Quotes by Alma Gluck

• One does not study for a goal. The goal is a mere accident.
• We are rich in the quantity of songs rather than in the quality. The singer has to go through hundreds of compositions before he finds one that really says something.
• The student who deceives himself into thinking that he is giving his life like an ascetic in the spirit of sacrifice for art, is the victim of a deplorable species of egotism.
• Acquiring a repertoire in these days, when the vocal literature is so immense, so overwhelming, that the student with sense will devote all his energies to work and not imagine himself a martyr to art.
• The sincerity of the art worker must permeate the song as naturally as the green leaves break through the dead branches in springtime.
• The real artist has no idea that he is sacrificing himself for art. He does what he does for one reason and one reason only-he can't help doing it.
• Vocal study before age 20 is likely to be injurious, though some survive it in the hands of very careful and understanding teachers.
• Just as the bird sings or the butterfly soars, because it is his natural characteristic, so the artist works.
• Inspired by the purse rather than the soul, the mercenary side fairly screams in many of the works put out by every day American publishers.
• In the piano, one has the instrument complete before he begins; but in the case of the voice, the instrument has to be developed by study.
• French is, in many ways, more difficult for an English-speaking person to sing. It is so full of complex and trying vowels. It requires the utmost subtlety.
• A student will send me an urgent appeal to hear her, saying she is poor and wants my advice as to whether it is worth while to continue her studies. I invariably refuse such requests.
• When the student has her voice under complete control, it is safe to take up the lyric repertoire of Mendelssohn, Old English Songs, etc. How simple and charming they are!
• If the student could give up her work on my advice, she had better give it up without it. One does not study for a goal. The goal is a mere accident.