This was Lamperti’s instruction to students.

Not forgotten is the teacher in grad school who tried teach me Lamperti’s directive by having me hold a can of coke up to my mouth. I suppose this maneuver might have worked if I’d had more imagination, but I was only confused by the whole business.

How can you drink when breath is coming out your mouth?

I didn’t get it.

Margaret Harshaw, on the other hand, was direct. No toys or games with her. She told me about drinking the tone as she traced her hand from the bottom of her throat to the middle of her head: up and down, along a line parallel to her spine. That’s where I would feel it.

I got it.

My take now that I’ve been teaching myself?

Once you have the neural connection—the feeling—you can imagine all you want. Until then, you are grasping at straws in the dark.