Several names are used by teachers to describe their methods. One professes to teach a "natural method," another the "pure Italian school of Bel Canto," a third the "old Italian method as illustrated by Vocal Science," a fourth the "strict scientific system of Voice Culture." No attention need be paid to these expressions, as they are seldom accurate descriptions.
Vocal lessons are usually of thirty minutes' duration. Each student generally takes two such lessons every week, although in some cases three, four, or even more are taken. A description of a few typical lessons will show how the materials of instruction are practically utilized.
Example 1: The student takes a few preliminary toneless breaths. Then follow, in the order given, a few short tones for practice on attack, some sustained tones on the vowel ah, exercises on three, four, and five notes, ascending and descending, a single tone followed by the octave jump up and descending scale, this last rising by semitones through several keys. In these exercises the student's attention is directed at random to the correct use of the registers, to nasal resonance, forward emission, etc. This consumes ten or twelve minutes of the lesson time. More elaborate exercises on scale passages are then sung, lasting another five minutes. These are followed by a vocalise or two, and a couple of songs or arias, which fill out the thirty minutes.
Example 2: A few breathing exercises are practised, followed by single tones and short scale passages, the whole lasting about five minutes. Then the student is drilled for some ten minutes on "placing the head tones," in the manner described in the section on special vowel and consonant drills. These exercises are varied by swelling the high tone, by changing the vowels, and by elaborating the descending scale passages. The remaining fifteen minutes are devoted to vocalises and songs.
Example 3: This is an advanced pupil, whose voice is supposed to be fairly well "placed." Technical exercises of some difficulty are sung, covering a range of an octave and a half, or a little more. The teacher interrupts occasionally to say "Sing those lower notes more in the chest voice," "Place the upper notes higher in the head," "Don't let your vocal cords open on that ah," "Sing that again and make the tones cleaner," etc. One or two arias are then sung, interspersed with instructions of the same sort, and also with suggestions regarding style, delivery, and expression.
For daily practice between lessons, the student sings usually the same exercises and studies included in the previous lesson, and also commits to memory compositions assigned for future study.
Examples of this kind might be multiplied indefinitely, but the main points have been fairly well brought out. Most important to be noticed is the fact that the voice is trained by practice in actual singing. In the whole scheme of modern Voice Culture, toneless muscular drills consume only an insignificant proportion of the time devoted to lessons. Further, the number of exercises and musical compositions embraced in a single half-hour lesson is very small. On the other hand, no limit can be set to the number of topics of vocal control touched on in any one lesson. These latter are used, throughout the whole range of instruction, without any systematic sequence. Whatever fault of production the pupil's tones indicate, the teacher calls attention to the fault, and gives the supposedly appropriate rule for its correction.