II.
DESULTORY VOICE PRACTICE.
European schools and teachers stand aghast at what American pupils demand and at their expectations. Accustomed to the years of attention to detail and to seeing their own students willing to wait long years before good results are achieved, they naturally think the American students wild. These Americans want to do in one year what Europeans are willing to use three or four years for. Those teachers say it cannot be done and set down American students as conceited fools. While at first glance the teachers appear right, may they not be wrong? America to-day has more inventions in use, more quick ways of working in all lines of life, and can show quicker results in all lines of activity than any other nation. Methods and ways have been devised and adapted to American speed in all branches. May such not apply to study? So this item is prepared in the interest of American students, living under American conditions. It is useless to say, "we live too fast." Take facts as they are and adjust our custom to the day, place and situation.
Until within comparatively few years the plan for cultivation of the voice and preparation for song singing was to sing a few sustained tones for warming up the voice, as the saying was, and then to sing vocalizes. In the earlier stages of practice solfeggii and vocalizes of easy range and light character were employed. As these were acquired, similar ones of greater difficulty were used and as the singer gained confidence in himself and ability to sing better, the exercises were still increased in difficulty. The time employed in study extended over several years and with the result that those who had patience and perseverance became able to sing. Not one, however, in a thousand, who studied ever arrived at a point which allowed him comfort in his singing or pleasure to his hearers. That is, to the idea of a practical mind, desultory voice study. It may be adapted to the contented plodding of an old world civilization, but is not in keeping with the age of electricity or of gigantic schemes. It must be kept in mind by every one that "old things have passed away and all things have become new." The very association about us makes mind keen to rapidity of action, speaking from incisive thought. A plodder stands back while the brilliant man moves to the front. By the plodder is meant he who is willing to go slowly. By the brilliant man, he, though he may not have more native talent than the other, has by calling to his aid those commanding elements of success, moved surely and therefore swiftly, through the perplexities of every existence, to the front. Every thing which cuts off wastefulness of time becomes a weapon with which to fight perplexities. In such an active life, he who would cultivate the voice and become a musician must map out for himself a course of study which will give him the best results in the quickest possible time.
It is patent to every one who intelligently teaches that the road followed during the last few generations lacks these short roads to success. One asks, and with justice, if we have now found the royal road to learning which it has ever been said does not exist. If that means the road by which, at one bound, we reach perfection, the answer must be that no royal road has been found. There have been planned, however, ways of procedure which must shorten the trip. I know not when man first practised dentistry but this I do know, that the doctor of dental science who works on lines of even one generation back is valueless. To-day the terrors of the dentist's chair are reduced to a minimum, if not entirely removed. Photography, a science of our day, has swiftly grown to an art. I recall a photographer who in 1870 was noted for perfect work. He was so satisfied with himself and his work that he neglected to use the new ways which were being discovered. In 1880 his work was considered so bad as to be condemned by all and his studio was forsaken. Printing by the sun had not been discarded but how to use the science had been carefully advanced—wasteful and slow method discarded, and surer and better results obtained. Is a musician less keen of perception and adjustment to circumstances than the dentist and photographer? Pride rebels against an affirmative answer. Then the natural deduction is that he has learned to apply new ways and methods, by and through which he can produce surer and more beautiful results than could his predecessor in his profession. As a first step toward progress he recognised the faults of the old way and sought a change from them. The chief of the faults lay in seeking to cultivate a sound. He said in substance, then, that "since cultivating a sound is wrong I consider that no such thing as sound exists. It cannot be perceived by any of the senses. It cannot be seen, tasted, smelt, felt, or even heard." (Parenthetically, it may be said if one takes exception to the latter statement, that proof is given of the truth if one sings into a phonograph. The singer cannot recognise what the instrument sounds back as his voice. Others may recognise it but he cannot. The hearing of my voice by another, no matter how much he may tell me about it, does not show me how it sounds, and I must conclude that I cannot hear it.) Since none of the five senses can bear upon sound, for cultivating it, sound, or tone if you wish to call it so, is worthless. This then which the old teachers watched for years, was intangible, and to watch it to-day and to try to form singers by manipulating so subtle a thing, produces wastefulness, and desultory practice. Go to the foundation. What produces voice? Vibration of air reservoirs. What governs the air and gives the vibration? Muscle. What are muscles, where are they, how can they be managed? They are contained within the portion of the body between the waist and the eyes, and form, while used in voice production, about all of that portion of the body, and they can be managed by the understanding and command of the mind. The general understanding of vocal anatomy, and the positive control of that anatomy that it may do just what the will demands is the foundation of voice practice. Such positiveness makes possible the rapidity of vocal development akin to the surety of the dentist's art and the certainty of the photographer. The prime fault of old methods is, at one stroke, cut away. A new growth on the foundation appears.
Many musical journals discuss methods, Italian, French, German. Even wonder if we will ever have an American method. Such discussion is waste. There is one method. All schools build on it. He who understands it best and is surest in teaching it, gives best result and is the best teacher. He, the best teacher, is such only when he applies his mind to each and every act of his pupil and banishes for the time being every other thought from mind. In a proper lesson every minute is used thoroughly. No sixty seconds can be thrown away. The mind of the teacher alert to the necessity of his charge makes every minute tell. With this as a preamble, turn to the pupil who is by himself to avoid desultory practice.
You have a voice. Every one has. Yours, you know, is a very good one. You want (not, would like) in the quickest time to make it do just what you conceive a fine singer should do. Then, know what is to be done, understand how to do it, and do it. The boys say "One to make ready, two to prepare, and three—." But you stand around making ready, preparing so long. Why? Do you know what is to be done? Ask the teacher, and don't let him evade positive instruction. Garcia, when asked the cause of Jenny Lind's great success, replied "She never tried to do anything 'til she knew how. More than once she has come to my house of an evening and said 'I did not fully understand what you told me to-day. Will you explain it again?' After that she never needed to be told again." At a lesson understand what is taught. Don't pretend you do when you do not. After going home from each lesson, write in a book kept for that purpose what has been said at the lesson. Read that book often. This will fix in mind, as well as preserve for reference, the instruction, and make sure the understanding of it. Then it is for you to do it. Once the pianist played scales by the hour to limber the hand; now he thinks only of the muscle which causes each finger to strike, and makes that muscle work at once. What formerly took months to do he now does in days. Desultory practice is avoided. A teacher in a certain city complained that another teacher got pupils by advertising quick method. Cut off desultory practice, apply mind where brute force has formerly held sway, and quick method is the result.
One reference to complaint brings others to mind. The most precious commodity known is time. Twenty-four hours only in a day. How little and how valuable. Yet if all is conserved, how much and how great. Masonic instruction divides the day into three portions; one for our usual avocations, one for good of self and family, and one for refreshment and sleep. So much for instruction. Can some wasteful acts of life be reduced or eliminated, that we may economize time, and what is better, form habit of utilizing all of the precious commodity? What a lesson one can draw on these elevated trains. Each morn, a man (one man, or how many think you?) enters and finds a seat. Immediately he is into his newspaper. A half hour later he gets out, having arrived at his station. What has happened? He has read the newspaper. No, he hasn't read the newspaper. Ask him what he has learned. He can't tell you. One item, two, three, perhaps—and these of little value. That is not reading. It is cursory glancing, desultory and wasteful. Stop it. Thirty precious minutes gone. A glance at a paper (provided one knows the general make-up of the paper he reads) tells him all in it of value. Six minutes is enough, except when something of unusual moment is to be read, and that doesn't happen once a month. The other twenty-four minutes should go into some other purpose. A book, magazine, play, or even silent thought will give value for the twenty-four. At night, on the way home, the man skims through an evening paper. Almost one hour of the twenty-four thrown away. Compute the amount of educational advancement possible to this city were the hundreds of thousands of hours thrown away daily to be used in progressive study or thought. You and I help to waste, do we?
The command of the mind is the underlying need of the student. It has come into thought that should one apply himself every minute to some work that he would fatigue and wear out. He could not stand it. Wrong. The mind cannot wear out, even if it can fatigue. Rest is the opposite of unrest, and unrest is equivalent to fatigue. The superficial reading or skimming, shifting of thought through the thousand objects which come before the mind gives the unrest and through it, the fatigue. Stop the unrest, and let rest abound. Rest comes through definite change of work. The man who leaves his office, rushes to mountain and farm, sees new scenes, faces, customs, eats new food, rides, fishes, swims, climbs and dances, is the one who comes back rested. There has been no unrest, but radical change. The first assistant engineer of the New York aqueduct was to me at one time an object of astonishment. It was said of him, "When he works, he works; when he plays, he plays; whatever he does it is for the time all in the world to him." At that time he held an important engineering position, was an officer in a military organization, secretary of a yacht club, active in church society, leader in literary circles in classic Boston and never was rushed. The change of work was the secret of it all. Rest came by turning out of mind what did not pertain to the act then in hand. Every act was new. Of a certain minister it is said "He can do more in ten minutes than most men do in a day." His church has fifteen hundred members and his Sunday school a larger number. Calls, sermons, the sick, weddings, funerals, the poor (for he had four charity societies), his family, young people's societies,—yet he has time for all and he sees callers, more in one week than you and I do in a year. How does he do it? What you and I waste time upon, he does not. No gossip, worry, standing before a mirror, dozing over dinner, or unrest for him. Vary the monotony a little and find rest. Don't fear doing too much. Wear out, if need be, but don't rust. It is the busy man who has lots of time. Do you want advice, a helping hand? Avoid the lazy man, for he has no time for you. The busy man has. Why is it that the busy teacher draws the most pupils? Were he to half teach ten pupils they would leave him and no more would come. Because he can attend to forty, and that by making to each a profitable half-hour, forty more come. The half supplied teacher is less able to teach his small flock than the pushed teacher. He must turn quickly from act to act and thus keep rested, by change of scene, pupil, music and vivacity. "Can you jump immediately from a lesson to the desk and write one of your magazine articles?" asks one. Nothing easier. Fix the mind on what is to be done that minute, and do it. It makes a heaven of earth.
Instruction which is not practical is little worth. You are interested in improving yourselves vocally. To you let me plan a first step toward preventing desultory voice practice. Under four headings. Practical ones.
First.—Establish customs. The best one I know is to plan in advance to accomplish certain things. Make up the mind what you would like to do. Each night make out a little card of what is to be done next day. Probably not half the things planned will be executed, at first. What of it. Some have been done; but better, that unconscious growth which carries custom into habit will be developed and the system which will grow out of the custom of preparing the cards and attempting to work out that which was planned, will cut off more wasteful minutes than you admit are in your day. After a time it will come that all the items you write on the card at evening will not be too much to do on the following day. Compare the card of the thirtieth day with that of the first and you will find you wrote quite as many (if not more) things to do and now you can do them all, and feel no hurry and far less fatigue. Will you try that?