Nothing But the Best: The Struggle for Perfection at the Juilliard School

p. 27

“Singers look and act different from instrumentalists because (some say) they are vulnerable in a way that instrumentalists are not. The singer is his instrument. The singer is judged not only on what he does with his instrument but on the quality of the instrument itself. . . . the voice faculty that rejects a candidate seems to say there is a structural defect. Singers are more touchy, more flamboyant, more exuberant than instrumentalists because, in a way, there seems to be more at stake.”