Transcriber’s Note.
The original print of this book uses Helmholtz pitch notation, where middle-C is represented by a lowercase c with one over-line, the C above with two over-lines, etc. For accessibility, I have used the alternative convention of using numbers after the note name, thus:
C1 … C … c d e f g a b c1 d1 e1 f1 g1 a1 b1 c2 … c3 … c4
(C1 = 3 octaves below middle-C, c4 = 3 octaves above middle-C)
A few corrections have been made to spelling and punctuation.
A [list of these amendments] can be found at the end of the text.
More detailed versions of the illustrations of the larynx in [Chapter II] are available by following the link on each image.
The [cover design] accompanying this eBook was created by the transcriber, who waives all copyright to the work.
![[cover design]](#5593551722192851935_cover.jpg.id-1446575630163452662.wrap-0.html.html){kind=link}
The
Voice in Singing
TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN OF
EMMA SEILER
Member of the American Philosophical Society
A NEW EDITION
REVISED AND ENLARGED
PHILADELPHIA
J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO
1879
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1872, by
J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO.,
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington.
Lippincott’s Press,
Philadelphia.
CONTENTS
| SECTION | PAGE | |
|---|---|---|
| Translator’s Preface | [7] | |
| Introduction | [11] | |
| I | Vocal Music | [15] |
| II | Physiological | [36] |
| III | Physical | [85] |
| IV | Æsthetic | [143] |
| Appendix | [185] | |
TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE
The translator of this book, desirous, in common with other friends of its author, that her claims as a lady of rare scientific attainments should be recognized in this country, where she has recently taken up her abode, has obtained her consent to the publication of the following testimonials to her position in her own country from gentlemen of the highest eminence in science:
[TRANSLATED]
Mad. Emma Seiler has dwelt for a long time here in Heidelberg, and given instruction in singing. She has won the reputation of a very careful, skilled and learned teacher, possessing a fine ear and cultivated taste. While engaged on my book, “Die Lehre von den Tonempfindungen, &c.,” I had the honor of becoming acquainted with Mad. Seiler, and of being assisted by her in my essay upon the formation of the vowel tones and the registers of the female voice. I have thus had an opportunity of knowing the delicacy of her musical ear and her ability to master the more difficult and abstract parts of the theory of music.
I have pleasure in bearing this testimony to her worth, in the hope of securing for her the confidence and the encouragement of those who are interested in the scientific culture of music, and who know how desirable it is that an instructress in the art of singing should be possessed of scientific knowledge, a fine ear, and a cultivated taste.
(Signed) Dr. H. Helmholtz,
Prof. of Physiology, Member of the Academies and Royal Societies of London, Edinburgh, Amsterdam, Stockholm, Berlin, Vienna, Munich, Göttingen.
Heidelberg, Aug. 5, 1866
[TRANSLATED]
Mad. E. Seiler has made for herself an honorable name in Germany, not only as a practical teacher of singing, but also by her valuable investigations in regard to the culture of the musical voice. By her own anatomical studies she has acquired a thorough knowledge of the vocal organs, and by means of the laryngoscope has advanced, in the way first trodden by Garcia, to the establishment of the conditions of the formation of the voice. We owe to her a more exact knowledge of the position of the larynx, and of its parts in the production of the several registers of the human voice; and she appears especially to have brought to a final and satisfactory decision the much-vexed question respecting the formation of the so-called fistel tones (head tones). She has been associated with the best powers possessed by Germany in the department of the theory of music and physiological acoustics, standing by the side of the celebrated physiologist, Helmholtz, while he was engaged in his physiologico-acoustic work upon the generation of the vowels and the nature of harmony.
(Signed) E. du Bois-Reymond,
Professor of Physiology in the Royal University of Berlin.
Berlin, July 17, 1866
In a letter, written in English, addressed to the President and Members of the American Philosophical Society, Professor du Bois-Reymond introduces Mrs. Seiler (italicizing the words) “as a lady of truly remarkable scientific attainments.” “Prompted,” he states, “by a spirit of philosophical inquiry, not frequently met with in her sex, she has made herself entirely acquainted with all the facts and theories concerning the production of the human voice. She has entered, deeper probably than any one else before her, into the study of the problem of the different registers of the human voice. Most of her results she has published in a pamphlet under the title: Altes und Neues über die Ausbildung des Gesangorganes (Leipzig, 1861), which has received the approbation of both the physiologists and the singing masters of this country.”
The translator takes the opportunity to state that, as he makes no pretensions to any knowledge either of the science or of the art of music, his translation has been carefully revised by persons entirely competent to correct its musical phraseology.
W. H. F.
Philadelphia, December, 1867.
INTRODUCTION
In giving to the public these fruits of years of earnest labor, and in attempting to bring into harmony things which have always been treated separately, the Science and the Art of Singing, it seems necessary that I should state the reasons that prompted me to this study.
As I had for many years the advantage of the best tuition, both German and Italian, in the Art of Singing, and had often sung with favor in concerts, I was led to believe myself qualified to become a teacher of this art. But hardly had I undertaken the office before I felt that, while I was able to teach my pupils to execute pieces of music with tolerable accuracy and with the appropriate expression, I was wanting in the knowledge of any sure starting-point, any sound principle, from which to proceed in the special culture of any individual voice. In order to obtain the knowledge which thus appeared to be requisite in a teacher of vocal music, I examined the best schools of singing; and when I learned nothing from them that I did not already know, I sought the most celebrated teachers of singing to learn what was wanting. But what one teacher announced to me as a rule was usually rejected by another. Every teacher had his own peculiar system of instruction. No one could give me any definite reasons therefor, and the best assured me that so exact a method as I sought did not exist, and that every teacher must find his own way through his own experience. In such a state of darkness and uncertainty, to undertake to instruct others appeared to me a manifest wrong, for in no branch of instruction can the ignorance of the teacher do greater injury than in the teaching of vocal music. This I unhappily learned from my own personal experience, when, under the tuition of a most eminent teacher, I entirely lost my voice, whereby the embarrassment I was under, so far from being diminished, was only increased. After this misfortune I studied under Frederick Wiek, in Dresden (the father and instructor of Clara Schumann), in order to become a teacher on the piano. But while I thus devoted myself to this branch of teaching exclusively, it became from that time the aim and effort of my life to obtain such a knowledge of the human voice as is indispensable to a natural and healthy development of its beautiful powers.
I availed myself of every opportunity to hear Jenny Lind, who was then dwelling in Dresden, and to learn all that I could from her. I likewise hoped, by a protracted abode in Italy, the land of song, to attain the fulfilment of my wishes; but, beyond certain practical advantages, I gathered there no sure and radical knowledge. In the French method of instruction, now so popular, I found the same superficiality and uncertainty that existed everywhere else. But the more deeply I was impressed with this state of things, and the more fully I became aware of the injurious and trying consequences of the method of teaching followed at the present day, the more earnestly was I impelled to press onward in search of light and clearness in this dim domain.
Convinced that only by the way of scientific investigation the desired end could be reached, I sought the counsel of Prof. Helmholtz, in Heidelberg. This distinguished man was then engaged in a scientific inquiry into the natural laws lying at the basis of musical sounds. Prof. Helmholtz permitted me to take part in his investigations, and at his kind suggestion I attempted by myself, by means of the laryngoscope, to observe the physiological processes that go on in the larynx during the production of different tones. My special thanks are due to him that now, with a more thorough knowledge of the human voice, I can give instruction in singing without the fear of doing any injury. My thanks are due in a like manner to Prof. du Bois-Reymond, in Berlin, who, at a later period, also gave me his friendly help in my studies.
In 1861 I published a part of my investigations in Germany, where they found acknowledgment and favor. That little work is contained in the following pages, together with some account of the discoveries of Professor Helmholtz relating to the human voice, and of their practical application to the education of the voice in singing.
The practical sense of the American people enables them, above all others, to appreciate the worth of every discovery and of every advance. And therefore it is my earnest hope that the publication of these investigations in this country may help to elevate and improve the Art of Singing.
I
VOCAL MUSIC
ITS RISE, DEVELOPMENT AND DECLINE
It is a matter of complaint among all persons of good taste, who take an intelligent interest in art, and especially in music, that fine singers are becoming more and more rare, while formerly there appears never to have been any lack of men and women eminent in this art. The complaint seems not altogether without reason, when we revert to that rich summer-time of song, not yet lying very far behind us, in the last half of the last century, and compare it with the present. The retrospect shows us plainly that the art of singing has descended from its former high estate, and is now in a condition of decline. When we consider what is told us in the historical works of Forkel, Burney, Kiesewetter, Brendel and others, and compare it with our present poverty in good voices and skilful artists, we are struck with the multitude of fine voices then heard, with their remarkable fulness of tone, as well as with the considerable number of singers—male and female—appearing at the same time.
We first recall to mind the last great artists of that time, whose names are familiar to us because they appeared in public after the beginning of the present century:—Catalani, who preserved to extreme old age the melody and enormous power of her voice; Malibran, Sontag, Vespermann, &c.; the men singers, Rubini, Tamburini, Lablache, and others; and, still farther back, Mara, whose voice had a compass, with equal fulness of tone, of three octaves, and who possessed such a power of musical utterance that she imitated within the compass of her voice the most difficult passages of the violin and flute with perfect facility. Then comes the artiste Ajugara Bastardella, in Parma, who executed with purity and distinctness the most difficult passages from si
to si
, and roulades with successive trills, with enchanting harmony; and the old Italian singing-masters, who sang and taught with an art which we should scarcely hold possible, were it not for the unanimous testimony of their contemporaries. There were Porpora and his pupil Perugia, who sang two full octaves, with successive trills up and down in one breath, and executed with perfect exactness all the tones of the chromatic scale without an accompaniment; and Farinelli, who to his latest age preserved his wonderfully beautiful voice. Of him it is related, among other things, that on one occasion he competed with a trumpeter, who accompanied him in an aria. After both had several times dwelt on notes in which each sought to excel the other in power and duration, they prolonged a note with a double trill in thirds, which they continued until both seemed to be exhausted. At last the trumpeter gave up, entirely out of breath, while Farinelli, without taking breath, prolonged the note with renewed volume of sound, trilling and ending, finally, with the most difficult of roulades. Pistochi and Bernucchi rivalled Farinelli. The latter, although he had received from nature a refractory voice of little excellence, nevertheless succeeded in cultivating it so highly that he became one of the most distinguished artists of his day, called by Händel and Graun, “The King of Singers.”
It is impossible to mention by name all the many singers, male and female, who won applause and renown in the beginning and in the middle of the last century. Almost every European state was furnished with most excellent operas, and troops of artists, men and women, with voices of the highest cultivation, flocked thither. Even in the streets and inns and other places in Italy, where elsewhere we are accustomed to seek only music of the lowest kind, one could then hear the most artistic vocal music, such as was found in the churches, concert-saloons and theatres of Germany and France.
It appears that far greater demands were made upon singers then than now-a-days. At least, history celebrates, together with the great vocal flexibility of the earlier singers, the measured beauty of their singing, the noble tone, the thoroughly cultivated delivery, by which they showed themselves true artists, and produced upon their hearers effects almost miraculous.
On the other hand, how sad is the condition of vocal music in our time! How few artistically cultivated voices are there! And the few that there are, how soon are they used up and lost! Artists like Lind, and more recently Trebelli, are exceptions to be made.
Mediocre talent is now often sought, and rewarded far beyond its desert. One is often tempted to think that the public at large has wellnigh lost all capacity of judgment, when he witnesses the representation of one of our operas. Let a singer, male or female, only drawl the notes sentimentally one into another, execute a tremulo upon prolonged notes, introduce very often the softest piano and just where it is entirely out of place, growl out the lowest notes in the roughest timbre, and scream out the high notes lustily, and he or she may reckon with certainty upon the greatest applause. In fact, we have become so easily pleased that even an impure execution is suffered to pass without comment. Let the personal appearance of the singer only be handsome and prepossessing, he need trouble himself little about his art in order to win the favor of the public. This decline of the art of singing is usually ascribed to the want of good voices, and this poverty of voices to our altered modes of living. To me it appears as the natural consequence of the whole manner and way in which the art of singing has been historically developed since its earlier high state of perfection.
The human voice is, of all instruments, the most natural, the most perfect, the most intimate in its relation to us, as, for the use of it, we have a talent or faculty innate, which, in the case of other instruments, can only be laboriously acquired, to say nothing of the fact that these instruments are first to be invented and put together. Hence vocal music appears to have been almost the only music among the Greeks, and the rude instruments then in use served merely for an accompaniment. The history of our so-called Western music, which dates no farther back than the fourth century after Christ, tells us hardly anything else than of vocal musicians and of their compositions for concerted and chorus singing.
Our art, only slowly developing itself from those earliest times, was cherished, mainly in Italy, for the sole purpose of exalting divine worship. We have, at least, no account of any secular art of music in those days. As yet unacquainted with harmony, the only singing was in unison, as was the custom, at an earlier period, among the Greeks; for not until the tenth century of the Christian era was it attempted, and then by a Flemish monk (Hukbaldus), to harmonize several and different notes; thus was invented and founded our harmony, whose exponent was the organ.[ 1 ]
From that time forward, history makes mention of many persons who labored worthily, now more and now less, to create a theory of music, seeking to found a system of harmony upon that rude beginning, and by degrees to improve it. In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries music burst forth into blossom in the Netherlands, and thenceforth rose steadily in excellence, when also it began to branch out into the excesses of counterpoint. The fame of the Netherlands soon spread over all the civilized countries of Europe. The artists of the Netherlands were invited upon the most favorable terms to Italy, France, Spain, and Germany, and thus the progress of music spread over all these countries almost pari passu. For two hundred years the Netherlands maintained the reputation of the best and highest culture in vocal music, and not until the middle of the sixteenth century did there appear in Italy and Germany artists who attained to a like renown. Up to that time prejudice denied to the Italians all talent for music, as it has ever since exaggerated their claims in this respect. Kiesewetter remarks, in his History of Music, that, although the Netherlands in Italy no longer had the monopoly, they nevertheless always maintained the supremacy in music. Climate and language were, however, so favorable to vocal music in Italy that it soon found there its peculiar home, and though theoretical knowledge of music was advanced by the earlier singers, now richness and power of voice were also attained. As it had previously been with the Netherlanders, so it now became with the Italians. They were drawn to all countries in which there was any love of art; and they soon won that supremacy in music which they maintained until the last century. Until the latter part of the sixteenth century, good musicians were devoted almost exclusively to church music, and held it beneath their dignity to take part in music of any other kind. All but church music they left to the minstrels and strolling singers, who traveled over the country from place to place, and in different lands were styled minstrels, minnesänger and trovatori. They mostly sung love-songs, which they often extemporized in word and tune, finding place and popularity on all festive occasions. But under the impulse which music began to feel, the desire among the educated class to revive the old Greek drama, which just at that period had come to be well known, became more and more urgent. Imbued with the spirit of that age, the whole tendency of which was to exalt the ancient classic poets, a circle of men of science and culture from the higher classes gave themselves to the task of producing a style of music such as the Greeks must have had in the representation of their dramas. In the mansion of Count Bardi, in Florence, then the centre of union for all who had any claims to cultivation, music was first arranged for a single voice by a dilettante, the father of the renowned Galileo.
This attempt met with applause and imitation among the most distinguished singers of the time, who thenceforth turned their attention also to secular music. It thus came about that, towards the end of the sixteenth century, on festal occasions in Italy, and even earlier in France, theatrical representations were given with vocal music. This music was, however, always composed in the form of the chorus, and the leading voice alone was represented by a singer; the other voices were represented by instruments.
Such was the beginning of solo singing, which, growing ever more in public favor, soon came to be introduced into the most solemn church music; dramatic representations, religious and secular, grew very popular, and were the forerunners of the opera and oratorio, the richest inventions of the sixteenth century.
Up to this time, a singer of sound musical culture sufficed for chorus singing, but by the introduction of solo singing a more complete education of the organ of singing became a necessity. Indeed, as early as the middle of the fifteenth century there existed in Rome and Milan schools of music and professorships for the education of singers; but with the introduction and diffusion of solo singing similar conservatories were established in nearly all the more considerable cities of Italy, and all the energies of the musician were devoted to the highest possible culture of the voice.
But, with solo singing, greater attention was paid to instruments, which were already in those days constructed with the greatest care and skill. With the higher cultivation of single voices, chorus singing also became richer in harmony and embellishment, but as, in vocal music, words accompany the music, the expression of the music becomes more definite and intelligible for the hearer, and thus with the higher cultivation of vocal music, and by means of it, even our whole modern system of harmony has been developed.
Women were, by ecclesiastical law, excluded from participation in church music, and as the voices of boys could be used only for a few years, they did not suffice to meet the ever-increasing demands of church music. At first it was attempted to supply the place of the sopranists and contraltists with so-called falsettists. As, however, these substitutes proved insufficient, the soprano and contralto of boys were sought to be preserved in men. And so, in 1625, appeared the first male sopranist in the Papal chapel in Rome. Such sopranists and contraltists soon appeared in great numbers, and as their organs of singing continued soft and tender as those of women, and their compass was the same, to them the education of female voices was given over exclusively. Thenceforth women became the richest ornament of the opera, then blooming into beauty. But only when the ecclesiastical law forbidding women to take part in church music was annulled, did women begin, in the middle of the last century, to take the place of those male sopranists and contraltists.
It thus became unnecessary to secure longer duration to the voices of boys, especially as these were never able to attain to the peculiar grace of the female voice, and so this class of singers gradually died out. But still in the first half of the present century there were many of them living and sought for as teachers of singing. To the disappearance of this kind of singers, Rossini thinks the decline of vocal art is to be mainly ascribed.
The art of singing rose in the course of the seventeenth century to an extraordinary height of cultivation, and was diffused more and more by means of the opera, then blooming, as we have said, into beauty. But in that brilliant springtime of vocal art, it was not mere externals, such as beauty of tone, flexibility, etc., that were striven for, but, above all, the correct expression of the feeling intended in the composition. This rendered necessary to the singer the most thorough æsthetic culture, going hand in hand with the culture of the vocal organ. For only thus could he succeed in acting upon the souls of his hearers, in moving them and carrying them along with him in the emotions which the music awakened in his own mind. The dramatic singer was now strongly tempted to neglect the externals of his art for the æsthetic, purely inward conception of the music. Certain, at least, it is that to the neglect of the training of the voice (Tonbildung), and to the style of writing of our modern composers—a style unsuited to the art of singing, and looking only to its spiritual element—the decline of this art is in part to be traced. Mannstein says that, with the disappearance of those great masters, power and beauty of tone have fallen more and more into contempt, and at the present day it is scarcely known what is meant by them. True it is, that a beautiful tone of voice (Gesangston), which must be considered the foundation and first requisition of fine singing, is more and more rare among our singers, male and female, and yet it is just as important in music as perfect form in the creations of the sculptor.
But the complete technical education of the earlier singers misled many of them into various unnatural artifices, in order to obtain notice and distinction. The applause of the public caused such trickeries to become the fashion among artists. The multitude, accustomed to such effects, began to mistake them for art. By the gradual disappearance of the male sopranists, instruction in singing fell into the hands of tenor singers, who usually cultivated the female voice in accordance with their own voices, which could not be otherwise than injurious in the uncertainty existing as to the limits in compass and the difference between the male and female organs of voice.
Thus it has come to pass that people are now apt to imagine that they know all that is to be known; and as teaching in singing is generally best paid, the office has been undertaken, without the slightest apparent self-distrust, by many persons who have not the slightest idea what thorough acquaintance with the organs of singing, what comprehensive knowledge of all the departments of music and what æsthetic and general culture, the teacher of singing requires. Very few persons indeed clearly understand what is meant by the education of a voice, and what high qualifications both teacher and pupil always require. The idea, for instance, is very prevalent that every musician, whatever may be the branch of music to which he is devoted, and especially every singer, is qualified to give instruction in singing. And therefore a dilettanteism without precedent has taken the place of all real artistic endeavors. Be this, however, as it may, such is the wide diffusion and popularity of music beyond all the other arts, that the want of singers artistically educated, and consequently also of a recognized sound method of instruction, becomes more and more urgent; and although we have in these times distinguished singers, male and female, as well as skilful teachers, yet the number is very small and by no means equal to the demand.
But now, as every evil, as soon as it is felt to be such, calls forth the means of its removal, already in various ways attempts are making in the department of the Art of Singing to restore it as perfectly as possible to its former high position, and if possible to elevate it to a yet higher state. It was natural that the attempt should, first of all, be made to revive the old Italian method of instruction, and that, by strict adherence in everything to what has come down to us by tradition, we should hope for deliverance and salvation; for to the Italians mainly vocal music was indebted for its chief glory. Without considering in what a sadly superficial way music—and vocal music especially—is now treated in Italy, many have given in to the erroneous idea that any Italian who can sing anything must know how to educate a voice. Thus many incompetent Italians have become popular teachers in other countries.
The old Italian method of instruction, to which vocal music owed its high condition, was purely empirical, i. e., the old singing masters taught only according to a sound and just feeling for the beautiful, guided by that faculty of acute observation, which enabled them to distinguish what belongs to nature. Their pupils learned by imitation, as children learn their mother tongue, without troubling themselves about rules. But after the true and natural way has once been forsaken, and for so long a period only the false and the unnatural has been heard and taught, it seems almost impossible by empiricism alone to restore the old and proper method of teaching. With our higher degree of culture, men and things have greatly changed. Our feeling is no longer sufficiently simple and natural to distinguish the true without the help of scientific principles.
But science has already done much to assist the formation of musical forms of art. Mathematics and physics have established the principal laws of sound and the processes of sound, in accordance with which our musical instruments are now constructed. Philosophical inquirers have succeeded also in discovering the eternal and impregnable laws of Nature upon which the mutual influences of melody, harmony and rhythm depend, and in thus giving to composition fixed forms and laws which no one ventures to question. And more recently Professor Helmholtz, in his great work, “Die Lehre von den Tonempfindungen,” has given to music of all kinds a scientific ground and basis. But for the culture of the human voice in singing science has as yet furnished only a few lights. The well-known experiments of Johannes Müller upon the larynx gave us all that was known, until very recently, respecting the functions of the organ of singing. Many singing masters have sought to found their methods of instruction upon these observations on the larynx, at the same time putting forth the boldest conjectures in regard to the functions of the organ of singing in the living subject. But they have thus ruined more fine voices than those teachers who, without reference to the formation of the voice, only correct the musical faults of their pupils, and for the rest let them sing as they please.
This superficial treatment of science, and the unfortunate results of its application, have injured the art of singing more than benefited it, and created a prejudice against all scientific investigations in this direction among the most distinguished artists and teachers, as well as among those who take an intelligent interest in this department of music. It is a pretty common opinion that science can do little for the improvement of music, and nothing for the culture and preservation of the voice in singing. And the habit of regarding science and art as opposed to each other renders it extremely difficult to secure a hearing for the results of thorough scientific inquiry in this direction.
Science itself admits that it can neither create artistic talent, nor supply the place of it, but only furnish it with aids. Besides, with the whole inner nature of music, no forms of thought (reflection) have anything to do. It has “a reason above reason.” This art transmits to us in sound the expression of emotions as they rise in the human soul and connect themselves one with another. It is the revelation of our inmost life in its tenderest and finest processes, and is therefore the most ideal of the arts. It appeals directly to our consciousness. As a sense of the divine dwells in every nation, in every human being, and is impelled to form for itself a religious cultus, so we find among all nations the need of music dwelling as deeply in human nature. The most uncivilized tribes celebrate their festivals with songs as the expression of their devotion or joy, and the cultivated nations of ancient times, like the Greeks, cherished music as the ethereal vehicle of their poetry, and regarded it as the chief aid in the culture of the soul.
But together with its purely internal character, music has yet another and formal side, for if our art consisted only in the æsthetic feeling, and in representing this feeling, every person of culture, possessing the right feeling, would be able to sing, just as he understands how to read intelligibly.
Everything spiritual, everything ideal, as soon as it is to be made present to the perceptions of others, requires a form which, in its material as well as in its structure, may be more or less perfect, but it can never otherwise than submit to those eternal laws to which all that lives, all that comes within the sphere of our perceptions, is subject. To discover and establish the natural laws which lie at the basis of all our forms of art is the office of science; to fashion and control these forms and animate them with a soul is the task of art. In singing, the art consists in tones beautiful and sonorous, and fitted for the expression of every variation of feeling. To set forth the natural laws by which these tones are produced is the business of physiology and physics.
Thus is there not only an æsthetical side to the art of singing, but a physiological and a physical side also, without an exact knowledge, appreciation, observance, and study of which, what is hurtful cannot be discerned and avoided; and no true culture of art, and consequently no progress in singing, is possible.
In the physiological view of vocal art, we have to do with the quality and strength of the organ of singing in the act of uttering sound, and under the variations of sound that take place in certain tones (the register being transcended).
By the physical side is to be understood the correct use and skilful management of the air flowing from the lungs through the windpipe, and brought into vibration by the vocal chords in the larynx.
But the æsthetics of vocal art, and the spiritual inspiration of the form (of the sound), comprise the whole domain of music and poetic beauty.
[1] Those who are interested in the history of music are referred to the historical works already mentioned for a fuller account of what is only alluded to above.
II
PHYSIOLOGICAL VIEW
FORMATION OF SOUND BY THE ORGAN OF THE HUMAN VOICE
The great physiologist, Johannes Müller, fastened a larynx, which he had cut out with the whole trachea belonging to it, to a board, and, stretching the vocal chords by a weight that could be increased or diminished at pleasure, caused vibrations in it by blowing through the trachea with a pair of bellows, or through a tube with his own breath. In this way he succeeded in producing almost all the tones of the human voice, and even some which are beyond the compass of this organ.
He distinguished two different kinds of tones, to which he gave the names of the chest register and the falsetto register. The chest tones were produced when the vocal ligaments, slackly stretched, were made to vibrate easily in their whole breadth; the falsetto tones came merely through the vibration of the fine inner edges of the vocal chords when they were more tightly stretched. At a moderate stretching of the vocal chords, it depended upon the manner of blowing whether a sound corresponding to the chest voice or to the falsetto were produced, or whether it were higher or lower for several tones, often for a whole octave. A series of tones of more than two octaves could thus be produced in the same larynx, with, however, gaps and places at which the vocal chords, instead of being stretched gradually, have to be stretched at once very strongly, in order that the succeeding higher half tone may be reached. Such a place Müller indicates from c2 to c
2, or d2 to d
2
, with the remark that it differs in different larynxes, being in some higher and in some lower. But in order to render practicable the proper stretching of the exsected larynx, muscles and membranes have to be cut, which sufficiently proves that the functions of the organ of singing in the living must be differently carried on.
Dr. Merkel, in Leipzig, has continued these experiments, and by means of a peculiar contrivance has succeeded in producing all the tones in the exsected larynx, without mutilating it. But these investigations, interesting as they are, throw no certain light upon the formation of sound by the vocal organ in the living.
The celebrated singing master, Manuel Garcia, now living in London, was the first to adopt the right mode of scientific inquiry in this department, with favorable results. He undertook to apply the laryngoscope (previously invented by the Englishman, Liston) to the larynx in the act of singing. The interesting results of these observations were published by him in the Philosophical Mag. and Journal of Science, vol. x. p. 218. While men of science immediately repeated Garcia’s experiments and applied them with the greatest advantage to pathological purposes, they were received with distrust, scarcely noticed, and in many instances entirely rejected, by teachers of vocal music. The few who attempted to follow the path thus opened soon gave it up, because they lacked either patience or the anatomical knowledge necessary to such investigations.
The laryngoscope is well known among medical men. It is a small plane mirror of glass or metal, having a long handle. Before it is introduced into the throat, it is first warmed, to prevent its becoming dimmed. The reflecting surface of this instrument is directed downwards and forwards, so that it receives the reflection caught from a concave mirror, and presents to the eye of the observer a picture of the illuminated larynx. In using it upon oneself, there is need of a second mirror, which must be so held that the image may be seen in the laryngoscope.
The use of the laryngoscope requires in the observer a certain adroitness and long-continued practice—almost more in the observer than in the subject of observation. In self-observation one must first learn to overcome the irritation always caused at the first by the contact of the mirror with the back of the throat. Once accustomed to the contact, one soon succeeds in obtaining a sight of the larynx, sufficient for the most part for pathological purposes. But it requires long practice before one can control those organs, usually not immediately submissive to the will, and raise the epiglottis, so as to be able to see into the whole larynx. But this is absolutely indispensable, in the observation of the formation of sound, to the attainment of any substantial results. Garcia says himself that one-third of the glottis was always hidden from him by the epiglottis, and to this circumstance is the unsatisfactory character of his observations to be ascribed. But even when, after long practice, one is able at last to bring the whole glottis into view, this is not by any means enough. Not until observation has been so long continued that all the movements of the vocal organ are normal, notwithstanding the unnatural drawing back of the epiglottis, and not until the process that goes on is found again and again to be always the same, can it be recognized as fact.
As Garcia is the most eminent of singing masters now living, and as he has sought, solely in the interest of vocal music, to ascertain the mechanism by which sound is formed, and as his observations have been confirmed by men of science, I give them here in his own words.
In order that what follows may be better understood by those unacquainted with anatomy, a brief anatomical description of the vocal organ will be found in an [Appendix] to the present work.
OBSERVATIONS WITH THE LARYNGOSCOPE
BY MANUEL GARCIA
“At the moment when the person draws a deep breath, the epiglottis being raised, we are able to see the following series of movements: the arytenoid cartilages become separated by a very free lateral movement; the superior ligaments are placed against the ventricles; the inferior ligaments are also drawn back, though in a less degree, into the same cavities; and the glottis, large and wide open, is exhibited, so as to show in part the rings of the trachea. But, unfortunately, however dexterous we may be in disposing these organs, and even when we are most successful, at least the third part of the anterior of the glottis remains concealed by the epiglottis.
“As soon as we prepare to produce a sound, the arytenoid cartilages approach each other, and press together by their interior surfaces, and by their anterior apophyses, without leaving any space, or inter-cartilaginous glottis; sometimes, even, they come in contact so closely as to cross each other by the tubercles of Santorini. To this movement of the anterior apophyses that of the ligaments of the glottis corresponds, which detach themselves from the ventricles, come in contact with different degrees of energy, and show themselves at the bottom of the larynx, under the form of an ellipse of a yellowish color. The superior ligaments, together with the aryteno-epiglottidean folds, assist to form the tube which surmounts the glottis; and being the lower and free extremity of that tube, enframe the ellipse, the surface of which they enlarge or diminish according as they enter more or less into the ventricles. These last scarcely retain a trace of their opening. By anticipation, we might say of these cavities that, as will afterwards appear clearly enough in these pages, they only afford to the two pair of ligaments a space in which they may easily range themselves. When the aryteno-epiglottidean folds contract, they lower the epiglottis and make the superior orifice of the larynx considerably narrower.
“The meeting of the lips of the glottis, naturally proceeding from the front towards the back, if this movement is well managed, will allow, between the apophyses, of the formation of a triangular space or inter-cartilaginous glottis, but one which, however, is closed as soon as the sounds are produced.
“After some essays we perceive that this internal disposition of the larynx is only visible when the epiglottis remains raised. But neither all the registers of the voice, nor all the degrees of intensity, are equally fitted for its taking this position. We soon discover that the brilliant and powerful sounds of the chest register contract the cavity of the larynx, and close still more its orifice; and, on the contrary, that veiled notes, and notes of moderate power, open both, so as to render any observation easy. The falsetto register especially possesses this prerogative, as well as the first notes of the head voice. So as to render these facts more precise, we will study in the voice of the tenor the ascending progression of the chest register, and in the soprano that of the falsetto and head registers.
EMISSION OF THE CHEST VOICE
“If we emit veiled and feeble sounds, the larynx opens at the notes
, and we see the glottis agitated by large and loose vibrations throughout its entire extent. Its lips comprehend in their length the anterior apophyses of the arytenoid cartilages and the vocal chords; but, I repeat it, there remains no triangular space.
“As the sounds ascend, the apophyses, which are slightly rounded on their internal side, by a gradual apposition commencing at the back encroach on the length of the glottis, and as soon as we reach the sounds
they finish by touching each other throughout their whole extent; but their summits are only solidly fixed one against the other at the notes
. In some organs these summits are a little vacillating when they form the posterior end of the glottis, and two or three half-tones which are formed show a certain want of purity and strength, which is very well known to singers. From
the vibrations, having become rounder and purer, are accomplished by the vocal ligaments alone, up to the end of the register.
“The glottis at this moment presents the aspect of a line slightly swelled towards its middle, the length of which diminishes still more as the voice ascends. We also see that the cavity of the larynx has become very small, and that the superior ligaments have contracted the extent of the ellipse to less than one-half.
“Thus the organs act with a double difference: 1. The cavity of the larynx contracts itself more when the voice is intense than when it is feeble. 2. The superior ligaments are contracted, so as to reduce the small diameter of the ellipse to a width of two or three lines. But however powerful these contractions may be, neither the cartilages of Wrisberg, nor the superior ligaments themselves, ever close sufficiently to prevent the passage of the air, or even to render it difficult. This fact, which is verified also with regard to the falsetto and head registers, suffices to prove that the superior ligaments do not fill a generative part in the formation of the voice. We may draw the same conclusion by considering the position occupied by the somewhat feeble muscles which correspond to these ligaments; they cover externally the extremity of the diverging fibres of the thyro-arytenoid muscles, and take part especially in the contractions of the cavity of the larynx during the formation of the high notes of the chest and head registers.