When Grace Moore, primadonna of the Metropolitan Opera in New York, was heard by the diarist ‘Chips’ Channon at a private party in 1936, she unwittingly provided a pithy example of how modern singing technique and the tastes of previous ages grate. The ‘Number Three’ in question was the London residence of the Duke and Duchess of Kent in Belgrave Square: this ‘not enormous’ drawing room, then, was quite literally the aristocratic salon – albeit in its dying day. Moore had developed her voice to fill the world's largest opera house, and to judge from Channon's description, in this intimate context she appeared as the proverbial elephant dancing on a sixpence. Humour aside, this raises a serious – if basic – question: how loud is loud? And how does volume influence the way in which we sing?