevering practice is necessary to the cultivation of vocal flexibility, the teaching of this is to be begun at the very first; and not until later, when the voice is habituated to a right touch and to a perfectly clear tone, is the pupil to be given those favorite exercises with long-sustained notes, which are sung with one continuous breath. That we so rarely meet with clear vocal fluency is again owing to our mode of teaching. We do not seek to cultivate formation of tone and fluency at the same time. Oftentimes it is only after years spent in singing sustained tones that ornaments are allowed to be practised, and then, instead of using as little breath as possible, the flexibility of the larynx is hindered by singing too powerfully with full chest and unintermitted crowding of the breath. Without denying that in regard to vocal flexibility different individuals and nations may be variously gifted, it is nevertheless certain that _with due practice every one may acquire more or less of vocal fluency_.