The Child-Voice in Singing / Treated from a physiological and a practical standpoint and especially adapted to schools and boy choirs

by Francis E. Howard

Emma Seiler, in “The Voice in Singing,” p. 54, after describing the action of the vocal ligaments in the production of the chest-voice and alluding to the fact that such action can be continued several tones higher than the proper transitional point, goes on: “But such tones, especially in the female voice, have that rough and common timbre, which we are too often compelled to hear in our female singers. The glottis also in this case, as well as parts of the larynx near the glottis, betrays the effort very plainly; as the tones ascend, they grow more and more red. Thus, as at this place in the chest-register, there occurs a visible and sensible straining of the organs, so also is it in all the remaining transitions, as soon as the attempt is made to extend the action by which the lower tones are formed beyond the given limits of the same.” And again: “In the ignorance existing concerning the natural transitions of the registers, and in the unnatural forcing of the voice, is found a chief cause of the decline in the art of singing, and the present inability to preserve the voice is the consequence of a method of teaching unnatural, and, therefore, imposing too great a strain upon the voice.” Quotations innumerable might be made, to give more emphasis, were it needed, to the evils of register forcing.

The only point remaining is the one very often raised. Is it not natural for children to use the chest or thick voice? If their vocal organs are so flexible, may they not carry such tones higher than adults, and younger children higher than those a little older, and so on?

It is quite obvious, for reasons herein set forth, that children do not experience the same degree of difficulty in continuing the use of the thick voice to their higher tones as do adults, but as to the effect upon their vocal organs there need be no reasonable doubt. A. B. Bach, in “Principles of Singing,” p. 142, says: “If children are allowed to sing their higher notes forte, before the voice is properly equalized, it will become hard, harsh and hoarse, and they will fail in correct intonation. A mistake in this direction not only ruins the middle register but destroys the voice altogether. The consequence of encouraging forte singing is to change a soprano rapidly to an alto; and they will generally sing alto equally forte because their vocal cords have lost their elasticity through overstraining and the notes will no longer answer to piano. . . . . The fact is that reckless singing often breaks tender voices and breaks them forever.” It may be observed that the writer cited evidently accepts the same classification in register for children and adult women’s voices, but this does not make the above extract any less applicable. The baneful effects of forcing the voice is clearly set forth. How to avoid it is another matter.

Leo Kofler, in the work previously mentioned, p. 168, refers to this point as follows: “It frequently happens that the tones of the lower range, or the so-called chest-tones, are forced up too high into the middle range. This bad habit is often contracted while the singers are quite young. Boy trebles have this habit to an unendurable degree, usually screaming those horrible chest-tones up to middle C. Of all bad habits, this one is the most liable to injure a voice and to detract from artistic singing.”

To cite Madame Seiler once more, p. 176: “While it often happens that at the most critical age while the vocal organs are being developed, children sing with all the strength they can command. Boys, however, in whom the larynx at a certain period undergoes an entire transformation, reach only with difficulty the higher soprano or contralto tones, but are not assigned a lower part until perceiving themselves the impossibility of singing in this way, they beg the teacher for the change, often too late, unhappily, to prevent an irreparable injury. Moderate singing without exertion, and above all things, within the natural limits of the voice and its registers, would even during the period of growth be as little hurtful as speaking, laughing or any other exercise which cannot be forbidden to the vocal organs.”

Browne and Behnke, who separately and together have given most valuable additions to the literature of the voice, in a small book entitled “The Child-Voice,” have collated a large number of answers from distinguished singers, teachers and choir-trainers to various questions relating to the subject. The following citation is from this interesting work, p. 39: “The necessity of limiting the compass of children’s voices is frequently insisted upon, no attention whatever being paid to registers; and yet in finitely more mischief is done by forcing the registers than would be accomplished by allowing children to exceed the compass generally assigned to them, always provided that the singing be the result of using the mechanism set apart by nature for different parts of the voice.”

There can really be no doubt that the use of the chest or thick voice upon the higher tones is injurious to a child of six years, or ten years, or of any other age. The theory that in the child-voice the breaks occur at higher fixed pitches than in the adult is shown to be untenable. The fact would seem to be that comparisons between the registers of the child and the adult voice are misleading, since the adult voice has fixed points of change in the vocal mechanism, which can be transcended only with great difficulty, while the child-voice has no fixed points of change in its vocal registers. This point must not be overlooked. It is the most important fact connected with the child-voice in speech or song. It is the fundamental idea of this work and is the basis for whatever suggestions are herein contained upon the management of the child-voice. The rigidity of the adult larynx, the strength of the tensor and adductor muscles and the elastic firmness of the vocal ligaments, are to those of the child as the solid bony framework and strongly set muscles of maturity are to the imperfectly hardened bones and soft muscles of childhood. Nature makes no fixed limits of the vocal registers until full maturity is reached. A fixed register in a childish throat involving a completely developed larynx would be a startling anomaly. The laryngeal muscles of childhood are not strong. They are weak. Most of the talk about strength of voice in children is utter nonsense. When the muscles and other parts concerned in tone-production perform their physiological functions in a healthy manner, that is, in such a way that no congestion, or inflammation or undue weariness will result, the singing-tone of the child will never be loud. High or low, under these conditions it must perforce be soft, and if proper directions be followed the quality will be as good as the voice is capable of.

Everyone who has observed has also noticed the contrast in the lower tones of children and women. The chest-voice of the woman, which she uses in singing her lower register, is normally very beautiful in its quality. Its tones are the product of a perfectly developed, full-grown organ. The chest-voice of the child is an abnormal product of a weak, growing, undeveloped organ. It possesses, even when used carefully, little of the tone tints of the adult voice. The chest-voice belongs to adult life, not to childhood. The so-called chest-voice of children is only embryonic. It cannot be musical, for the larynx has not reached that stage of growth and development where it can produce these tones musically. The constant use of this hybrid register with children is injurious in many ways. Its use is justified in schools merely through custom, and it can not be doubted that as soon as the attention of teachers is called to its evils, they will no longer tolerate its use.

The usual analogies then which are drawn between the adult female voice and the child-voice, in so far as they imply a similar physiological condition of the vocal organ and similar vocal training, are not only useless, but misleading. He who tries to train the average child-voice on the theory of two, three or five clearly-defined breaks, or natural changes in the forms for vocal vibration assumed by the vocal bands will get very little help from nature.

With due consideration it is said that it is a harder task to train children’s voices properly than to train the voices of adults. Where nature is so shifty in her ways, it requires keen penetration to discover her ends.