VOCAL SCIENCE AND PRACTICAL VOICE CULTURE
[CHAPTER I]
THE CORRECT VOCAL ACTION
Two distinct lines of approach were laid down for studying the operations of the voice. First, the manner of investigation usually accepted as scientific. This is, to study the vocal mechanism; to determine, as far as possible, the laws of its operation, in accordance with the principles of anatomy, acoustics, mechanics, and psychology. Second, the manner of investigation generally called empirical. This begins with the observing of the tones of the voice, considered simply as sounds. From the tones we work back to the vocal organs and apply to them the information obtained by attentive listening. Both of these means of investigation have been utilized; we are now in possession of the most salient facts obtainable regarding the vocal action.
Separately considered, neither the scientific nor the empirical study of the voice is alone sufficient to inform us of the exact nature of the correct vocal action. The next step is therefore to combine the information obtained from the two sources, scientific analysis and empirical observation. Let us begin by summing up all the facts so far ascertained.
Tone-production in singing is a conscious and voluntary muscular operation. The vocal organs consist of a number of sets of voluntary muscles, of the bones and cartilages to which these muscles are attached, and of the nerves and nerve centers governing their actions. The precise nature of the muscular contractions of tone-production, whether correct or incorrect, is not known. These contractions occur in accordance with established laws of acoustics and mechanics. Under normal conditions the vocal organs instinctively respond to the demands of the singer, through the guidance of the sense of hearing. The ability of the vocal organs to adjust themselves properly may be upset by some influence apparently outside the singer's voluntary control. Study of the vocal mechanism does not inform us of the meaning of the correct vocal action, nor of the difference between this action and any other mode of operation of the voice.
Empirically considered, there is a striking difference between the correct vocal action and any other manner of tone-production. A perfect vocal tone awakens in the hearer a distinct set of auditory and muscular sensations. Attentively observed, the muscular sensations of the hearer indicate that the perfect vocal tone is produced by the balanced and harmonious action of all the muscles of the singer's vocal mechanism. In listening to perfect singing the hearer feels that every muscle of the singer's vocal organs is contracted with exactly the appropriate degree of strength. Any vocal tone of unsatisfactory sound awakens in the hearer a set of muscular sensations, the direct opposite of those indicating the correct vocal action. An incorrectly produced tone imparts to the hearer a sensation of stiffness and undue muscular tension, located more or less definitely in the throat. This sensation indicates that the singer's throat is stiffened by excessive muscular contraction. Further, this feeling of throat stiffness indicates to the hearer that the singer's vocal action would become correct if the undue muscular tension were relaxed.
Combining now the results of empirical and scientific investigation of the voice, throat stiffness is seen to be the interfering influence which disturbs the instinctive connection between voice and ear. Let us now consider the meaning of throat stiffness as a feature of incorrect tone-production. First, what is muscular stiffness?
All the voluntary muscles of the body are arranged in opposed pairs, sets, or groups. A typical pair of opposed muscles are the biceps and triceps of the upper arm. Contraction of the biceps flexes the forearm at the elbow; the contrary movement, extending the forearm, results from the contraction of the triceps. This principle of opposition applies to the entire muscular system. One set of muscles raises the ribs in inspiration, another set lowers them in expiration; one group flexes the fingers and clenches the fist, an opposed set extends the fingers and opens the hand. Muscular opposition does not imply that the entire structure is made up of parallel pairs of muscles, like the biceps and triceps, located on opposite sides of the same bone. It means only that the opposed sets pull in contrary directions.
Each opposed set consists of muscles of about equal strength. Under normal conditions of relaxation the entire muscular system exerts a slight degree of contraction. To this normal state of oppositional contraction the name "muscular tonicity" is given. The present purpose does not call for a discussion of the subject of muscular tonicity. This form of contraction has no direct bearing on the performance of voluntary movements.
What effect has the voluntary contraction of all the muscles of any member, each opposed set exerting the same degree of strength? No motion of the member results, but the member is brought on tension and stiffened. This is well illustrated in the case of the arm. Extend the arm and clench the fist; then contract all the muscles of the arm, about as the athlete does to display his muscular development. You will notice that the arm becomes stiff and tense.
This state of tension is commonly called "muscular stiffness," but the term is open to objection. It is really the joints which are stiffened, not the muscles. We are, however, so accustomed to speak of muscular stiffness, and particularly of throat stiffness, that little is to be gained by substituting a more accurate expression.
A condition of muscular stiffness results from the contraction of all the muscles of a member, whether this contraction be voluntary or involuntary. This condition does not prevent the normal movements of the member; it only renders the movements more difficult and fatiguing and less effective. It is readily seen why this is the case. More than the necessary strength is exerted by the muscles. Suppose the biceps and triceps, for example, each to be contracted with five units of strength; then let some work be performed by the flexing of the forearm, requiring the exertion of two units of strength. In this case the biceps must exert two units of strength more than the triceps, that is, seven units. In all, the two muscles together exert twelve units of strength to accomplish the effective result of two units. Six times the needed strength is exerted. Activity of this kind is naturally fatiguing.
Muscular stiffness increases the difficulty of complex movements. Not only is unnecessary strength exerted; the stiffness of the joints also interferes with the freedom and facility of motion. But this unfavorable condition does not upset the power of coördination. The instinctive connection between the nerve centers of consciousness and the motor centers is not broken. Although hampered in their efforts, the muscles are still able to execute the demands of consciousness.
As an illustration of this analysis of muscular stiffness let us consider the actions of writing, when performed under the conditions just described. It is possible to write with the hand and arm in a state of muscular stiffness. But one does not write so easily, so rapidly, nor so well with the arm stiff as with the arm normally relaxed. Closer attention must be paid to the forming of the letters, and more effort must be put forth to write with the muscles stiffened; yet the result is not equal to that obtained with less care and labor under normal muscular conditions.
All that has been said of muscular stiffness applies with especial force to the vocal organs. Like the rest of the muscular system, the muscles of the vocal organs are arranged in opposed pairs and sets. The contraction of all the muscles of the throat, each opposed set or pair exerting about the same degree of strength, causes a condition of throat stiffness. Singing is possible in this condition. But the singer's command of the voice is not so complete and satisfactory as under normal conditions.
Throat stiffness does not altogether deprive the vocal organs of their faculty of instinctive adjustment in obedience to the demands of the ear. To a fair extent the voice is under the command of the singer. The vocal cords adjust themselves readily enough for the desired pitch; tones of the various degrees of loudness and softness can be sung in a fairly satisfactory manner. But the muscles are somewhat hampered in their contractions, and the response to the demands of the ear is not quite perfect. This lack of perfect command is evidenced specially in the quality of the tones. Some form of throaty quality always mars the voice when the throat is in a stiffened condition. In this regard the voice refuses to fulfill the demands of the ear. Even though the singer hears, and indeed feels, the effects of the muscular tension, and strives to remedy the fault of production, the voice still refuses to respond.
This incomplete command of the voice is frequently observed, even among singers of very high standing. At first sight the condition here described seems to disprove the statement that the voice normally obeys the ear. But there is no real contradiction of the psychological law of vocal command in the case of a stiff-throated singer. For one thing, whatever degree of command the singer possesses is obtained in accordance with the law of guidance by the ear. Moreover, the failure to secure perfect response is due solely to the interference with the normal workings of the voice, occasioned by the state of throat stiffness. Far from this form of muscular contraction being a contradiction of psychological principles, it will be found on examination to be in perfect accord with well-established laws of physiological psychology.
It is hardly to be supposed that the singer consciously and voluntarily contracts the muscles of the entire vocal mechanism and so deliberately brings about the stiffening of the throat. True, this can readily be done. We can at will sing throaty and nasal tones. But this form of voluntary throat tension is not, properly speaking, an incorrect vocal action. So long as the vocal organs respond to the demands of the ear, the vocal action is correct. Only when the voice refuses to obey can the action be described as incorrect.
A satisfactory definition of the various modes of vocal action can now be given. The correct vocal action is the natural operation of the vocal organs; the voice normally obeys the commands of the ear. An incorrect vocal action occurs when the throat is stiffened by the involuntary contraction of the muscles of the vocal mechanism.
This definition of the vocal action does not solve the problem of tone-production. It is still to be determined how the involuntary contraction of the throat muscles is caused.
[CHAPTER II]
THE CAUSES OF THROAT STIFFNESS AND OF INCORRECT VOCAL ACTION
Involuntary contractions of the voluntary muscles can occur only as reflex actions. If the muscles of the vocal organs are subject to involuntary contractions, the causes of these contractions must be sought through an investigation of the subject of reflex actions.
Reflex actions are of several kinds; of these the simplest type, and the one most easily studied, is the muscular contraction due to the excitation of the sensory nerve endings located in the skin. Thus when the sole of the foot of a sleeping person is tickled, the leg is at first drawn up and then violently kicked out. An exhaustive discussion of the physiological and psychological features of reflex action is not called for here; a sufficient understanding of the subject may safely be assumed to be possessed by the reader.
Involuntary muscular contractions often occur as reflex actions without any direct or tactual irritation of the sensory nerve endings. Several examples of this form of reflex action are now to be considered. These actions will be seen to be matters of such common experience as to call for no special proof. They are the following:
(a) Reflex actions performed under the influence of sensory impressions other than those of touch or muscular sense.
(b) Involuntary muscular contractions due to nervousness.
(c) Contractions of the muscles of certain members, caused by the turning of the attention specially to the members.
(d) Involuntary contractions of muscles, accompanying the exertion of other associated and antagonist muscles, and due to the radiation of nerve impulse.
(a) Reflex Actions due to Sensory Impressions other than those of Touch or Muscular Sense
A wide range of movements is included under this heading. Of these it is necessary to mention only a few, such as the sudden start on the hearing of an unexpected noise, the instinctive movement of dodging to escape an approaching missile, and the raising of the arm to ward off an expected blow.
Actions of a somewhat similar character normally occur in which it is not easy to point to the excitation of any sense or senses. These include the instinctive cowering attitude of fear, the play of facial expression caused by sentiment and emotion, etc.
(b) Involuntary Actions due to Nervousness
A condition of marked nervousness generally causes the involuntary contraction of muscles. Who does not recall his earliest attempts at "speaking a piece" in school? The trembling of the lips, the twitching of the arms and hands, and the vain attempts to govern the bodily movements, are an experience painful even in the recollection.
Movements and contractions due to nervousness are entirely purposeless; they even defy the most earnest efforts at inhibition. A marked feature of this type of involuntary action is the contraction of antagonist groups of muscles, productive of muscular stiffness of the members.
An extreme example of this form of nervousness is offered by the unfortunate sufferer from stage fright. In this condition the entire body often stiffens, and purposeful movement of any kind becomes for a time impossible.
(c) Contractions caused by Special Attention to Certain Members
Suppose a small boy of sensitive nature to enter a room suddenly, and to be at once chided for his awkwardness. His body will probably stiffen, and his awkwardness become more pronounced. Now call his attention to his hands and tell him he is holding them badly. His arms and hands will immediately become painfully stiff. Speak of his feet and his legs come on tension. Whatever member his attention is turned to, the muscles of that part contract involuntarily.
Photographers sometimes have to contend with this form of involuntary action on the part of their sitters. When the hands are to be posed the arms stiffen; so also do the legs, the shoulders, and the neck, each when its turn comes to receive attention.
Under normal conditions this form of awkwardness is easily overcome. Sitting for a photograph soon becomes a simple matter. The boy outgrows the awkward stage and gradually acquires a natural and easy bearing. Muscular stiffening due to attention to special members is usually the result of an uncomfortable feeling of being out of one's element, and ill at ease in one's surroundings. So soon as this feeling wears off the tendency to this form of stiffness disappears.
(d) Contractions of Muscles due to the Radiation of Nerve Impulse
A voluntary exertion of some of the muscles of a member sometimes causes the involuntary contraction of all the other muscles of the part. As will readily be seen, the exercise then takes place under conditions of muscular stiffness. This is commonly a feature of the unskilful and unaccustomed performance of muscular activities. A few examples will serve to illustrate this type of involuntary contraction better than a lengthy discussion of the physio-psychological principles involved.
When a novice takes his first lesson in riding a bicycle he clutches the handle bars in a vise-like grip. His knees are so stiff as to bend only with a great exertion of strength. To steer the wheel the learner must put forth his most powerful muscular efforts. A half-hour lesson in bicycle riding often tires the beginner more than an afternoon's ride does the experienced cyclist.
This condition of muscular stiffness is due to the contraction of antagonist groups of muscles, involving practically the entire body. In one sense the excessive muscular contractions are involuntary; yet it would not be easy to define where the voluntary element of the contractions leaves off.
A similar excessive expenditure of strength may be seen in the attempt of an illiterate laborer to sign his name. He grips the pen as though it were a crowbar, and puts forth enough strength to handle a twenty-pound weight. Learning to dance, or to skate, or to row a boat, is usually accompanied in the beginning by this form of muscular stiffness.
As skill is acquired by practice in the performance of complex activities, the undue muscular tension of the initial stage is gradually relaxed.
There is another way in which the radiation of nerve impulse may be caused, entirely distinct from the lack of use or skill. Muscular stiffness may be induced in the case of activities so thoroughly habitual as to be normally performed automatically. The cause of muscular stiffness now to be considered is the attempt to perform complex activities mechanically, that is, by consciously directing the individual component movements and muscular contractions involved in the actions. Involuntary contractions of associated and antagonist muscles take place under these conditions, in addition to the voluntary exercise of the muscles normally exerted in the movements.
This fact may be illustrated by attempting to write a few lines, and forming every stroke of each letter by a distinct exercise of the will. If you keep up this attempt for ten minutes you will find that you press upon the paper with many times your accustomed weight. The hand stiffens in consequence of the close attention paid to its movements. This stiffness will extend to the arm, and even to the shoulder, if the exercise be continued long enough and with sufficient intensity of attention to the hand.
Another good illustration of this form of muscular stiffening may be found by walking upstairs, and paying the same kind of attention to the muscular actions. Try to ascend a single flight of stairs, performing each elementary movement by a distinct volitional impulse. Pause on the first step to secure perfect balance on one foot; raise the other foot, bending the leg at the knee, then place this foot carefully on the next higher step. Now gradually shift the weight of the body from the lower to the higher foot; as the body inclines forward, exert the muscles of the back and sides to preserve your balance; then contract the leg muscles so as to raise the body to the higher step, with the weight supported on that foot. Repeat this operation for each step. To mount one flight of stairs in this way will tire you more than ascending a half dozen flights in the ordinary automatic way.
All four of the types of involuntary muscular contraction just described may be combined in a single instance. An inexperienced violin soloist, such as a student playing at a conservatory recital, often exemplifies this. Nervousness and awkwardness cause him to tremble; the scratchy sound of his tones makes him twitch and start; meanwhile, the close attention paid to his fingering and bowing stiffens his arms and completes his difficulty.
The vocal organs are peculiarly subject to the forms of involuntary muscular contraction under consideration. Each of the causes of muscular tension may exert its special influence on the voice. Let us go over the ground once more, this time with special reference to the actions of the throat muscles.
(a) Reflex Actions of the Muscles of the Vocal Organs, Independent of Direct Sensory Excitation
Involuntary actions of the vocal organs normally occur in response to stimuli furnished by the emotions and feelings. Every one is familiar with the shout of triumph, the sigh of relief, and the ejaculation of surprise. Some emotions cause a convulsive stiffening of the muscles of the vocal organs so complete as to render tone-production for a time absolutely impossible. "Speechless with terror," "breathless with apprehension," are expressions which accurately describe psychological processes. A crowd of people watching a difficult rescue of a drowning man is silent so long as the uncertainty lasts. A shout instantly goes up when the rescue is seen to be safely effected. Both the silence of the nervous strain and the shout of relief are normal involuntary responses to the emotional states.
(b) The Influence of Nervousness on the Vocal Action
Nervous conditions exert a striking influence on the operations of the voice. Even when our self-control under trying conditions is complete in all other respects we are often unable to prevent our voices betraying our nervous state. Stage fright, an extreme form of nervousness, sometimes deprives the sufferer entirely of the power of speech. This temporary loss of vocal command is not due to an inability to innervate the muscles of the vocal organs; on the contrary, it is caused by extreme muscular stiffness due to the violent, though involuntary, contraction of all the muscles of the vocal organs.
Under normal conditions, entirely aside from nervousness, the voice instinctively reflects every phase of sentiment and emotion. Love and hate, sorrow and joy, anger, fear, and rage, each is clearly expressed by the quality of the tones, independent of the meaning of the spoken words. All these fine shades of tone quality result from muscular adjustments of the vocal mechanism. In some mysterious manner the outflow of motor impulses to the throat muscles is governed by the nervous and emotional states.
This form of muscular contraction is in one sense not involuntary. As the voice is voluntarily used, all the muscular contractions involved are voluntary. Yet the minute contractions producing tone qualities expressive of emotion are distinctly involuntary. More than this, these contractions cannot usually be inhibited. An angry man cannot make his voice sound other than angry. Our voices often betray our feelings in spite of the most earnest efforts at concealment.
While the voice always normally and involuntarily adopts the tone quality indicative of the emotional state, this action of the vocal organs may be voluntarily and purposely performed. A perfect command of these fine shades of tone quality renders the voice a very potent instrument of expression. For the purposes of dramatic singing this form of vocal expression might be of great value. It is to be regretted that dramatic singers of this day pay so little attention to purely tonal expressiveness. This is probably due in great measure to the prevalence of throat stiffness, which robs the voice of much of its expressive power.
(c) Contractions of the Throat Muscles, caused by Attention to the Throat
When a physician attempts to examine a child's throat, the tendency of the throat muscles to this form of involuntary contractions is apt to be evidenced. The jaw stiffens and the tongue rises; for a time the rebellious little throat refuses to remain quiet and relaxed.
People usually have some such difficulty the first time they submit to examination with the laryngoscope. This is very apt to occur, even in the case of experienced singers. Needless to say, this form of muscular contraction is entirely involuntary; it even defies the most earnest attempts at prevention. Comparatively little experience is required for normal people to overcome this tendency. The throat usually becomes tractable after one or two trials with the laryngoscope.
Vocalists are well aware of the proneness of one part of the vocal mechanism, the tongue, to stiffen in consequence of direct attention being paid to this member. In this connection Frangçon-Davies remarks: "When the writer in early student days concentrated his attention upon his tongue he found that this member became very stiff and unruly indeed." (The Singing of the Future, London, 1906.) Leo Kofler speaks of the same tendency: "Tell a pupil to let his tongue lie flat in his mouth; he draws it back till it dams up his throat." (Werner's Magazine, Oct., 1899.)
(d) Throat Stiffness due to the Radiation of Nerve Impulse
Two types of muscular tension due to the radiation of motor impulses were noted; first, the stiffness incident to the early stages of practice in complex activities; second, the stiffness caused by the attempt to perform complex activities in a mechanical manner by paying attention to the individual component movements and contractions. To both these types of muscular stiffness the voice is especially subject.
It is not easy to find a perfect illustration of throat stiffness incident to the early stages of instruction in singing. For this the chief reason is that the later form of stiffness, due to the attempt directly to manage the vocal organs, is much more pronounced than the temporary early tension. As good an example as possible would be the following: Let some one possessed of a fine natural untrained voice sing a steady tone and then attempt to trill on the same note. The attempted trill will invariably indicate a much higher degree of stiffness than the single tone.
Several investigators of the voice have noticed the tendency of the throat to stiffen when the singer tries to manage the voice by paying direct attention to the mechanical action. Clara Kathleen Rogers points this out clearly in the following passage: "There exists a possible and a dangerous obstacle to the performance of the natural mission of the voice. That obstacle is what? It is a superfluous and misdirected mental activity which is fruitful of a corresponding obstruction on the part of the body. In the body this obstruction takes the form of superfluous or unnatural tension." (The Philosophy of Singing, N. Y., 1893.) Prof. Scripture describes in scientific language the results of any attempt directly to manage the vocal organs. Speaking of the use of the voice under unfavorable conditions, he says: "The attempt is instinctively made by the speaker or singer to correct such a fault by voluntary innervation of the muscles; this cannot succeed perfectly because an increase of innervation brings about contractions of associated and antagonist muscles with the result of changed conditions and changed sounds. Such extra muscular effort is, moreover, very fatiguing." (The Elements of Experimental Phonetics, 1902.)
For the purposes of scientific voice culture this is one of the most important facts which have been determined. The attempt to manage the voice, by paying attention to the mechanical operations of the vocal organs, causes an involuntary contraction of all the throat muscles, and so interferes with the normal instinctive vocal action. Even the mere thinking of the throat in singing, and especially in practising, is enough to induce throat stiffness.
[CHAPTER III]
THROAT STIFFNESS AND INCORRECT SINGING
It is a lamentable fact that most of the singing heard nowadays gives evidence of throat stiffness. Perfect singing becomes more rare with each succeeding year. The younger generation of artists in particular evince a marked tendency to this fault of production.
Considered as a cause of faulty tone-production in singing, throat stiffness is due to only one influence, viz., the attempt to manage the voice by thinking of the vocal organs and their mechanical operations. Muscular tension due to nervousness, or to the unskilful nature of first attempts at singing, cannot be looked upon as causing a wrong vocal action. In the case of nervousness the lack of vocal command faithfully reflects the psychological condition of the singer; the imperfect response of the voice is normal to this condition. The stiffness due to first attempts is also perfectly normal. Moreover, both these forms of throat stiffness are temporary; they disappear when the cause, nervousness or lack of skill, is removed.
Throat stiffness does not necessarily destroy the musical character of the voice. Very many degrees and varieties of excessive throat tension are possible. The undue muscular exertion may be so slight in degree that the throat stiffness can be detected in the sound of the tones only by a highly sensitive and observant hearer. Or on the other hand, the muscles of the entire throat may be so powerfully contracted that the singer has only a very imperfect command of the voice. Between the two extremes, perfect tone-production and exaggerated stiffness, every conceivable shade of difference in degree of undue tension might be illustrated in the case of some prominent singer.
Faulty tone-production manifests itself in two ways; first, in its effects on the tones of the voice; second, in its effects on the singer's throat. Let us consider each of these topics separately.
The Effect of Throat Stiffness on the Sound of the Voice
In whatever degree throat stiffness is present, to just that extent the voice sacrifices something of its capabilities as a musical instrument. The voice can realize its full natural resources of beauty, range, power, and flexibility only when the throat is absolutely free from undue tension. As regards the quality of the tones, every phase of undue throat tension has its effect on the sound of the voice. These effects are always bad; the same voice is less beautiful when used in a stiffened condition than when perfectly produced. Throaty and nasal tones are always more or less harsh and offensive to the sensitive hearer. Further, the more pronounced the state of throat stiffness the more marked does the throaty or nasal quality become.
Under conditions of throat tension the range of the voice is almost always curtailed. The highest and lowest notes possible to any voice can be reached only when the throat is entirely free from stiffness. So also with regard to the varying degrees of power, undue tension prevents the singer from obtaining the extreme effects. A throaty singer's soft tones generally lack the carrying quality. Louder tones can be produced with a normally relaxed than with a stiffened throat.
Real flexibility of voice is impossible to a stiff-throated singer. Extreme rapidity and accuracy of muscular adjustments, the physical basis of coloratura singing, cannot be attained when the muscles are hampered by undue tension.
A distinct fault of production, the tremolo, is directly due to throat stiffness. A simple experiment illustrates the nature of the muscular action from which the tremolo results. "Set" the muscles of the arm by contracting the biceps and triceps with the utmost possible strength. With the arm in this stiffened condition flex and extend the forearm slowly several times. You will notice a pronounced trembling of the arm. Why a condition of muscular stiffness should cause the affected member to tremble is not well understood. But the fact admits of no question. It is highly probable that the tremolo is caused by a trembling of the vocal organs, due to muscular stiffness. The tones of a voice afflicted with tremolo always give evidence of extreme throat tension.
Another bad result of throat stiffness in tone-production is seen in the matter of intonation. Tones produced with a stiff throat are seldom in perfect tune. This subject will be more fully treated in a later chapter.
Effects of Muscular Stiffness on the Throat
Many of the muscles of the vocal organs, particularly the laryngeal muscles, are extremely small and delicate. Under normal conditions these muscles are fully capable of exerting the relatively small amount of strength required of them without strain or injury. But when the voice is used in a stiffened condition the delicate muscles of the larynx are obliged to contract with much more than their normal strength. To borrow an expression of the engineers, the throat muscles are then forced to carry an excessive load.
A balanced contraction of antagonist groups of muscles is the muscular basis of throat stiffness. When the voice is used in this condition each muscle of the vocal organs must put forth the amount of effort necessary to produce the desired effect under normal conditions, in addition to an effort equal to the counterbalancing pull of its antagonist muscle. An increase in the degree of throat stiffness demands a corresponding increase in the effort exerted by every muscle of the throat.
Over-exertion of muscles always results in strain and injury. The extent of the injury to the muscular tissues varies with the degree of excessive exertion and with the duration of the injurious exercise. An advanced stage of muscular strain is distinctly a pathological condition.
Tone-production in a state of throat stiffness is of necessity injurious to the muscles of the vocal organs. The delicate laryngeal muscles are specially subject to the injurious effects of strain. These effects vary in extent and character, according to the degree of throat stiffness, to the extent and duration of the faulty use of the voice, and to the individual characteristics of the singer. A very slight degree of undue tension may not sensibly injure the voice. Even a fairly marked condition of tension, such as is evidenced by the uniformly throaty quality of many baritones and mezzo-sopranos, may be persisted in for years without perceptibly straining the throat or destroying the musical value of the voice. But a misuse of the voice is bound, in the course of time, to show its injurious results on the throat. How many promising young singers are forced to abandon their careers in early life, at the time when their artistic and dramatic powers are just ripening to fruition! A misused voice "wears out" years before its time.
Most of the throat troubles of singers are directly caused by throat stiffness and muscular strain. Dr. Mills, among others, touches on this fact. "All the author's experience as a laryngologist tended to convince him that most of those evils from which speakers and singers suffer, whatever the part of the vocal mechanism affected, arise from faulty methods of voice production, or excess in the use of methods in themselves correct." (Voice Production in Singing and Speaking, Phila., 1906.)
For the purposes of artistic singing, a voice loses all its value when the injurious effects of throat stiffness become very pronounced. On this account singers are obliged to give up appearing in public before the condition reaches the extreme. It follows therefore that only in the case of public speakers do we see the extreme results of persistence in the wrong use of the voice. "Clergyman's sore throat" is the name usually applied to this condition. The sustained use of the voice, under conditions of extreme strain, is exceedingly painful both to the speaker and to the hearer.
Singers are usually unconscious of throat stiffness unless the condition be very pronounced. Neither the sense of hearing nor the muscular sense informs the singer of the state of tension. Accustomed to the sound of his own voice, the singer may be unaware of a throaty or nasal quality which he would instantly detect in another voice. This is also true of the muscular sensations of tone-production; habit makes the singer inattentive to the sensations caused by throat tension.
Throat stiffness always tends to become greater in degree; it is a self-aggravating condition. Even though very slight in its beginnings, the state of stiffness obliges the singer to put forth more than the normal effort in order to secure the desired effects. This increase of innervation is not confined to the muscles which need to be more strongly contracted. As Prof. Scripture points out, it also extends to the associated and antagonist muscles, that is, to all the muscles of the throat. Thus the stiffness is increased in degree. Still greater exertion is then required, resulting in still greater stiffness. This may go on for years, the voice gradually becoming less responsive to the demands of the singer.
Individual personal characteristics are an important factor in determining a singer's experience with throat stiffness. Some singers are so fortunately constituted as to be almost entirely free from the tendency to stiffen the throat. Others detect the tendency in its beginning and find no difficulty in correcting it. Still others habituate themselves to some manner of tone-production, and neither increase nor diminish the degree of stiffness. Even under modern methods of instruction, many artists are correctly trained from the start and so never stiffen their throats in any way.
Several traits of character are concerned in determining the individual tendency to throat stiffness. Nervous temperament, keenness of ear, artistic and musical endowment, each has its influence in this connection.
The great prevalence of throat stiffness among present-day singers is due primarily to the idea of mechanical vocal management as the basis of instruction in singing. Not only are modern methods intrinsically worthless, in that a correct use of the voice cannot be attained by the application of mechanical rules. Worse than this, the means used for training the voice are such as to defeat their own purpose. At every instant of instruction the student's attention is expressly turned to the vocal organs and to the mechanical operations of the voice. The only possible result of this kind of vocal instruction is to stiffen the throat and so to render the correct vocal action an impossibility.
A peculiar contradiction is presented by the modern vocal teacher; his artistic conception of singing is utterly at variance with his ideas of mechanical tone-production. It may safely be said that the vast majority of vocal teachers are thoroughly conversant with the highest standards of artistic singing. They know what effects their pupils ought to obtain. But the means they use for enabling the pupils to get these effects have exactly the contrary result. When the student tries to open the throat this obstinate organ only closes the tighter. Attempting to correct a tremolo by "holding the throat steady" causes the throat to tremble all the more.
Modern voice culture, in its practical aspect, is a struggle with throat stiffness. Everything the student does, for the purpose of acquiring direct command of the voice, has some influence in causing the throat to stiffen. Telling the student to hold the throat relaxed seldom effects a cure; this direction includes a primary cause of tension,—the turning of attention to the throat. All the teacher can do to counteract the stiffening influence is to give relaxing exercises. These are in most cases efficacious so long as constructive instruction is abandoned, and the relaxing of the throat is made the sole purpose of study. But soon after positive instruction is resumed the tendency to stiffen reappears. As lesson follows after lesson, the stiffness becomes gradually, imperceptibly more pronounced. At length the time again comes for relaxing exercises.
A single repetition of this process, relaxing the throat and then stiffening it again, may extend over several months of study. During this time the student naturally learns a great deal about music and the artistic side of singing, and also improves the keenness of the sense of hearing. This artistic development is necessarily reflected in the voice so soon as the throat is again relaxed.
It usually happens that students change teachers about the time the voice has become unmanageably stiff. In this condition the student, of course, sings rather badly. A marked improvement in the singing generally results from the change of teachers. This is easy to understand because the new teacher devotes his first efforts to relaxing the stiffened throat. Later on this improvement is very likely to be lost, for the second teacher has nothing more of a positive nature to offer than the first.
Vocal teachers in general seem to be aware of the fact that mechanical instruction causes the student's throat to stiffen. A much-debated question is whether "local effort" is needed to bring about the correct vocal action. The term local effort is used to describe the direct innervation of the throat muscles. A logical application of the mechanical idea absolutely demands the use of local effort. This is the main argument of the local-effort teachers.
Those teachers who discountenance local effort have only their own experience to guide them. They simply know that local effort results in throat stiffness. Yet these teachers have nothing to offer in place of the mechanical management of the vocal organs. Even though aware of the evil results of local effort, they yet know of no other means of imparting the correct vocal action. The weakness of the position of these teachers is well summed up by a writer in Werner's Magazine for June, 1899: "To teach without local effort or local thought is to teach in the dark. Every exponent of the non-local-effort theory contradicts his theory every time he tells of it." To that extent this writer states the case correctly. Every modern vocal teacher believes that the voice must be consciously guided in its muscular operations. Until this erroneous belief is abandoned it is idle for a teacher to decry the use of local effort.
[CHAPTER IV]
THE TRUE MEANING OF VOCAL TRAINING
In all scientific treatises on the voice it is assumed that the voice has some specifically correct mode of operation. Training the voice is supposed to involve the leading of the vocal organs to abandon their natural and instinctive manner of operating, and to adopt some other form of activity. Further, the assumption is made that the student of singing must cause the vocal organs to adopt a supposedly correct manner of operating by paying direct attention to the mechanical movements of tone-production. Both these assumptions are utterly mistaken. On scientific analysis no difference is seen between the right and the wrong vocal action, such as is assumed in the accepted Vocal Science. Psychological principles do not countenance the idea of mechanical vocal management.
Yet the fact remains, as a matter of empirical observation, that there is a marked difference between the natural voice and the correctly trained voice. What change takes place in the voice as a result of correct training?
Singing is a natural function of the vocal organs. Learning to sing artistically does not involve a departure from natural and instinctive processes. The training of the voice consists of the acquirement of skill in the use of the vocal organs, and of nothing more.
Under normal conditions the vocal organs instinctively adjust themselves, by performing the necessary muscular contractions, to fulfill the demands of the ear. In order that a perfect musical tone be produced it is necessary in the first place that the ear be keen and well trained; only such an ear can know the exact sound of a perfect tone, and so demand it of the voice. Second, the vocal organs must make repeated efforts to produce the perfect tone, each response approaching nearer to the mentally-conceived tone. Two elements are therefore involved in the training of the voice; first, the cultivation of the sense of hearing; second, the acquirement of skill in the use of the voice by the actual practice of singing.
Practical vocal teachers generally recognize the importance of both these elements of Voice Culture. Only in one way do they fall short of fully realizing the value of ear training and of practice guided by the ear;—they do not see that these two topics sum up the whole material of vocal training. Unfortunately, the search after some imaginary means of direct vocal management destroys, in all modern methods, most of the value of the real elements of voice culture.
A few citations from standard writers on the voice will show the estimation in which ear-training is held. To begin with, the old Italian masters were fully alive to the necessity of cultivating the sense of hearing, as witness Tosi: "One who has not a good ear should not undertake either to instruct or to sing." This writer also says in the chapter headed "Observations for a student": "Let him hear as much as he can the most celebrated singers, and likewise the most excellent instrumental performers; because from the attention in hearing them one reaps more advantage than from any instruction whatsoever."
Another early writer on the voice, the celebrated Adolph Bernhard Marx, speaks of the advantage derived from the attentive listening to voices: "An important influence is exerted by the frequent attentive hearing of good voices. Through this an idea of good tone is strengthened, which gains an influence on the use and also on the training of the organs, not perhaps immediate, but clearly seen in its results." (Die Kunst des Gesanges, Berlin, 1826.)
Among modern writers only a few need be mentioned. D. Frangçon-Davies remarks: "The training of the ear is one half of the training of the voice." (The Singing of the Future.) Clara Kathleen Rogers is even more emphatic in her statement: "Not to exercise our sense of hearing is to rob it gradually of the habit of acting at all; whereas, if we keep it in exercise, it will daily grow readier, finer, more acute, more analytical, and the ear will serve as an ever more effective medium of reaction on the will." The following remark of the same writer points unmistakably to an understanding of the evil results of the attempt to sing mechanically: "If the singer's attention is directed to any part of the vocal instrument, or even to its motor, the breath, his sense of sound, and his perception of either the beautiful or the bad elements in sound, will grow fainter and fainter." (The Physiology of Singing.)
As for the purpose of cultivating the sense of hearing, this is also pointed out by several prominent vocal theorists. One of the latest exponents of the traditional method of instruction was Stéphen de la Madelaine, who remarks: "The first need of the voice is to be guided in its exercise by an ear capable of appreciating naturally its least deviation." (Théorie complète du Chant, Paris, 1852.)
One of the most recent authoritative writers on voice culture, Dr. Mills, speaks at length of the necessity of guiding the voice by the sense of hearing. "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." Dr. Mills touches on the psychological features of the connection between voice and ear. "There can be no doubt that the nervous impulses that pass from the ear to the brain are of all sensory messages the most important guides for the outgoing ones that determine the necessary movements." Summing up the matter of ear-training and vocal guidance Dr. Mills says: "The author would impress on all students of music, and of the voice as used in both singing and speaking, the paramount importance of learning early to listen most attentively to others when executing music; and above all to listen with the greatest care to themselves, and never to accept any musical tone that does not fully satisfy the ear." (Voice Production in Singing and Speaking, 1906.)
One more citation from Mrs. Rogers must suffice. "And now, in conclusion, let me once more remind the singer that in practising these and all other vocal exercises the ear is the only safe guide."
Given a fine natural voice and a trained musical ear, skill is acquired in the use of the voice by the repetition of effort. The only necessity is for the singer to have a clear mental conception of the effects to be obtained, and to listen attentively to the voice. With each repetition of an exercise, whether on sustained tones, scale passages, crescendo and diminuendo, or whatever else, the voice responds more smoothly and accurately to the mental demand. Each time the student practises the exercise he listens to the tones and notes how they differ from the desired effect; he strives the next time to correct this departure.
Psychological principles verify the proverb that practice makes perfect. This is true of all complex activities. Through repeated performance the muscles, or rather the motor-nerve centers, become habituated to complex activities. Coördinations gradually become perfect and automatic because the nerve impulses naturally tend to take the well-worn paths. To this rule the voice is no exception. Practice makes perfect, with the voice, as with every other muscular activity.
In practical Voice Culture the ear and the voice are normally trained together. The proper function of the teacher is to guide the student in developing along the two lines. Listening to his own voice is a valuable means for the student to develop his sense of hearing. It is for the master to point out the salient qualities and faults in the pupil's tones in order that the pupil may know what to listen for. As the ear gradually becomes keener and better acquainted with the characteristics of perfect singing, it also becomes more exacting in its demands on the voice. In its turn the voice steadily improves in its responsiveness to the ear.
Skill in using the voice involves something more than has thus far been considered under the head of tone-production. Skill in singing is synonymous with finished vocal technique, and the basis of technique is the correctly produced single tone. It is seen that a single tone can be sung correctly when, first, the singer knows the sound of the perfect musical tone, and second, the vocal organs are not hampered by muscular stiffness. When these conditions are fulfilled nothing but practice is needed for the acquirement of technical skill.
Coloratura singing presents the highest development of vocal technique. Dazzling as the effects of coloratura are, they are obtained by the combination of a few simple elements. Perfect command of the single tone throughout the entire compass of the voice, with accurately graded crescendo and diminuendo, the clear, rapid, and accurate transition from one note to another in the varying degrees of staccato and legato,—these elements include the whole physical material of vocal technique.
Training the voice is one concrete process. Its component features may be considered separately; the cultivation of the sense of hearing, the acquirement of command of the single tone, and the development of technical skill,—each may be considered apart from its companion processes. But in actual practice the three elements of Voice Culture cannot be dissociated. The student of singing progresses simultaneously along all three lines. Intelligently directed practice in singing results in this simultaneous progress. As the voice depends for guidance on the ear, so the ear benefits by the improvement of the voice. Each advance made by the voice toward the perfect production of tone is marked by a greater facility in the technical use of the voice. Correct tone-production cannot be directly acquired by the singing of single tones. This practice would tend to stiffen the throat. Technique and tone-production must be developed together.
There is a difference between the natural and the properly trained voice. As to the nature of this difference the facts of empirical observation are borne out by the results of scientific analysis. The natural voice is crude because it is unskilfully used. A lack of facility is revealed in the untrained singer's handling of the voice. Intonations are imperfect; transitions from note to note are rough; the whole effect indicates that the voice is not completely under the command of the singer. Further, the sound of the individual tones betrays faults of production. The tones are more or less throaty or nasal, or indicative of some degree of muscular tension.
A perfectly used voice, on the other hand, convinces the hearer that the singer has full command of all the resources of the vocal organs. Each tone is a perfect musical sound, free from fault or blemish. The voice moves from one note to another with ease and with purity of intonation. All the gradations of loud and soft, all the lights and shades of sentiment or passion, seem to respond directly to the singer's instinctive desire for musical expression. On the physical side the singer's voice is felt by the hearer to be in a condition of balanced and harmonious muscular activity.
When the possessor of a good natural voice goes through a proper course of vocal training, the faults of production native to the untrained voice are gradually corrected. Wrong muscular tension is imperceptibly relaxed. Little by little the student acquires facility in handling the voice. Coincident with this progress is the advance toward the correct vocal action. The transition from the natural to the perfect use of the voice is gradual and imperceptible. There is no stage of progress at which the operations of the voice radically change in character. At no time does the student change the manner of managing the voice. Effects difficult at first gradually become easier, simply as the result of practice. This is the only change that the voice undergoes in training.
One influence, and only one, can interfere with this normal development of the voice. This is the involuntary and unconscious stiffening of the throat. In the normal practice of singing nothing is involved which could cause the throat to stiffen. True, the first stages of study are usually marked by a slight degree of stiffness, due solely to the lack of practice and experience. This initial stiffness does not tend to become habitual; it disappears before the student becomes aware of it, and leaves no permanent trace on the voice. That is, provided mechanical instruction does not intervene, to introduce the tendency directly to stiffen the throat.
As the initial stiffness disappears, and the vocal action gradually becomes smooth and automatic, the voice begins to take on the characteristics of perfect tone-production. The voice rounds out, the tones become free and true, and in perfect tune. No excessive throat tension being present, the voice conforms to the correct empirical standard of tone-production. It gives evidence to the ear of correct support and of open throat. The tones issue freely from the mouth and convey no impression of throat or nose.
As a matter of experience it is known that vocal students generally make satisfactory progress in the first few months of study. This is perfectly natural. It requires several months for the normally constituted student to grasp the idea of mechanical vocal management. Gifted with a fine voice, the natural impulse of any one is to sing. By singing naturally the voice is bound to improve.
Just so soon as the student begins to understand the meaning of attempted mechanical guidance of the voice, the evil effects of throat stiffness begin to be manifest. The more earnest and intelligent students are often the worst sufferers from throat stiffness. They more readily grasp the mechanical doctrines of modern methods and apply the mechanical idea more thoroughly.
There is in reality no problem of tone-production such as the accepted theory of Voice Culture propounds. The voice does not require to be taught how to act. Tone-production was never thought to involve any mechanical problem until the attention of vocalists was turned to the mechanical operations of the voice. This dates, roughly speaking, from about 1800. Since that time the whole tendency of Voice Culture has been mechanical. Nowadays the entire musical world is acquainted with the idea that the voice must be directly guided; hardly any one has ever heard this belief contradicted. To say that the voice needs no guidance other than the ear would seem utterly preposterous to the average lover of singing. It is even highly probable that this statement would not be understood. Yet there is strong evidence that the old Italian masters would have had equal difficulty in grasping the idea of mechanical vocal management. How long it will take for the vocal profession to be persuaded of the error of the mechanical idea only the future can determine.
Probably the most important fact about vocal training is the following: The voice is benefited by producing beautiful tones, and is injured by producing harsh sounds. A tone of perfect beauty can be sung only when the vocal organs are free from unnecessary tension. The nearer the tones approach to the perfection of beauty, the closer does the voice come to the correct action. Healthy exercise of the voice, with the throat free from strain, strengthens and develops the throat muscles. Harsh and unmusical sounds, produced by the voice, indicate that the throat is in a condition of injurious tension. Singing under these circumstances strains and weakens the muscles of the throat and injures the voice. The harsher the tones the worse they are for the voice.
Beauty of tone is the only criterion of the correct vocal action. By listening to himself the singer may know whether his tone-production is correct. If the tones are beautiful the tone-production cannot be wrong. The ear must always decide. A normally constituted ear instinctively delights in hearing beautiful sounds. While attentive listening renders the ear more keen and discriminating, no vocal student of average gifts need be told the meaning of tonal beauty.
Instinct prompts the possessor of a fine natural voice and a musical ear to sing, and to sing beautiful tones. No normally constituted student can take pleasure in the practice of mechanical exercises. This form of study is repugnant to the musical sensibility. Vocal students want to sing; they feel instinctively that the practice of mechanical exercises is not singing. A prominent exponent of mechanical instruction complains: "I tell them to take breathing exercises three times a day—but they all want to go right to singing songs." (Werner's Magazine, April, 1899.) These students are perfectly right. They know instinctively that the voice can be trained only by singing. There is no connection between artistic singing and the practice of toneless breathing exercises. "Five finger drills" and studies in broken scales of the types generally used are also utterly unmusical. Mechanical drills, whether toneless or vocal, have little effect other than to induce throat stiffness.
[CHAPTER V]
IMITATION THE RATIONAL BASIS OF VOICE CULTURE
It is generally assumed by vocal theorists that the voice cannot be trained by imitation. Browne and Behnke state this belief definitely: "Singing cannot be learned exclusively by imitation." (Voice, Song, and Speech.) Having ascertained the futility of the attempt to teach singing mechanically, it is now in order to determine the truth or falsity of the statement that the exercise of the imitative faculty alone does not suffice for the training of the voice.
In the first place, no one has ever thought of questioning the existence of an instinct of vocal imitation. On the contrary, this instinct is everywhere recognized. In childhood we learn to speak our mother tongue by imitating the speech of those about us. "Talking proper does not set in till the instinct to imitate sounds ripens in the nervous system." (The Principles of Psychology, Wm. James, New York, 1890.)
Vocal imitation would be impossible without the ability of the voice to produce sounds in obedience to the commands of the ear. This ability the voice normally possesses; spoken language could not otherwise exist. The voice can imitate a wide range of sounds. If the perfect vocal tone can be shown to be included in this range of sounds, then the voice can be trained by imitation.
Exceptional powers of vocal imitation are sometimes developed. Vaudeville performers are by no means rare who can imitate the tones of the oboe, the clarinet, the muted trumpet, and several other instruments. Imitation of the notes and songs of birds is also a familiar type of performance. This peculiar gift of imitation results in each case from some special structure of the vocal organs. One performer can imitate the reed instruments, another the lighter brasses, and so on. Just what peculiar formation of the vocal organs is required for this type of imitative ability need not be inquired here. All that need be noted is, that the vocal organs must be so constructed as to be able to produce the particular quality of sound. Given this natural ability on the part of the vocal organs, the power to produce the tone quality is developed by repeated attempts at imitation. The possessor of the natural gift perfects this gift by practice. For practice in the imitation of sounds to be effective it is necessary that the ear be well acquainted with the tone quality to be reproduced. In addition, the practice must be guided by the performer listening closely to the sounds produced by the vocal organs, and constantly comparing these sounds to the tones of the instrument chosen for imitation.
This vocal imitation of instruments is not a normal ability; the tones of the oboe and trumpet do not lie within the range of qualities native to the normal voice. But the quality of the perfect vocal tone is unquestionably within the range of every voice so constituted as to be capable of artistic singing. A fine natural voice normally produces beautiful tones. It is only with this type of voice that Voice Culture is concerned. Such a voice must be capable of producing the perfect vocal tone. Can it learn to produce this quality of tone by imitation?
It cannot be questioned that the faulty tones of one voice can readily be imitated by another voice. Any one endowed with normal powers of speech can imitate a markedly nasal speaking voice. This is equally true of a nasal tone in singing, and of a strongly throaty tone as well. The more marked the fault of production the more readily it is heard and the more easily it can be imitated.
Let us imagine the case of a vocal teacher who undertakes to teach a gifted pupil by having the pupil imitate tones of faulty production, and gradually correcting the faults in the tones sung as a model for the pupil. The master is of course understood to have perfect command of his own voice. Suppose this master to begin the course of instruction by singing for the pupil tones of exaggerated throaty quality, and bidding the pupil to imitate these tones. Naturally, the pupil would have no difficulty in doing so. At the next lesson the master would very slightly improve the quality of the tones sung as a model for the pupil's imitation. The student would listen to these tones and model his daily practice accordingly. Just so soon as the student had succeeded in correctly reproducing this slightly less throaty tone the master would again set a slightly improved model.
With each successive step the master might eliminate, one by one, the faults of his own tone-production. Following the same course, the pupil would also gradually approach a correct model of tone. Finally, all the faults of tone-production having been corrected, both of master and pupil, the latter would be called upon to imitate perfect vocal tones. It would necessarily follow either that the student would successfully imitate the master's perfect tones or that at some point in this progress the student's imitative faculty would be found lacking.
Could any point be located at which the student would be unable to imitate the teacher's voice? This could certainly not be in the early stages of the course. Any one can imitate a very bad throaty or nasal tone. This being done, the imitation of a slightly less faulty tone would also present no difficulty. A second improvement in the master's model tone would again be readily imitated, and so on, with each succeeding correction of the faults of production. When the last trace of faulty production in the student's voice had been eliminated, he would be singing perfect tones. It is utterly impossible to define a point in this progress at which the pupil would be unable to imitate the teacher's voice. If a bad fault of production can be imitated, so can a comparatively slight fault. Further, if the pupil can correct his pronounced faulty production by imitating a tone not quite so faulty, so can he improve upon this tone by imitating a still better model of production. This process of gradual improvement by imitation must be capable of continuation until the last fault is eliminated. No limit can be set to the ability of the voice to improve its manner of tone-production by imitation. It must therefore be concluded that the perfect vocal action can be acquired by imitation.
In practical Voice Culture, learning to sing by imitation means simply the cultivation of the sense of hearing and the guidance of the voice by the ear. In other words, those vocal theorists who insist upon ear training commit themselves to the theory of imitative Voice Culture. What necessity is there of mechanical management of the vocal organs if the voice is to be guided by the ear? Even if mechanical management of the voice were possible it would be entirely superfluous. The voice needs no other guidance than the singer's sense of hearing.
Here another striking question is encountered: Why should the vocal organs be thought to be unable to adjust themselves for the tone quality demanded by the ear any more than for the pitch? No vocal theorist has ever thought to formulate rules for securing the tension of the vocal cords necessary for the desired pitch. This is always left to instinctive processes. No one would ever undertake to question the voice's ability to sing by imitation a note of any particular pitch. What valid reason can be given for denying the corresponding ability regarding tone quality?
Only one answer can be made to this question. The whole matter of mechanical vocal management rests on pure assumption. No scientific proof has ever been sought for the belief that the voice requires mechanical management. This necessity is always assumed, but the assumption is utterly illogical. The vocal organs adjust themselves for the imitation of tone quality by exactly the same psychological processes as for the imitation of pitch. Neither pitch nor tone quality can be regulated in any other way than by the guidance of the ear.
Imitation furnishes the only means of acquiring the correct vocal action. Several authorities on the voice admit the value of imitation, even though they also make much of the mechanical doctrines of modern methods. Sieber gives imitation as the best means of curing faults of production. "The best means to free the student of the three forms of faulty tone just described is possessed by that teacher who is able to imitate these faults with his own voice." (Vollständiges Lehrbuch der Gesangskunst, Ferd. Sieber, 1858.) Dr. Mills goes further and advocates the imitating of finished singers for the purpose of acquiring the correct vocal action. "The author would recommend all students who have begun a serious practical study of the registers to hear, if possible, some singer of eminence who observes register formation strictly." (Voice Production in Singing and Speaking, Phila., 1906.) Kofler even declares that imitation is an indispensable element of instruction. "It is just as difficult or impossible to learn to sing good tones without hearing the teacher's pure model tone as it is difficult or impossible to learn to speak without hearing." (The Art of Breathing, Leo Kofler, 1889.)
If the correct vocal action is to be acquired by imitation, of what use are the mechanical doctrines of vocal management? Kofler seeks to combine these two forms of instruction. "Physiological theories must go hand in hand with the musical ear or the law of imitation." Scientifically considered, this attempted combination of mechanical vocal training and instruction by imitation is an utter absurdity. There is no possibility of connection between vocal imitation and mechanical vocal management. Reliance on the imitative faculty involves the utter rejection of the mechanical idea. Compromise, or combination of the two, is a logical absurdity. Imitation and attempted mechanical management of the voice are absolutely incompatible. Any attempt consciously to direct the muscular workings of the vocal organs is an interference with the normal action of the voice. So soon as conscious mechanical management of the voice is attempted throat stiffness results, and the voice is hampered in the exercise of its instinctive faculty of imitation. It is impossible to acquire the correct vocal action by the application of mechanical rules, because a consistent following of mechanical doctrines utterly prevents the vocal organs from operating normally, even though the student try at the same time to guide the voice by the sense of hearing.
A close scrutiny of the practices of modern vocal teachers reveals convincing evidence that all their successes are due to a reliance, conscious or unconscious, on the imitative faculty. Teachers are as a rule not aware of the appeal to the instinct of imitation; neither indeed do the students usually pay much attention to this feature of their lessons. Much of modern vocal instruction is dual in character. When, for example, the teacher wishes to correct a marked fault in the pupil's tone-production, he adopts this dual mode of imparting his ideas. First, he explains to the pupil the (supposed) mechanical operation; second, he imitates the pupil's faulty production and then sings a correct tone to show how it should be produced.
For the teacher to sing the correct tone takes but a few seconds and requires almost no thought. The mechanical explanation, on the other hand, calls for much more of time, and of voluntary attention, from both master and student. It thus follows that they both look upon the mechanical rule as the important matter, and consider the teacher's perfect tone as merely an illustration of the rule.
In most cases the student strives to apply the mechanical rule, particularly in home practice between lessons. Under these circumstances the voice does not respond satisfactorily. But it often happens that the student pays little attention to the mechanical rule, and simply imitates the teacher's voice. There being then nothing to interfere, the student's voice naturally responds. The master ascribes this satisfactory result to the application of the mechanical doctrine, while in fact the result is due to the student's complete ignoring of the doctrine.
Vocal imitation is often completely unconscious. Individuals vary greatly, as regards the tendency to unconscious imitation. Of two English lads coming to America at the age of fifteen, one may be found ten years later to have entirely lost the English accent, the other may retain it all his life. This difference in individual traits has much to do with determining to what extent the vocal student may unconsciously imitate correct models of singing. Other characteristics are also influential in this regard. Some students so dislike to sing mechanically that they neglect, in their home study, to practise their exercises in the prescribed way. This is often due to an instinctive abhorrence of harsh sounds. Other students are so gifted with the true feeling for vocal melody that mechanical instruction makes no impression on them.
As a general rule, the reliance on the imitative faculty in modern vocal instruction is entirely unconscious on the part of both master and pupil. Adherence to the mechanical idea excludes from the student's mind all thought of any means of vocal guidance other than mechanical. This is true, even in the most common form of instruction, imitation and mechanical doctrine combined. As regards the master, his only conscious exercise of the imitative faculty is the reproduction of the pupil's faulty tones. He seldom thinks of telling the pupil to imitate his own correctly produced tones.
Imitation supplies the only practical means for training voices. All the elements of Voice Culture are combined in one simple process, when the master sings correctly, and the student imitates the master. This exercise of the imitative faculty may be made to suffice for both the training of the ear and the cultivation of the voice. On practical, as well as on scientific grounds, imitation is the only rational basis of a method of Voice Culture.
[CHAPTER VI]
THE OLD ITALIAN METHOD
To the believer in the necessity of direct mechanical management of the voice, the old Italian method is a complete mystery. Modern vocal theorists are at a loss to account for the success of the old masters in training voices. Many authorities go so far as to assert that these masters possessed some insight into the operations of the vocal organs, along the lines of accepted Vocal Science. In their introductory chapter, "A Plea for Vocal Physiology," Browne and Behnke attempt to prove that the old masters studied the anatomy of the vocal organs. But even if this could be proved, that would not solve the mystery of the old method. Modern teachers are certainly as well acquainted with the mechanical features of tone-production as the old masters were. Yet, judged by their results, modern methods are distinctly inferior to the old Italian method.
There is absolutely no ground for the belief that the old masters owed their success to a knowledge of vocal physiology. This idea of ascribing scientific knowledge to the early teachers results only from erroneous belief that no other means of training the voice is possible. It may be set down as absolutely certain that the old method was not based on the principles of the accepted Vocal Science.
Yet the old masters undoubtedly possessed some means of training voices. They must have known something about the voice. Their knowledge, whatever it was, is commonly believed to have been lost. Many modern teachers claim to have inherited the old method. Still these teachers have nothing to offer beyond the well-known doctrines of breathing, breath-control, forward tone, etc. How these doctrines might have been applied in practical instruction nobody is able to tell. Little attention need be paid to the claim of any modern teacher to possess the old Italian method of training voices.
So early as 1847 Garcia remarked the dearth of information of a literary character bearing on the old method. "Unfortunately this epoch has left us only vague and incomplete documents bearing on its traditions. Of the methods then followed we have only an approximate and confused idea." (École de Garcia, Mayence, 1847.) Although familiar with the works of Tosi and Mancini, Garcia was unable to find in their writings any hint of the means used for imparting the correct vocal action. This same remark is made by many other investigators.
Yet a reconstruction of the old method is not necessarily a matter of conjecture. Once the possibility of training the voice by imitation is established, the old Italian method is easily understood. Speaking of the glorious past of the art of Voice Culture, Dr. Mills says: "We have advanced, musically, in many respects since the days of the old Italian masters, but just as we must turn to the Greeks to learn what constitutes the highest and best in sculpture, so must we sit at the feet of these old masters. Consciously or unconsciously they taught on sound physiological principles." (Voice Production in Singing and Speaking.)
Dr. Mills' statement might be more complete if it were made to read, "consciously or unconsciously they taught on sound physiological and psychological principles." Vocal instruction on sound principles is simply the training of the voice by imitation. With the scientific basis of their method—the laws of physiological psychology—the old masters were utterly unacquainted. Vocal imitation is purely instinctive. Probably the old masters could not even have formulated a concise statement of their reasons for relying on the imitative faculty.
Garcia's complaint of the dearth of literary information regarding the old method is by no means justified. Naturally there is no record of any means for imparting a direct mechanical management of the voice. Nothing of the kind was thought of. But as a description of a course in voice training by imitation, the works of Tosi and Mancini leave little to be desired.
Both Tosi and Mancini devote by far the greater portion of their books to describing the ornaments and embellishments of vocal music. They take up the singer's education from the beginning and seem to assume, as a matter of course, that the training in the art of music is coincident, if not indeed identical, with the cultivation of the voice. But they do not by any means neglect the subject of tone-production. Most modern readers of these early writers overlook the simple directions given for securing a proper use of the voice. This is, of course, due to the current belief that directions for vocal management must of necessity deal with mechanical and muscular operations. Finding nothing of this kind in Tosi and Mancini, the modern investigator concludes that these writers for some reason failed to record the means used for imparting the correct vocal action. All that can be found by such an investigator in the works of Tosi and Mancini is an outline of an elaborate system of coloratura singing. Much more is seen when the meaning of imitative Voice Culture is understood.
Let us consider first the "Observations" of Tosi. This writer devotes his first few pages to some remarks on the art of singing, and to a general consideration of the practices of Voice Culture. Almost at the outset we meet this striking statement: "It would be needless to say that verbal instruction would be of no use to singers any farther than to prevent 'em falling into errors, and that it is practice alone can set them right." That is certainly a sound principle.
Consider also this passage. "The faults in singing insinuate themselves so easily into the minds of young beginners, and there are such difficulties in correcting them, when grown into an habit, that it were to be wished the ablest singers would undertake the task of teaching, they best knowing how to conduct the scholar from the first elements to perfection. But there being none (if I mistake not) but who abhor the thoughts of it, we must reserve them for those delicacies of the art, which enchant the soul. Therefore the first rudiments necessarily fall to a master of a lower rank, till the scholar can sing his part at sight; whom one would at least wish to be an honest man, diligent and experienced, without the defects of singing through the nose, or in the throat, and that he have a command of voice, some glimpse of a good taste, able to make himself understood with ease, a perfect intonation, and a patience to endure the fatigue of a most tiresome employment."
This brings out three striking facts. First, that the student learned to use his voice by imitating the voice of the master. Second, that the initial work of "voice placing" was merely an incident in the training in sight singing and the rudiments of music. Third, that "voice placing" was considered of too little importance to claim the attention of masters of the first rank. This feature of instruction, so important now as to overshadow all else, was at that time left to masters of a lower rank.
This passage is followed by a short discourse on the rudiments of Sol Fa, a subject of only academic interest to the modern student. We are so thoroughly accustomed nowadays to the diatonic scale that it is almost impossible for us to understand the old system of Muance or Solmisation. Suffice it to say that only four keys were known, and that each note was called by its full Sol-Fa name. Thus D was called D-la-sol-re, C was C-sol-fa-ut, etc. In studying sight singing, the student pronounced the full name of each note in every exercise. Instruction in singing began with this study of sight reading. In the course of this practice the student somehow learned to produce his voice correctly.
Tosi does not leave us in doubt what was to be done in order to lead the pupil to adopt a correct manner of tone-production. "Let the master do his utmost to make the scholar hit and sound the notes perfectly in tune in Sol-Fa-ing.... Let the master attend with great care to the voice of the scholar, which should always come forth neat and clear, without passing through the nose or being choaked in the throat." To sing in tune and to produce tones of good quality,—this summed up for Tosi the whole matter of tone-production.
Many teachers in the old days composed Sol-Fa exercises and vocalises for their own use. Tosi did not think this indispensable. But he points out the need of the teacher having an extensive repertoire of graded exercises and vocalises. To his mind these should always be melodious and singable. "If the master does not understand composition let him provide himself with good examples of Sol-Fa-ing in divers stiles, which insensibly lead from the most easy to the most difficult, according as he finds the scholar improves; with this caution, that however difficult, they may be always natural and agreeable, to induce the scholar to study with pleasure."
How many months of study were supposed to be required for this preliminary course we have no means of judging from Tosi's work. At any rate the combining of the registers was accomplished during this time. Tosi's description of the registers is very concise. "Voce di Petto is a full voice which comes from the breast by strength, and is the most sonorous and expressive. Voce di Testa comes more from the throat than from the breast, and is capable of more volubility. Falsetto is a feigned voice which is formed entirely in the throat, has more volubility than any, but of no substance." He speaks of the necessity of uniting the registers, but gives no directions how this is to be accomplished. Evidently this seemed to him to present no difficulty whatever.
In this early period of instruction the pupil was exercised in both portamento and messa di voce. "Let him learn the manner to glide with the vowels, and to drag the voice gently from the high to the lower note.... In the same lessons let him teach the art to put forth the voice, which consists in letting it swell by degrees from the softest Piano to the loudest Forte, and from thence with the same art return from the Forte to the Piano. A beautiful Messa di Voce can never fail of having an excellent effect."
Only the first chapter of Tosi's book is devoted to this initial study. That the student was expected to make steady progress as a result of this study is evident from the closing sentence of this chapter. "The scholar having now made some remarkable progress, the instructor may acquaint him with the first embellishments of the art, which are the Appoggiaturas, and apply them to the vowels." The remainder of the work is devoted almost entirely to the embellishments of singing. Here and there an interesting passage is found. "After the scholar has made himself perfect in the Shake and the Divisions, the master should let him read and pronounce the words." (Shake was the old name for trill, and division for run.) Again, "I return to the master only to put him in mind that his duty is to teach musick; and if the scholar, before he gets out of his hands, does not sing readily and at sight, the innocent is injured without remedy from the guilty." This injunction might well be taken to heart by the modern teacher. Good sight readers are rare nowadays, outside of chorus choirs.
Mancini begins his outline of the course of instruction in singing with this striking sentence: "Nothing is more insufferable and more inexcusable in a musician than wrong intonation; singing in the throat or in the nose will certainly be tolerated rather than singing out of tune." This is followed by the advice to the teacher to ascertain beyond a doubt that a prospective pupil is endowed with a true musical ear. This being done the pupil is to begin his studies by sol-fa-ing the scales. "Having determined the disposition and capacity of the student with respect to intonation, and finding him able and disposed to succeed, let him fortify himself in correct intonation by sol-fa-ing the scale, ascending and descending. This must be executed with scrupulous attention in order that the notes may be perfectly intoned."
In this practice the quality of the tone is of the highest importance. "The utmost care is necessary with the student to render him able to manage this portion of his voice with the proper sweetness and proportion." Mancini takes it for granted that the student will progress steadily on account of this practice. "When the teacher observes that the pupil is sufficiently free in delivering the voice, in intonation, and in naming the notes, let him waste no time, but have the pupil vocalize without delay."
Regarding the registers, Mancini disagrees with Tosi and names only two. "Voices ordinarily divide themselves into two registers which are called, one of the chest, the other of the head, or falsetto." His method was to exercise the voice at first in the chest register, and then gradually to extend the compass of the voice upward. "Every student can for himself with perfect ease recognize the difference between these two separate registers. It will suffice therefore to commence by singing the scale, for example, if a soprano, from G to d;[10] let him take care that these five notes are sonorous, and say them with force and clearness, and without effort." For uniting the registers, "the most certain means is to hold back the tones of the chest and to sing the transition notes in the head register, increasing the power little by little."
Mancini devotes a few pages to a description of the vocal organs. This fact is cited by several modern theorists in support of their statement that the old masters based their methods on mechanical principles. In the following chapter this topic of Mancini's treatise will be considered.
Probably the best summary of the old Italian method offered by any modern teacher is contained in a little booklet by J. Frank Botume, entitled Modern Singing Methods. (Boston, 1885. The citations are from the fourth edition, 1896.) Speaking of the meaning of the word method, as applied to a system of rules for acquiring the correct vocal action, this writer says: "If a teacher says, 'that tone is harsh, sing more sweetly,' he has given no method to his pupil. He has asked the scholar to change his tone, but has not shown him how to do it. If, on the other hand, he directs the pupil to keep back the pressure of the breath, or to change the location of the tone; if he instructs him in regard to the correct use of his vocal cords, or speaks of the position of his tongue, of his diaphragm, of his mouth, etc., he gives him method. The Italian teachers of the early period of this art had so little method that it can hardly be said to have existed with them. In fact, the word method, as now used, is of comparatively modern origin. The founders of the art of singing aimed at results directly; the manner of using the vocal apparatus for the purpose of reaching these results troubled them comparatively little. The old Italian teacher took the voice as he found it. He began with the simplest and easiest work, and trusted to patient and long-continued exercise to develop the vocal apparatus. In all this there is no method as we understand the term. The result is aimed at directly. The manner of getting it is not shown. There is no conscious control of the vocal apparatus for the purpose of effecting a certain result."
This sums up beautifully the external aspects of the old Italian method, and of modern methods as well. It points out clearly the difference between the old and the modern system. But it is a mistake to say that the old masters followed no systematized plan of instruction. Tosi's advice, already quoted ("Let the master provide himself with examples of Sol-fa, leading insensibly from the easy to the difficult," etc.), shows a thorough grasp of the meaning of methodical instruction. Once the real nature of vocal training is understood, both Tosi and Mancini are seen to describe a well worked out system of Voice Culture. The only important difference between the old and the new system is this: one relied on instinctive and imitative processes for imparting the correct vocal action, the other seeks to accomplish the same result through the mechanical management of the vocal organs. In this regard the advantage is all on the side of the old Italian method.
One question regarding the old method remains to be answered. This has to do with the use of the empirical precepts in practical instruction. So far as the written record goes we have no means of answering this question. Neither Tosi nor Mancini mentions the old precepts in any way. The answer can therefore be only conjectural. We may at once dismiss the idea that the old masters used the precepts in the currently accepted manner as rules for the mechanical management of the voice. This application of the empirical precepts followed upon the acceptance of the idea of mechanical voice culture.
A fine description of perfect singing, considered empirically, was found to be embodied in the traditional precepts. Such a description of correctly produced tone might be of great value in the training of the ear. The sense of hearing is developed by listening; and attentive listening is rendered doubly effective in the singer's education by the attention being consciously directed to particular characteristics of the sounds observed.
A highly important aspect of ear training in Voice Culture is the acquainting the student with the highest standards of singing. The student derives a double advantage from listening to artistic singing when he knows what to listen for. Telling the student that in perfect singing the throat seems to be open makes him keenly attentive in observing this characteristic sound of the correctly produced tone. This seems to be the most effective manner of utilizing the empirical precepts. A student may be helped in imitating correct models of singing by knowing what characteristics of the tones it is most important to reproduce. In pointing out to the student his own faults of production, the judicious use of the precepts might also be of considerable value. Probably the old masters treated the precepts about in this fashion.
[CHAPTER VII]
THE DISAPPEARANCE OF THE OLD ITALIAN METHOD AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF MECHANICAL INSTRUCTION
One of the most mysterious facts in the history of Voice Culture is the utter disappearance of the old Italian method. This has occurred in spite of the earnest efforts of vocal teachers to preserve the old traditions. If the conclusions drawn in the preceding chapter are justified, the old method consisted of a system of teaching singing by imitation. Assuming this to be true, there should now be no difficulty in accounting for the disappearance of the imitative method by tracing the development of the mechanical idea.
Imitative Voice Culture was purely empirical in the ordinary meaning of this word. The old masters did not knowingly base their instruction on any set of principles. They simply taught as their instincts prompted them. There can now be no doubt that the old masters were fully justified in their empiricism. They taught singing as Nature intends it to be taught. But the old masters were not aware of the scientific soundness of their position. So soon as the correctness of empirical teaching was questioned they abandoned it without an attempt at defense. As a system of Voice Culture, the old method occupied a weak strategic position. With absolute right on its side, it still had no power of resistance against hostile influences.
This does not imply that the old masters were ignorant men. On the contrary, the intellectual standard of the vocal profession seems to have been fully as high two hundred years ago as to-day. Even famous composers and musical theorists did not disdain to teach singing. But this very fact, the generally high culture of the old masters, was an important factor in the weakness of the old method against attack. The most intelligent masters were the ones most likely to abandon the empirical system in favor of supposedly scientific and precise methods of instruction.
The hostile influence to which the old Italian method succumbed was the idea of mechanical vocal management. This idea entered almost imperceptibly into the minds of vocal teachers in the guise of a scientific theory of Voice Culture. A short historical sketch will bring this fact out clearly. This necessitates a repetition of some of the material of Chapter I of Part I; the entire subject will however appear in a new light now that the true nature of the mechanical idea is understood.
From the founding of the art of Voice Culture, about 1600, up to 1741, no vocalist seems to have paid any attention to the anatomy or muscular movements of the vocal organs. In 1741 a French physician, Ferrein, presented to the Academy of Sciences a treatise on the anatomy of the vocal organs, entitled "De la Formation de la Voix de l'Homme." This treatise was published in the same year, and it seems to have attracted at once the attention of the most enlightened masters of singing. That Ferrein was the first to call the attention of vocalists to the mechanical features of tone-production is strongly indicated in the German translation of Tosi's "Observations." In the original Italian edition, 1723, and the English translation, 1742, there is absolutely no mention of the anatomy or physiology of the vocal organs. But in preparing the German edition, published in 1757, the translator, J. F. Agricola, inserted a description of the vocal organs which he credited directly to Ferrein.
Mancini followed Agricola's example, and included in this "Riflessioni" (1776) a brief description of the vocal organs. But Mancini made no attempt to apply this description in formulating a system of instruction. He recommends the parents of a prospective singer to ascertain, by a physician's examination, that the child's vocal organs are normal and in good health. He also gives one mechanical rule, so obvious as to seem rather quaint. "Every singer must place his mouth in a natural smiling position, that is, with the upper teeth perpendicularly and moderately removed from the lower." Beyond this Mancini says not a word of mechanical vocal management. There is no mention of breathing, or tone reflection, or laryngeal action. Although Mancini borrowed his description of the vocal organs from Ferrein, his notion of the mechanics of tone-production was very crude. "The air of the lungs operates on the larynx in singing exactly as it operates on the head of the flute."
Voice Culture has passed through three successive periods. From 1600 to 1741 instruction in singing was purely empirical. Ferrein's treatise may be said to mark the beginning of a transition period during which empirical instruction was gradually displaced by so-called scientific methods. This transition period lasted, roughly speaking, till the invention of the laryngoscope in 1855. Since that time vocal instruction has been carried on almost exclusively along mechanical lines.
No vocal teacher had ever heard of a problem of tone-production previous to 1741, and indeed for many years thereafter. The earlier masters were not aware of any possibility of difficulty in causing the voice to operate properly. Their success justified their ignoring of any mechanical basis of instruction; but even of this justification the later masters of the old school were only dimly conscious. They builded better than they knew. When any teacher of the transition period was called upon to explain his manner of imparting the correct vocal action he was at once put on the defensive. No champion of the imitative faculty could be found. This lack of understanding of the basis of the empirical method, on the part of its most intelligent and successful exponents, was the first cause of the weakness of this method against attack.
Another source of weakness in the hold of empirical systems on the vocal profession was seen in the generally high intellectual standard of the more prominent teachers. These masters gladly accepted the new knowledge of the basis of their art, offered them in the description of the vocal organs. Thoroughly conversant with every detail of the empirical knowledge of the voice, the masters of the transition period were well prepared to understand something of the mechanical features of tone-production. By their auditory and muscular sensations of vocal tone they were able, to their own satisfaction at least, to verify the statements of the anatomists.
It is not easy for us to put ourselves mentally in the position of a vocalist, thoroughly familiar with the empirical knowledge of the voice, and yet ignorant of the first principles of vocal mechanics. In all probability the early masters were not even aware that tone is produced by the action of the breath on the larynx. They did not know that different qualities and pitches result from special adjustments and contractions of the throat muscles. Yet they were keenly aware of all the muscular sensations resulting from these contractions. We can well imagine how interesting these vocalists of the early transition period must have found the description of the cartilages and muscles of the throat.
It seems to us but a short step from the study of vocal mechanics to the application of the results of this study in the formulating of a practical system of vocal instruction. Yet it required more than sixty years for the vocal profession to travel so far. Even then the true bearing of this development of Voice Culture was but dimly realized. In 1800 the mechanical management of the voice was not even thought of. This is conclusively proved by a most important work, the Méthode de Chant du Conservatoire de Musique, published in Paris in 1803.
There can be no question that this Méthode represents the most enlightened and advanced thought of the vocal profession of that day. Not only does it contain everything then known about the training of the voice; it was drawn up with the same exhaustive care and analytical attention to detail that were devoted to the formulation of the metric system. To mechanical rules less than one page is devoted. Respiration is the only subject to receive more than a few lines. A system of breathing with flat abdomen and high chest is outlined, and the student is instructed to practise breathing exercises daily. Five lines are contained in the chapter headed "De l'emission du son," and these five lines are simply a warning against throaty and nasal quality. The pupil is told to stand erect, and to open the mouth properly. But a foot-note is given to the rule for the position of the mouth which shows how thoroughly the mechanical rule was subordinated to considerations of tone quality. "As there is no rule without exceptions, we think it useful to observe at what opening of the mouth the pupil produces the most agreeable, sonorous, and pure quality of tone in order to have him always open the mouth in that manner." In the main the Méthode outlines a purely empirical system of instruction, based on the guidance of the voice by the ear. There can be no question that the idea of mechanical management of the voice was introduced later than 1803.
Citations might be made to show the gradual advance of the mechanical idea from two interesting works, Die Kunst des Gesanges, by Adolph B. Marx, Berlin, 1826, and Die grosse italienische Gesangschule, by H. F. Mannstein, Dresden, 1834. But this is not necessary. It is enough to say that Scientific Voice Culture was not generally thought to be identical with mechanical vocal management until later than 1855.
Manuel Garcia was the first vocal teacher to undertake to found a practical method of instruction on the mechanical principles of the vocal action. When only twenty-seven years old, in 1832, Garcia determined to reform the practices of Voice Culture by furnishing an improved method of instruction. (Grove's Dictionary.) His first definite pronouncement of this purpose is contained in the preface to his École de Garcia, 1847. "As all the effects of song are, in the last analysis, the product of the vocal organs, I have submitted the study to physiological considerations." This statement of Garcia's idea of scientific instruction strikes us as a commonplace. But that serves only to prove how thoroughly the world has since been converted to the idea of mechanical Voice Culture. At that time it was generally believed to be a distinct advance. Garcia expected to bring about a great improvement in the art of Voice Culture. His idea was that the voice can be trained in less time and with greater certainty by mechanical than by imitative methods. As for the inherent falsity of this idea, that has been sufficiently exposed.
So soon as the theory of mechanical vocal management began to find acceptance, the old method yielded the ground to the new idea. That this occurred so easily was due to a number of causes. Of these several have already been noted,—the readiness of the most prominent teachers to broaden their field of knowledge, in particular. Other causes contributing to the acceptance of the mechanical idea were the elusive character of empirical knowledge of the voice, and the unconscious aspect of the instinct of vocal imitation. No master of the later transition period deliberately discarded his empirical knowledge. This could have been possible only by the master losing his sense of hearing. Neither did the master cease to rely on the imitative faculty. Although unconsciously exercised, that was a habit too firmly fixed to be even intentionally abandoned.
Public opinion also had much to do with the spread of the mechanical idea. Teachers found that they could get pupils easier by claiming to understand the mechanical workings of the voice. In order to obtain recognition, teachers were obliged to study vocal mechanics and to adapt their methods to the growing demand for scientific instruction.
No master of this period seems to have intentionally abandoned the traditional method. Their first purpose in adopting the new scientific idea was to elucidate and fortify the old method. Every successful master undoubtedly taught many pupils who in their turn became teachers. There must have been, in each succession of master and pupil, one teacher who failed to transmit the old method in its entirety. Both master and pupil must have been unconscious of this. No master can be believed to have deliberately withheld any of his knowledge from his pupils. Neither can any student have been aware that he failed to receive his master's complete method.
Let us consider a typical instance of master and pupil in the later transition period. Instruction in this case was probably of a dual character. Both teacher and pupil devoted most of their attention to the mechanical features of tone-production. Yet the master continued to listen closely to the student's voice, just as he had done before adopting the (supposedly) scientific idea of instruction. Unconsciously he led the pupil to listen and imitate. When the student found it difficult to apply the mechanical instruction the master would say, "Listen to me and do as I do." Naturally this would bring the desired result. Yet both master and pupil would attribute the result to the application of the mechanical rule. The student's voice would be successfully trained, but he would carry away an erroneous idea of the means by which this was accomplished. Becoming a teacher in his turn, the vocalist taught in this fashion would entirely overlook the unobtrusive element of imitation and would devote himself to mechanical instruction. He would, for example, construe the precept, "Sing with open throat," as a rule to be directly applied; that he had acquired the open throat by imitating his master's tones this teacher would be utterly unaware.
More than one generation of master and pupil was probably concerned, in each succession, in the gradual loss of the substance of the old method. The possibility of learning to sing by imitation was only gradually lost to sight. This is well expressed by Paolo Guetta. "The aphorism 'listen and imitate,' which was the device of the ancient school, coming down by way of tradition, underwent the fate of all sane precepts passed along from generation to generation. Through elimination and individual adaptation, through assuming the personal imprint, it degenerated into a purely empirical formula." (Il Canto nel suo Mecanismo, Milan, 1902.)
Guetta is himself evidently at a loss to grasp the significance of the empirical formula, "Listen and imitate." He seems however to be aware of an antagonism between imitation and mechanical vocal management. The reason of this antagonism has already been noticed, but it will bear repetition. For a teacher to tell a pupil to "hold your throat open and imitate my tone," is to demand the impossible. A conscious effort directly to hold the throat open only causes the throat to stiffen. In this condition the normal action of the voice is upset and the pupil cannot imitate the teacher's voice.
This was the condition confronting the teacher of the second generation in the "maestral succession" just considered. He found his pupils unable to get with their voices the results which had come easily to him. Attributing his satisfactory progress as a student to the mastery of the supposed mechanical principles of tone-production, this teacher ascribed his pupil's difficulties to their failure to grasp the same mechanical ideas. As a natural consequence he labored even more energetically along mechanical lines. Curiously, no teacher seems to have questioned the soundness of the mechanical idea. Failure on the part of the pupil to obtain the correct use of the voice served only to make the master more insistent on mechanical exercises.
In direct proportion to the prominence given to the idea of mechanical management of the voice, the difficulties of teachers and students became ever more pronounced. The trouble caused by throat stiffness led the teachers to seek new means for imparting the correct vocal action, always along mechanical lines. In this way the progress of the mechanical idea was accelerated, and the problem of tone-production received ever more attention.
Faith in the imitative faculty was gradually undermined by the progress of the mechanical idea. With each succeeding generation of master and pupil, the mechanical idea became more firmly established. Something akin to a vicious circle was involved in this progress. As attention was paid in practical instruction to the mechanical operations of the voice, so the voice's instinctive power of imitation was curtailed by throat stiffness. This served to make more pressing the apparent need of means for the mechanical management of the voice. Thus the mechanical idea found ever new arguments in its favor, based always on the difficulties itself had caused.
It is impossible to assign a precise date to the disappearance of the old Italian method. The last exponent of the old traditions was Francesco Lamperti, who retired from active teaching in 1876. Yet even Lamperti finally yielded, in theory at least, to the mechanical idea. In the closing years of his active life as a teacher (1875 and 1876), Lamperti wrote a book descriptive of his method, A Treatise on the Art of Singing (translated into English by J. C. Griffith and published by Ed. Schuberth & Co., New York). When this work was about ready for the press, Lamperti read Dr. Mandl's Gesundheitslehre der Stimme, containing the first definite statement of the opposed-muscular-action theory of breath-control. At the last moment Lamperti inserted a note in his book to signify his acceptance of this theory.
Vocal mechanics was at first studied by teachers of singing as a matter of purely academic interest. No insufficiency of imitative teaching had ever been felt. Teachers of the transition period, even so late probably as 1830, had in most cases no reason to be dissatisfied with their methods of instruction. Garcia himself started out modestly enough to place the traditional method, received from his father, on a definite basis. His first idea, announced in the preface to the first edition of his École de Garcia, was to "reproduce my father's method, attempting only to give it a more theoretical form, and to connect results with causes."
Interest in the mechanics of the voice continued to be almost entirely academic until the invention of the laryngoscope in 1855. Then the popular note was struck. The marvelous industrial and scientific progress of the preceding fifty years had prepared the world to demand advancement in methods of teaching singing, as in everything else. When the secrets of the vocal action were laid bare, a new and better method of teaching singing was at once expected. Within very few years scientific knowledge of the voice was demanded of every vocal teacher.
Nothing could well be more natural than a belief in the efficacy of scientific knowledge of the vocal organs as the basis of instruction in singing. Surely no earnest investigator of the voice can be criticized for adopting this belief. No one ever thought of questioning the soundness of the new scientific idea. The belief was everywhere accepted, as a matter of course, that methods of instruction in singing were about to be vastly improved. Vocal theorists spoke confidently of discovering means for training the voice in a few months of study. The singer's education under the old system had demanded from four to seven years; science was expected to revolutionize this, and to accomplish in months what had formerly required years.
Even then tone-production was not seen to be a distinct problem. The old imitative method was still successfully followed. No one thought of discarding the traditional method, but only of improving it by reducing it to scientific principles. But that could not last. Soon after the attempt began to be made to manage the voice mechanically, tone-production was found to contain a real problem. This was of course due to the introduction of throat stiffness.
From that time on (about 1860 to 1865), the problem of tone-production has become steadily more difficult of solution in each individual case. This problem has been, since 1865, the one absorbing topic of Voice Culture. Probably the most unfortunate single fact in the history of Voice Culture is that scientific study of the voice was from the beginning confined solely to the mechanical features of tone-production. Had scientific investigators turned their attention also to the analysis of the auditory impressions of vocal tones, and to the psychological aspect of tone-production, scientific instruction in singing would probably not have been identified with mechanical management of the voice. All the subsequent difficulties of the vocal profession would almost certainly have been avoided.
Every attempt at a solution of the problem of tone-production has been made along strictly mechanical lines. Attention has been devoted solely to the anatomy and physiology of the vocal organs, and to the acoustic principles of the vocal action. Since 1865 hardly a year has passed without some important contribution to the sum of knowledge of the vocal mechanism. For many years this development of Vocal Science was eagerly followed by the vocal teachers. Any seemingly authoritative announcement of a new theory of the voice was sure to bring its reward in an immediate influx of earnest students. Prominent teachers made it their practice to spend their vacations in studying with the famous specialists and investigators. Each new theory of the vocal action was at once put into practice, or at any rate this attempt was made. Yet each new attempt brought only a fresh disappointment. The mystery of the voice was only deepened with each successive failure at solution.
A review in detail of the development of Vocal Science would be of only academic interest. Very little of practical moment would probably be added to the outline of modern methods contained in Part I.
Teachers of singing at present evince an attitude of skepticism toward new theories of the vocal action. Voice Culture has settled along well-established lines. In the past fifteen years little change can be noted in the practices of vocal teachers. The mechanical idea is so firmly established that no question is ever raised as to its scientific soundness. Under the limitations imposed by this erroneous idea, teachers do their best to train the voices entrusted to their care.
Vocal Science is of vastly less importance in modern Voice Culture than the world in general supposes. Only an imaginary relation has ever existed between the scientific knowledge of the voice and practical methods of instruction. To cause the summits of the arytenoid cartilages, for example, to incline toward each other is entirely beyond the direct power of the singer. How many similar impossibilities have been seriously advocated can be known only to the academic student of Vocal Science. Vocal teachers in general have ceased to attempt any such application of the doctrines of Vocal Science. Even if these doctrines could be shown to be scientifically sound it would still be impossible to devise means for applying them to the management of the voice. Accepted Vocal Science has contributed only one element of the practical scheme of modern voice culture; this is the erroneous notion that the vocal organs require to be managed mechanically.
[CHAPTER VIII]
THE MATERIALS OF RATIONAL INSTRUCTION IN SINGING
Practical methods of instruction in singing may be judged by their results fully as well as by a scientific analysis of their basic principles. If the progress of the art of singing in the past fifty years has been commensurate with the amount of study devoted to the operations of the vocal mechanism, then the value of present methods is established. Otherwise the need is proved for some reform in the present system of training voices. Judged by this standard modern methods are not found to be satisfactory. There has been no progress in the art of singing; exactly the contrary is the case. A prominent vocalist goes so far as to say that "vocal insufficiency and decay are prevalent." (The Singing of the Future, D. Frangçon-Davies, M.A., 1906.) It is perhaps an exaggeration of the condition to call it "insufficiency and decay." Yet a gradual decline in the art of singing must be apparent to any lover of the art who has listened to most of the famous singers of the past twenty or twenty-five years. Operatic performance has been improved in every other respect, but pure singing, the perfection of the vocal art, has become almost a rarity. This is true not only of coloratura singing; it applies with almost equal force to the use of the singing voice for the purpose of dramatic and emotional expression.
Musical critics are beginning to comment on the decline of singing. They seek naturally for the causes of this decline. Many influences are cited by different writers, each of which has undoubtedly contributed something toward lowering the present standard of singing. Most influential among these contributing causes, in the general opinion, is the dramatic style of singing demanded in Wagner's later operas. Yet several writers point out that the rôles of Tristan, Brunnhilde, etc., are vastly more effective when well sung than when merely shouted or declaimed. A change in the public taste is also spoken of. Audiences are said to be indifferent to the older operas, written to suit the style of florid singing. But even this statement does not pass unchallenged. A prominent critic asserts that "the world is still hungry" for florid singing. "It is altogether likely," continues this writer, "that composers would begin to write florid works again if they were assured of competent interpretation, for there is always a public eager for music of this sort." This critic asserts that the decline of coloratura singing is due to the indifference of the artists themselves to this style of singing.
Still another commentator ascribes the decline of pure singing in recent years to the rise of a new school of dramatic interpretation among the younger operatic artists. "Nowadays it is not the singing that counts. It is the interpretation; and the chances are there will be more and more interpretation and less and less singing every year." Even this view has its limitations. Faithful dramatic interpretation, and attention to all the details of make-up and "business," are not in any way antagonistic to pure singing. One of the most potent means of emotional expression is vocal tone color. But the skilful use of expressive tone quality is possible only to a singer possessed of a perfect command of all the resources of the voice. Many vocal shortcomings are forgiven in the singer of convincing interpretive power. This is probably an important factor in influencing the younger generation of artists to devote so much attention to interpretation.
More important than any of the reasons just given to account for the present state of the art of singing, is the decline in the art of training voices. The prospects of an improvement in the art of Voice Culture, imagined by the early investigators of the vocal mechanism, have not been realized. Voice Culture has not progressed in the past sixty years. Exactly the contrary has taken place. Before the introduction of mechanical methods every earnest vocal student was sure of learning to use his voice properly, and of developing the full measure of his natural endowments. Mechanical instruction has upset all this. Nowadays the successful vocal student is the exception. Even those students who succeed in acquiring sufficient command of their voices to win public acceptance are unable to master the finest points of vocal technique.
Perfect singing is becoming rare, mainly because the technical mastery of the voice cannot be acquired under modern methods of instruction. These methods have been found unsatisfactory in every way. A change must be made in the practices of Voice Culture; its present state cannot be regarded as permanent. Modern methods are not truly scientific. There is at present no justification for the belief that the art of Voice Culture is founded an assured scientific principles. This does not by any means invalidate the idea that Voice Culture is properly a subject for scientific regulation. Modern methods are unsatisfactory only because they do not conform to the fundamental laws of science. In order to erect a satisfactory art of Voice Culture it is necessary only that the art be brought into conformity with scientific principles.
No sweeping reform of modern methods is called for. A thorough application of scientific principles in the training of voices demands only one thing,—the abandonment of the idea of mechanical vocal management. This is not a backward step; on the contrary, it means a distinct advance. Once freed from the burden of the mechanical idea, the art of Voice Culture will be in position to advance, even beyond the ideals of the old masters.
Nothing could well be simpler than the dropping of the mechanical idea. It was pointed out in the review of modern methods that most of the time spent in giving and taking lessons is devoted to actual singing by the student. This is exactly what rational instruction means. Were it not for the evil influence of the mechanical idea, the results of present instruction would in most cases be satisfactory. It is only in consequence of the attention paid to the mechanical workings of the vocal organs that throat stiffness is interposed between the ear and the voice. Let the mechanical idea be dropped, and instruction may be carried on exactly as at present. There will be only one marked difference,—throat stiffness will cease to be a source of difficulty.
It is for the individual teacher to change his own practices. This could be done so easily that students would hardly note a change in the form of instruction. Simply call the pupil's attention always to the quality of the tones, and never to the throat. Cease to talk of breathing and of laryngeal action, and these subjects will never suggest themselves to the student's mind. Continue to have the student sing vocalises, scales, songs, and arias, just as at present. Teach the student to listen closely to his own voice, and familiarize him with correct models of singing. This covers the whole ground of rational Voice Culture.
It is a great mistake to suppose that a vocal student comes to the teacher with a definite idea of the need of direct vocal management. Several months of study are required before the student begins to grasp the teacher's idea of mechanical management of the voice. Even then the student rarely comes to a clear understanding of the mechanical idea. In the great majority of cases the student never gets beyond the vague notion that he must "do something" to bring the tones. Yet this vague idea is enough to keep his attention constantly directed to his vocal organs, and so to hamper their normal activity. So soon as a teacher drops the mechanical idea, his pupils will not think of their throats, nor demand mechanical instruction. There will be no need of his cautioning his pupils not to pay attention to the muscular workings of the vocal organs. No vocal student ever would do this were the practice not demanded in modern methods.
At first thought it may seem that for a teacher to drop all mechanical instruction would leave a great gap in his method. How is the correct vocal action to be imparted to the pupil if not by direct instruction to this end? This question has already been answered in preceding chapters, but the answer may well be repeated. The correct vocal action is naturally and instinctively adopted by the voice without any attention being paid to the operations of the vocal mechanism. It is necessary only that the student sing his daily exercises and listen to his voice. The voice's own instinct will lead it gradually to the perfect action. Nothing need be substituted for mechanical instruction. Present methods of Voice Culture will be in every way complete, they will leave nothing to be desired, when the mechanical idea is abandoned. This change in the character of vocal instruction will not be in any sense a return to empiricism. It will be a distinct advance in the application of scientific principles.
When fully understood, a practical science of Voice Culture is seen to embrace only three topics,—the musical education of the student, the training of the ear, and the acquirement of skill in the use of the voice. The avoidance of throat stiffness is not properly a separate topic of Vocal Science, as in rational instruction nothing should ever be done to cause the throat to stiffen. Let us consider in detail these three topics of practical Vocal Science.
The Musical Education of a Singer
Every singer should be a well-educated and accomplished musician. This does not mean that the singer must be a capable performer on the piano or violin; yet some facility in playing the piano is of enormous benefit to the singer. A general understanding of the art of music is not necessarily dependent on the ability to play any instrument. The rudiments of music may quite well be mastered through the study of sight singing. This was the course adopted by the old masters, and it will serve equally well in our day.
One of the evil results of the introduction of the mechanical idea in Voice Culture is that almost the entire lesson time is devoted to the matter of tone-production. To the rudiments of music no attention whatever is usually paid. Many vocal students realize the need of a general musical training, and seek it through studying the piano and through choir and chorus singing. But the vocal teacher seldom finds time to teach his pupils to read music at sight. This is a serious mistake. The artistic use of the voice is dependent on the possession of a trained ear and a cultured musical taste. Ear training and musical culture are greatly facilitated by a knowledge of the technical basis of the art of music. This latter is best acquired, by the vocal student at any rate, through the study of sight reading.
Sight singing and the rudiments of music are taught to better advantage in class work than in private individual instruction. The class system also secures a great saving of time to the teacher. Every teacher should form a little class in sight reading and choral singing, made up of all his pupils. An hour or an hour and a half each week, devoted by the entire class to the study of sight singing and simple part songs and choruses, would give an ample training to all the pupils in this important branch of the art of music.
Many vocal teachers advise their pupils not to sing in choirs and choruses. There may be some ground for the belief that students are apt to fall into bad vocal habits while singing in the chorus. But this risk is entirely avoided by the teacher having his pupils sing in his own chorus, under his own direction.
Another important feature of the musical education is the hearing of good music artistically performed. Vocal students should be urged to attend the opera and the orchestral concerts. They should become familiar with the different forms of composition by actually hearing the masterpieces of music. Chamber music concerts, song recitals, and oratoric performances,—all are of great advantage to the earnest student. When students attend the opera, or hear the great singers in concerts and recitals, they should listen to the singers' tones, and not wonder how the tones are produced.
Ear Training
No special exercises can be given for the training of the ear. The sense of hearing is developed only by attentive listening. Every vocal student should be urged, and frequently reminded, to form the habit of listening attentively to the tones of all voices and instruments. A highly trained sense of hearing is one of the musician's most valuable gifts. A naturally keen musical ear is of course presupposed in the case of any one desiring to study music. This natural gift must be developed by exercise in the ear's proper function,—listening to sounds.
Experience in listening to voices is made doubly effective in the training of the ear when the student's attention is called to the salient characteristics of the tones heard. In this regard the two points most important for the student to notice are the intonation and the tone quality.
Absolute correctness of intonation, whether in the voice or in an instrument, can be appreciated only by the possessor of a highly cultivated sense of hearing. Many tones are accepted as being in tune which are heard by a very keen ear to be slightly off the pitch, or untrue to the pitch. This matter of a tone being untrue to the pitch is of great importance to the student of music. Many instruments, when unskilfully played, give out tones of this character. The tones are impure; instead of containing only one pitch, each note shades off into pitches a trifle higher, or lower, or both. This faulty type of tone is illustrated by a piano slightly out of tune. On a single note of this piano one string may have remained in perfect tune, the second may have flatted by the merest fraction of a semitone, and the third by a slightly greater interval. When this note is played it is in one sense not out of tune. Yet its pitch is untrue, and it shades off into a slightly flat note. In the case of many instruments, notably the flute, the clarinet, and the French horn, unskilled performers often play notes of this character. But in these instruments the composite character of the note is vastly more complex than in the piano. A very keen ear is required to appreciate fully the nature of this untrueness to the pitch. But this is exactly the kind of ear the singer must possess, and it can be acquired only by the experience of attentive listening.
The voice is especially liable to produce tones untrue to the pitch. Stiff-throated singers almost invariably exhibit this faulty tendency. An excessive tension of the throat hampers the vocal cords in their adjustments, and the result is an impure tone. This is more often the cause of an artist singing out of tune than a deficiency of the sense of hearing. Many singers "sharp" or "flat" habitually, and are unable to overcome the habit, even though well aware of it. Only a voice entirely free from stiffness can produce tones of absolute correctness and perfect intonation. Du Maurier hit upon a very apt description of pure intonation when he said that Trilby always sang "right into the middle of the note." As an impurity of intonation is almost always an indication of throat tension, vocal teachers should be keenly sensitive to this type of faulty tone.
Tone quality is a subject of surpassing interest to the musician. Whatever may be thought the true purpose of music, there can be no question as to one demand made on each individual instrument,—it must produce tones of sensuous beauty. A composer may delight in dissonances; but no instrument of the orchestra may produce harsh or discordant tones. Of beauty of tone the ear is the sole judge; naturally so, for the only appeal of the individual tone is to the ear. Melody, rhythm, and harmony may appeal to the intellect, but the quality of each component tone is judged only by the ear.
Each instrument has its own characteristic tone quality. The student of singing should become familiar with the sounds of the different orchestral instruments. Attention to this is extremely valuable in the training of the ear.
Beauty of tone was seen to be the truest and best indication of the correct vocal action. The voice has its own tonal beauty, entirely different in character from any artificial instrument. Students of singing should listen for every fine shade of tone quality in the voices of other singers. They should learn to detect the slightest blemish on the quality of every tone, the slightest deviation from the correct pitch.
As the voice is guided by the ear, the first requirement of a singer is a keen sense of hearing. For a keen ear to be of benefit, the student must learn to listen to his own voice. This is not altogether an easy matter. For one to learn to hear oneself justly and correctly requires considerable practice. The singer is placed at a natural disadvantage in listening to himself. This is due to two causes. In the first place, the direct muscular sensations of singing are so complex, and so distributed about the throat and face, that the singer's attention is apt to be divided between these and his auditory sensations. Second, the sound waves are conducted to the ear internally, by the vibration of the bones of the head, as well as externally, by the air waves. The internally conveyed vibrations are a rumbling rather than a true sound; the only true tone is the external sound, heard by the singer in the same way as by a listener. Yet the attention is more apt to be taken up with the internal rumbling than with the external tone. Every vocal student must be taught to listen to himself, to disregard the muscular sensations and the internal rumbling, and to pay attention only to the real tones of his voice.
Throat stiffness greatly increases the difficulty of listening to oneself. Both the muscular sensations and the internal rumbling are heightened by the increased muscular tension. A stiff-throated singer confounds the muscular with the auditory sensations; the feeling of muscular effort also makes him believe his tones to be much more powerful than they really are.
The Acquirement of Skill
Skill in the use of the voice is acquired solely by practice in singing. Only one rule is required for the conduct of vocal practice, that is, that the voice thrives on beautiful sounds. Musical taste must always guide the vocal student in practising. The voice cannot well do more than is demanded by the ear. If a student is unable to distinguish a correct intonation, his voice will not intone correctly. A student must hear and recognize his own faults or there is no possibility of his correcting them. He must be familiar with the characteristics of a perfect musical tone in order to demand this tone of his voice.
In the student's progress the ear always keeps slightly in advance of the voice. Both develop together, but the ear takes the lead. The voice needs practice to enable it to meet the demands of the ear. As this practice goes on day by day the ear in the meantime becomes keener and still more exacting in its demands on the voice.
To train a voice is in reality a very simple matter. Nothing is required of the student but straightforward singing. Provided the student's daily practice of singing be guided by a naturally keen ear and a sound musical taste, the voice will steadily progress. Little need be said here about the technical demands made on the voice in modern music. The standards of vocal technique are well known to all vocal teachers, and indeed to musicians generally. Further, the scope of this work is limited to the basic principle of vocal technique,—correct tone-production.
For starting the voice properly on the road to the perfect action, intelligently guided practice alone is needed. This practice must be carried on under the direction of a competent teacher. But the teacher cannot pay attention solely to the technical training of the student's voice. As has been seen, the training of the voice is impossible without the cultivation of the sense of hearing; and this is dependent in great measure on the general musical education of the student. The teacher must therefore direct the student's musical education as the basic principle of Voice Culture.
The Avoidance of Throat Stiffness
A great advance will be brought about in the profession of Voice Culture when vocal teachers become thoroughly familiar with the subject of throat stiffness. This is the only troublesome feature of the training of voices. Teachers must be always on the alert to note every indication of throat stiffness. The correction of faults of production has always been recognized as one of the most important elements of vocal training. Faults of production are of two kinds, natural and acquired. Natural faults are exhibited in some degree by every vocal student. These are due solely to the lack of facility in the use of the voice and to the beginner's want of experience in hearing his own voice. Acquired faults develop only as the result of unnatural throat tension. The most common cause of acquired faults of tone-production was seen in the attempt consciously to direct the mechanical operations of the voice.
Equipped with a thorough understanding of the subject of throat stiffness, the teacher is in no danger of permitting his pupils to contract faulty habits of tone-production. Here the great value of the empirical knowledge of the voice is seen. The slightest trace of incipient throat stiffness must be immediately detected by the teacher in the sound of the pupil's tones. To correct the faulty tendency in the beginning is comparatively simple. By listening closely to every tone sung by his pupils in the course of instruction, noting both the musical character of the tones and the sympathetic sensations of throat action, the master will never be in doubt whether a tendency to throat stiffness is shown. In locating the natural faults of production the teacher will also find his empirical knowledge of the voice a most valuable possession.
[CHAPTER IX]
OUTLINES OF A PRACTICAL METHOD OF VOICE CULTURE
According to the accepted idea of Voice Culture, the word "method" is taken to mean only the plan supposedly followed for imparting a correct manner of tone-production. Owing to the prevalence of the mechanical idea, the acquirement of the correct vocal action has become so difficult as to demand almost the exclusive attention of both teachers and students. Very little time is left for other subjects of vastly more importance. Aside from the matter of tone-production, teachers do not seem to realize the importance, or even the possibility, of systematizing a course of instruction in singing.
Scientific Voice Culture is inconceivable without a systematic plan of procedure. But this is not dependent on a set of rules for imparting the correct vocal action. Eliminating the idea of mechanical vocal management does not imply the abandonment of methodical instruction in singing. On the contrary, Voice Culture cannot be made truly systematic so long as it is based on an erroneous and unscientific theory of vocal management. A vocal teacher cannot perfect a system of instruction until he has done with the mechanical idea. Then he will find himself to be in possession of all the materials of a sound practical method.
Most important of the materials of a practical method is a comprehensive repertoire of vocal music. Every teacher should have at his command a wide range of compositions in every form available for the voice. This should include simple exercises, vocalises with and without words, songs of every description, arias of the lyric, dramatic, and coloratura type, and recitatives, as well as concerted numbers of every description. All these compositions should be graded, according to the difficulties they present, both technical in the vocal sense, and musical. For every stage of a pupil's progress the teacher should know exactly what composition to assign for study.
Every composition used in instruction, be it simple exercise or elaborate aria, should be first of all melodious. For the normally gifted student the sense of melody and the love of singing are almost synonymous. Next to the physical endowments of voice and ear the sense of melody is the vocal student's most important gift. This feeling for melody should be appealed to at every instant. Students should not be permitted to sing anything in a mechanical fashion. Broken scales, "five finger exercises," and mechanical drills of every kind, are altogether objectionable. They blunt the sense of melody, and at the same time they tend to induce throat stiffness. Beauty of tone and of melody should always be the guiding principle in the practice of singing.
All the elements of instruction,—musical education, ear training, and the acquirement of facility in the use of the voice,—can be combined in the singing of melodious compositions. While the teacher should know the precise object of each study, this is not necessary for the student. Have the pupil simply sing his daily studies, with good tone and true musical feeling, and all the rest will take care of itself.
Every vocal teacher will formulate his method of instruction according to his own taste and judgment. There will always be room for the exercise of originality, and for the working out of individual ideas. His own experience, and his judgment in each individual case, must guide the teacher in answering many important questions. Whether to train a voice up or down, whether to pay special attention to enunciation, when to introduce the trill, what form of studies to use for technique and ornament,—these are all matters for the teacher to decide in his own way.
Above all else the teacher should seek to make the study of singing interesting to his pupils. This cannot be done by making the idea of method and of mechanical drudgery prominent. Singing is an art; both teacher and student must love their art or they cannot succeed. Everything the student is called on to do should be a distinct pleasure. To master the piano or the violin many hours of tedious practice are required. Students of singing are indeed fortunate to be spared the necessity of this tiresome work. In place of two or three hours' daily practice of scales and exercises, the vocal student need do nothing but sing good music.
Much is required of a competent vocal teacher. First of all, he must be a cultured musician and a capable judge both of composition and of performance. Further, while not necessarily a great singer, he must have a thorough command of all the resources of his own voice. His understanding of the voice should embrace a fair knowledge of vocal physiology and of vocal psychology. His ear should be so highly trained, and his experience in hearing singers so wide, that he possess in full the empirical knowledge of the voice. The vocal teacher must be familiar with the highest standards of singing. He should hear the great artists of his day and also be well versed in the traditions of his art.
A highly important gift of the vocal teacher is tact. He must know how to deal with his pupils, how to smooth over the rough places of temperament. He should be able to foster a spirit of comradeship among his pupils, to secure the stimulating effect of rivalry, while avoiding the evils of jealousy. Tact is an important element also in individual instruction. Some students will demand to know the reason of everything, others will be content to do as they are told without question. One student may be led to stiffen his throat by instruction which would have no such effect on another. In every case the teacher must study the individual temperaments of his pupils and adapt his method to the character of each student.
Practical instruction, in its outward aspect, should be very simple. At one lesson the teacher assigns certain studies and has the pupil sing them. Now and then the teacher sings a few measures in order to give the student the correct idea of the effects to be obtained. If any pronounced fault is shown in the student's tones, the master calls attention to the fault, perhaps imitating it, to make it more apparent to the student. In his home practice the student sings the assigned studies, trying always to get his tones pure and true. At the next lesson the same studies are again sung, and new compositions given for further study.
A great advantage might be gained by combining three, four, or five students in a class and giving lessons of an hour's time, or even an hour and a half. The students might sing in turn, all the others listening to the one who is singing. This form of instruction would be of great service in ear training, and in acquainting the students with the various qualities of vocal tone, both correct and faulty. Much time would thus be saved in giving explanations and in pointing out the characteristics of tone to be sought or avoided. On the side of musical education, instruction in small classes would also be found very effective.
A thorough understanding of Vocal Science, including both the mechanical features of tone-production and the psychological aspects of singing, is almost indispensable to the vocal teacher. But the student of singing will in most cases derive no benefit from this scientific knowledge. Those students who plan to become teachers must of course study Vocal Science. Yet even these students will do well to defer this study until they have acquired a thorough mastery of their voices.
Musical progress would seem to have taken a peculiar direction when a voice need be raised in defense of the old art of pure singing. Several famous writers on musical subjects would have us believe that the love of vocal melody is outgrown by one who reaches the heights of musical development. This may be true; but if so, the world has not yet progressed so far. Music without melody may some day be written. But Mozart knew naught of it, nor Beethoven, nor Wagner. Melody is still beautiful, and never more lovely than when artistically sung by a beautiful voice. We have not reached a point where we can afford to toss lightly aside the old art of Bel Canto.
For its future development, if not indeed for its continued existence, the art of singing depends on an improvement in the art of training voices. For this to be accomplished, mechanical methods must be abandoned. If this work succeeds in bringing home to the vocal profession the error of mechanical instruction in singing, it will have served its purpose.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Pietro Francesco Tosi: Observations on the Florid Song. Bologna, 1723.
Giovanni Battista Mancini: Riflessioni pratiche sul Canto figurato. Milan, 1776.
Georg Joseph Vogler: Stimmbildungskunst. Mannheim, 1776.
Méthode de Chant du Conservatoire de Musique. Paris, 1803.
Stefana Arteaga: Le Revoluzioni del Teatro musicale italiano. Venice, 1785.
Adolph Bernhard Marx: Die Kunst des Gesanges. Berlin, 1826.
Heinrich F. Mannstein: Die grosse italienische Gesangschule. Dresden, 1834.
Manuel Garcia: École de Garcia. The Ninth Edition (Paris, 1893) gives date of first edition, 1856. Grove's Dict. gives 1847.
Proceedings of the Royal Soc., London, Vol. 2, May, 1855.
Hints on Singing. (Trans. by Beata Garcia). New York, 1894.
Ferdinand Sieber: Vollstaendiges Lehrbuch der Gesangskunst. Magdeburg, 1858.
The Art of Singing. (Trans. by Dr. F. Seeger). New York, 1872.
Stéphen de la Madelaine: Théorie complète du Chant. Paris, 1852.
Lennox Browne and Emil Behnke: Voice, Song, and Speech. London, 1883.
John Howard: The Physiology of Artistic Singing. New York, 1886.
Gordon Holmes: A Treatise on Vocal Physiology and Hygiene. London, 1879.
Emma Seiler: The Voice in Singing. Philadelphia, 1886.
J. Frank Botume: Modern Singing Methods. Boston, 1885.
Francesco Lamperti: A Treatise on the Art of Singing. (Trans. by J. C. Griffith). New York. Original about 1876.
Wesley Mills, M. D.: Voice Production in Singing and Speaking. Philadelphia, 1906.
Dr. W. Reinecke: Die Kunst der idealen Tonbildung. Leipzig, 1906.
William Shakespeare: The Art of Singing. London, 1898.
G. B. Lamperti: The Technics of Bel Canto. New York, 1905.
Paolo Guetta: Il Canto nel suo Mecanismo. Milan, 1902.
Lilli Lehmann: Meine Gesangskunst. Berlin, 1902.
David Frangçon-Davies: The Singing of the Future. London, 1906.
Leo Kofler: The Old Italian Method. Albany, 1880.
The Art of Breathing. New York, 1889.
Clara Kathleen Rogers: The Philosophy of Singing. New York, 1893.
Albert B. Bach: The Principles of Singing. London (2d ed.), 1897.
Julius Stockhausen's Gesangsmethode. Leipzig, 1884.
Sir Morell Mackenzie: The Hygiene of the Vocal Organs. London, 1886.
Charles Lunn: The Philosophy of the Voice. London, 1878.
Antoine Ferrein: De la Formation de la Voix de l'Homme. Paris, 1741.
Sir Charles Bell: On the Organs of the Human Voice. London, 1832.
Carl Ludwig Merkel: Der Kehlkopf. Leipzig, 1873.
Dr. L. Mandl: Die Gesundheitslehre der Stimme. Braunschweig, 1876.
George F. Ladd: Outlines of Physiological Psychology. New York, 1892.
James M. Baldwin: Feeling and Will. New York, 1894.
H. S. Curtis: "Automatic Movements of the Larynx," Amer. Jour. Psych., Vol. 11, p. 237. 1900.
H. L. F. Helmholtz: Die Lehre von den Tonempfindungen. Braunschweig, 1862.
E. W. Scripture: The New Psychology, London, 1897.
The Elements of Experimental Phonetics. New York, 1902.
The Study of Speech Curves. Washington, 1906.
William James: The Principles of Psychology. New York, 1890.
Hansen and Lehmann: "Ueber unwillkuerliches Fluestern," Philo. Stud., Vol. 11, p. 471. 1895.
C. Lloyd Morgan: An Introduction to Comparative Psychology. 1894.
Wilhelm Wundt: Grundzuege der physiologischen Psychologie. Leipzig, 1874.
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Fétis: Biographie universelle des Musiciens.
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Quellen Lexikon der Musiker. (Robt. Eitner, Leipzig, 1902.)
INDEX
- Acoustics of voice, [188], [216].
- Anatomy of vocal organs, [211].
- Attack, [51], [53].
- Breathing, [20], [130].
- Breath, singing on the, [14], [27], [32], [72], [194].
- Candle-flame test, [221].
- Coloratura, [195], [282].
- Decline of singing, [341].
- Ear training, [276], [281], [319], [351].
- Emission, [68], [125], [188].
- Empirical knowledge, [151], [176], [181], [359].
- Enunciation, [88].
- Exercises
- Forward tone, [14], [68], [71], [125], [187].
- Garcia, [16], [22], [34], [35], [56], [328].
- Glottic stroke, [30], [52].
- History of voice culture, [8], [322].
- Howard, John, [43].
- Imitation, [134], [166], [291], [298], [307], [309], [324], [332].
- Intonation, [265], [311], [314], [352].
- Laryngeal action, [34], [36], [44].
- Laryngoscope, [16], [35], [56], [214], [215], [258], [336].
- Lessons, [103], [366].
- Local effort, [273].
- Mancini, [12], [156], [307], [314], [323].
- Mask, singing in the, [74], [81].
- Mechanical vocal management, [83], [102], [109], [113], [135], [271], [287], [297], [299], [321], [329], [333], [346].
- Mechanics of voice, [118], [220], [325], [335].
- Mental voice, [180], [183].
- Messa di voce, [40], [312].
- Method, [92], [96], [99].
- Méthode de Chant, [326].
- Muscular sense, [143], [170].
- Nasal tone, [62], [129], [205].
- Nervousness, [249], [256].
- Old Italian masters, [9], [11], [14], [54], [306], [320].
- Open throat, [14], [60], [86], [191].
- Placing the voice, [38], [41], [93], [310].
- Practice, [5], [105], [281], [366].
- Precepts, [13], [72], [76], [184], [186], [317].
- Problem of voice, [4], [7], [287], [324], [337], [338].
- Psychology of muscular guidance, [136], [227].
- Pure vowel theory, [88].
- Quality of tone, [40], [62], [156], [179], [182], [314], [346].
- Radiation of nerve impulse, [251], [259].
- Reflex actions, [247], [255].
- Registers, [34], [38], [55], [312], [315].
- Relaxing exercises, [90], [272].
- Resonance, [54], [58].
- Sensations of singing, [160].
- Sight reading, [309], [310], [313].
- Singing in the mask, [74], [81].
- Sol-fa, [310], [314].
- Stiffness, muscular, [240], [251].
- Support of tone, [14], [27], [32], [73], [192].
- Sympathetic sensations, [161], [162], [165], [176].
- Technique, [6], [94], [282].
- Throat stiffness, [89], [243], [260], [262], [285], [356], [358].
- Tone-production, [4].
- Tosi, [12], [55], [63], [156], [307], [308], [322].
- Traditional precepts, [13], [14], [76], [186], [317].
- Tremolo, [265], [272].
- Vocal action, [5], [17], [92], [112], [246].
- Vocal Science, [17], [19], [37], [98], [152], [339], [361], [367].
- Wearing voice into place, [101].
NOTES:
[1] "The old Italian method of instruction, to which vocal music owed its high condition, was purely empirical." (Emma Seiler, The Voice in Singing. Phila., 1886.)
[2] Die grosse italienische Gesangschule. Dresden, 1834.
[3] This statement of the doctrine of breath-control must not be construed as an endorsement of the theory of the vocal action embodied in this doctrine. On the contrary, both the theory of "opposed action" breath-control and the "breath-band" theory are held to be utterly erroneous. For a further discussion of this subject see Chapter II of Part II.
[4] One of the strongest arguments of the "breath-band" advocates is based on this action,—the resistance of the closed glottis to a powerful expiratory pressure. The theory of breath-control by "opposed muscular action" takes no cognizance of this operation. It will however be shown in Chapter II of Part II that the "breath-band" theorists are mistaken in asserting that the action of holding the breath is not performed by the glottis-closing muscles.
[5] The expression "placing the voice" is more fully treated in Chap. VI. It is assumed, however, that the reader is familiar with the ordinary usage of this expression.
[6] An exception to this statement is seen in the recently published book of Mme. Lilli Lehmann, Meine Gesangskunst, Berlin, 1902. This famous artist and teacher devotes by far the greater part of her book to a minute analysis and description of the singer's sensations.
[7] The evolutionary development of this instinct is not altogether mysterious. Science can fairly well trace the successive steps in the development of the central nervous mechanism, from the amœba to the highest type of vertebrate. "Nerve channels" are worn by the repeated transmission of impulses over the same tracts. Coördinations become in successive generations more complex and more perfect. As consciousness develops further, in each succeeding type, actions originally reflex tend to take on a more consciously purposeful character. But all we are concerned with now is the problem of tone-production. Our purpose is best served by accepting the faculty of muscular adaptation as an instinct, pure and simple.
[8] This exposition of the mechanical principle of tone-production is intended to be graphic, rather than strictly technical. For the sake of simplicity, that portion of the expiratory energy expended in friction against the throat walls, tongue, cheeks, etc., is disregarded, as well as that expended in propelling the air out of the mouth, in displacing the same quantity of external air, etc.
[9] In this connection it is advisable to point out a difference between the meanings attached to the word "control" in psychology and in Vocal Science. The psychologist classes habitual movements as either automatic or controlled. Automatic movements are purely reflex; the individual does not consciously decide whether they shall be performed or not. Psychologically considered, the control of a movement is simply the conscious volitional decision whether the movement shall be performed. To adopt the language of Psychology, we should speak of voice management, and of breath regulation, instead of vocal control, breath control, etc. In the following chapters the accepted psychological usage of the word "control" will so far as possible be adopted.
[10] Mancini of course uses the Sol-Fa names of these notes.