THE UNINTERRUPTED TONE
When a rich, dramatic temperament seeks for its instrument of expression the control of faultless technique the result ought to be art of the highest order. Such is the art of Gracia Ricardo. She has translated her English name into musical Italian, but does her country the honor to announce her beautiful voice as an American soprano.
Every tone of Gracia Ricardo's singing voice is as absolutely free from effort as the repeated note of the hermit thrush's song, and her tone as pure tone has the effect of that liquid call. But could you freight the thrush note with knowledge of human passion,—with throb of joy or pulse of pain, you would get from it the effect of Gracia Ricardo's singing of a Heine-Schubert song, a Schumann, Brahms, or Franz lied, or one of our English ballads. It must always be a song, for Gracia Ricardo does not exploit her voice in astonishing vocal feats. She simply sings her song. It was her wish to interpret the lieder of all countries that sent her in search of a method which would free her voice to that high use. She found that method, not in her own country, alas, but in Germany, where for twelve years she has used it in the guidance of her own voice and that of many others. She finds the American pupil "difficult," because "You are so impatient of a long, quiet preparation. You wish to try your skill at every step of the way—and not in the privacy of your study, but in a public's hearing." Poor American public! How it has suffered from this impatience. It is true, is it not, we are not willing to take time to establish a right condition for tone before using the tone in what should be final efforts of the perfected instrument. Blessed be drudgery has not become a beatitude in the gospel of the American artist. When it is so recognized by the student of vocal expression perhaps we can reclaim this great singer and teacher, Madame Ricardo. This book would further that end.
It has been my good fortune while making this book for you to do some brief but intensive studying under Madame Ricardo. It is by her gracious consent that I shall leave with you as an incentive toward the ideal for which we are striving the two watchwords of her teaching which were most potently suggestive to me. The exercises which constitute her method require personal supervision, but the active principle of those exercises for both tone production and breath control is clearly indicated by the two phrases "the uninterrupted tone" and "the constant mouth-breath." These two ideas fully sensed by a voice will work swift wonders in its use.
Like Mr. Mabie's pool of expectancy, these watchwords of the Ricardo method suggest their own application; but let us consider them somewhat more closely. Think then with me of an uninterrupted tone—a tone which is not interfered with at any point in its production. Think of a breath that flows freely on and on, constantly reinforced, but never interrupted—a breath that is allowed to enter the vocal box, pass between the vocal chords, where it is converted into tone; yield itself to the organs of speech and controlled by the speech process, issue from the mouth in beautiful speech forms, in the words which constitute a language!
Tracing the process of tone production in this way, we find that three distinct steps are involved. Even as I write the words distinct and steps I realize their inharmony with the idea of flowing tone. Rather then let us say three phases in the evolution of speech: breath, tone, speech. In using the word speech to designate the final phase in this evolution I am thinking of it in its broadest sense—really in a sense identical with language. With this final phase beyond its mere initiation this book cannot deeply concern itself. For work along this line I must refer you to Prof. T. R. Lounsbury's Standard of Pronunciation in English; to the article on The Acquiring of Clear Speech by John D. Barry, published in Harper's Bazaar for August, September, and October, 1907; to The Technique of Speech, by Dora Duty Jones.
Not technique of speech, but technique of tone is our study. Not how to make beautiful speech forms, but how to make beautiful speech-tones; not how to distinguish one speech from another in a language, or the speech forms of one language from those of another, but how to distinguish interrupted speech-tone from uninterrupted speech-tone—such is our problem.
But tone is breath before it becomes speech, so our first concern is with the initial stage. The process of breath control in the Ricardo method of tone production (as in my own) is analogous to the process of pumping water. Let your chest with its lungs represent the reservoir, your diaphragm, the great muscle at the base of the lungs, becomes the piston and your mouth the mouth of the pump. If the mouth of the pump runs dry the pump itself runs down and has to be primed. Priming a pump is precisely analogous to "catching your breath" in speech.
The active principle of breath control in the Ricardo method is the idea of a constant mouth-breath. A sense of uninterrupted breath is as essential to a knowledge of correct tone as a sense of uninterrupted tone is to a knowledge of correct speech and song.
In breathing to speak or sing there must be such perfect diaphragmatic control that the mouth shall never be out of breath. You must learn in speaking and reading to take easily and quietly breath enough and often enough to supply the tone which is to be made into a single word, a phrase, a sentence, or a series of sentences, and leave the mouth-breath unexhausted, even unaffected. You must never catch your breath; the breath must pass continuously, the mouth-breath remaining a constant quantity.
It was gratifying in my work with this master of tone production to find that my own method in the training of the speaking voice was in accord at almost every point with her method in the training of the singing voice. In reprinting for you the exposition of my own method, as set down in The Speaking Voice, I have found it necessary to make but few changes. I have altered entirely the method of handling the tongue. I have added a word as to the part the lips play in the production of speech. In the few exercises it is safe to offer under the reinforcing of tone I have used the [=e] instead of the ä, convinced that it is the more effective vowel sound through which to work for uninterrupted tone.
It was also a pleasure to find my own instrument, through its training for speech, adequately prepared for the work in song. The studies which constitute Part Three of this book, if faithfully attended, will fit your voices for higher work in either art.