We cannot too much insist on both speaker and singer attending to forming a connection between his ear and his mouth cavity. He is to hear, that he may produce good tones, and the tones cannot be correctly formed if they be not well observed. To listen to one's self carefully and constantly is a most valuable but little practised art. The student should listen as an inexorable critic, accepting only the best from himself. This leads to the consideration of the question of the open mouth. The expression "open mouth" means, no doubt, to most people, the open lips rather than the open mouth cavity--_i.e._, open in front, the teeth well separated. In voice-production, by "open mouth" both open cavity and open lips must be understood. There is a special tendency in many, perhaps in most persons, to close the mouth cavity unduly in singing a descending scale. This is often accompanied by a bad use of the breath, and a general relaxation of the vocal apparatus, which is possibly more frequent in sopranos and tenors, whose chief effects are often produced by their high tones. But to-day, more than ever, when refined intellectual and emotional effects are demanded, is it important that the lower tones, so effective in producing emotional states, should not be neglected by any singer of whatever voice; while for speakers high tones are really comparatively little used. Much more attention is paid by teachers and students to the open mouth at the present time than formerly; in fact, like some other good things, it is often overdone. The individuality of the singer and speaker must always be borne in mind. If some are obliged to open the mouth as much as others, the result will not be happy. Any one may demonstrate to himself that the quality of a tone may be at once changed by unduly opening or closing the mouth. One may say that _the mouth should be sufficiently opened to produce the best possible effect_. We have never seen the mouth opened to such an extent that it was positively unsightly--reminding one of the rhinoceros at a zoo--without feeling that the tone had suffered thereby. If all would remember that the mouth is best opened by simply _dropping the lower jaw_, passively, in the easiest manner possible, the difficulties some students experience would disappear. Many act as if the process were chiefly an active one, while the reverse is the case, as one may observe in the sleeper when the muscles become unduly relaxed--a condition that is often accompanied by snoring, which is produced by a mouth-breathing that gives rise to vibrations of the soft palate. We mean to say that the lower jaw drops when muscles relax, and that opening the mouth is largely a passive thing, while closing the mouth is an active process.