The uvula often is too long, either by nature or through a disease called prolongation of the uvula. It can be treated by astringents or the elongation can be cut off, which usually is the most prompt and efficacious way. The operator, however, in case the patient is a singer, must calculate to a nicety just
how much to remove, otherwise the voice will suffer. There are isolated cases of deformed soft palate with uvula so enormous that it cannot be raised. In such cases, one of which is instanced by Kofler, a surgical operation being out of the question, the patient simply has to give up singing.
Enlarged tonsils, whether from inflammation or other causes, also have to be operated on, as their enlargement obviously hinders free voice-emission. Even at its best the mouth-passage here is narrowest—and called the "isthmus"—and nothing must be allowed to make it narrower than it is by nature. The lips never should lie flat against the teeth, since this would muffle resonance. On the other hand, the teeth should not be bared, as this results in a foolish grin. The cheeks naturally conform to the action of the lips. The lower jaw should be relaxed, which gives the so-called "floating chin." When the lower jaw, and with it the chin, is raised, the throat is tightened, and voice-action becomes constricted. The "floating chin" does not, of course, mean that the chin is to be thrust downward into the chest. In singing, as in everything else, there is a golden rule to be observed.
It is obvious that the tongue also is a highly responsible
member of the vocal tract. Raise it too high, and you bring it so close to the hard palate that the mouth becomes too small for free, resonant voice-emission. The tone becomes wheezy. Let the tongue lie too flat, and the mouth-cavity becomes too large and cavernous for tense, vibrant voice-emission. The tone becomes too open. Let the base of the tongue move back too far, and it will tend to close the pharynx and to check free egress from the pharynx into the mouth, making the tone muffled. Raise the back of the tongue until it touches the soft palate, and the two combined close the mouth-cavity from behind, with the result that voice is carried up the nasal passage and is charged with a disagreeable nasal quality.
For every tone produced there is a special adjustment throughout the entire vocal tract. These adjustments should, by practice, become automatic, simple acts of swift and unconscious obedience to the will. Then the question of "forward," "backward," or "middle" production, according to the part of the roof of the mouth where the tone-vibrations appear to centre, will become a matter wholly of the quality of voice which it is desired to produce for any given emotional state. Forward production—vibration appearing to centre a little back
of the upper front teeth—is, as a general thing, the best. Yet a voice brilliant to the point of hardness can be mellowed by middle or backward production. These are matters of judgment. But when I am told, as I was by a young girl, that she was being taught to centre the tone-vibrations "back of her eyes," all I can do is to throw up my hands and exclaim, "O voice-production, what crimes are committed in thy name!" Yes—there should be a Rescue League, or a Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Singers.