The Open Throat
Just as with the forward tone, the meaning of the open throat is best brought out by contrasting the impressions made on the hearer by a perfect and a badly used voice. A badly produced tone seems to be caught, or as Tosi expressed it, "choaked in the throat." The singer's throat seems to be tightened and narrowed so that the sound has not sufficient passageway to come out properly. On the other hand, the perfectly used voice comes out freely, without interference or hindrance at any point in the singer's throat. There seems to be plenty of room for the tone to come forth; in other words, the singer's throat seems to be open.
All these impressions are purely a matter of sympathetic sensations. In listening to a faulty singer the hearer feels a sensation of tightness and contraction of the throat. A well used voice awakens exactly the opposite sensation, that of looseness and freedom of the throat.
Here again is seen the difference between correct and incorrect singing, empirically considered. Judging from the impressions made by rightly and wrongly used voices, any incorrect vocal action involves a condition of tightness and contraction of the throat. Perfect singing gives the impression that the throat is loose and supple, and free from all unnecessary tension.
The Support of the Tone
Following the plan of contrasting correct and incorrect singing, the meaning of this precept is readily found. The perfect voice is felt by the hearer to be firmly and confidently held by the singer in a secure grasp of the throat muscles. Such a voice awakens the sympathetic sensations of perfectly balanced muscular effect, similar to the muscular sensations of the hand and forearm when an object is firmly grasped in the hand.
A badly used voice seems to be convulsively gripped in the singer's throat. The tones seem to fall back into the throat for want of some secure base on which to rest. This impression is conveyed by a peculiar set of sympathetic sensations of highly unpleasant muscular tension far back in the throat.
This precept, "Support the tone," points to the difference already noted between the right and the wrong vocal action. Badly produced tones indicate a state of excessive tension of the throat muscles. Correct singing gives the impression that the throat muscles exert exactly the requisite degree of strength, and no more.
Taken together, the open-throat and the forward-tone precepts embody an admirable description of the sympathetic sensations awakened by perfect singing. The singer's entire vocal mechanism is felt to be in a condition of lithe and supple freedom. There is no straining, no constraint, no forcing, no unnecessary tension. Each muscle of the vocal mechanism, and indeed of the entire body, exerts just the necessary degree of strength.
Similar muscular sensations always accompany the expert performance of any action requiring a high degree of dexterity. Whatever be the form of exertion, skilful physical activity awakens muscular sensations of perfectly balanced and harmonized contractions. This feeling of muscular poise and adjustment is pleasurable in a high degree.