THE SINGER BEFORE AN AUDIENCE
"You ask if I hear myself, when I am singing for an audience. In a general way, yes. Of course I do not get the full effect of what I am doing; a singer never does. It takes the records to tell me that, and I have been making records for a good number of years. But I know the sensations which accompany correct tone production, and if I feel they are different in any place or passage, I try to make a mental note of the fact and the passage, that I may correct it afterwards. But I must emphasize the point that when I sing, I cast away all thought of how I do anything technical; I want to get away from the mechanics of the voice; I must keep my thought clear for the interpretation, for the message I have brought to the audience. To be constantly thinking—how am I doing this or that—would hamper me terribly. I should never get anywhere. I must have my vocal apparatus under such control that it goes of itself. A pianist does not think of technic when playing in public, neither should a singer think of his vocal technic. Of course there may be occasions when adverse circumstances thrust conditions upon me. If I have a slight cold, or tightness of throat, I have to bring all my resources to bear, to rise above the seeming handicap, and sing as well as I can in spite of it. I can say gratefully, without any desire to boast, that during the past eleven years, I have never once missed an engagement or disappointed an audience. Of course I have had to keep engagements when I did not feel in the mood, either physically or mentally. Many singers would have refused under like conditions. But it does not seem fair to the audience to disappoint, or to the manager either; it puts him in a very difficult and unpleasant position. It seems to me the artist should be more considerate of both manager and audience, than to yield to a slight indisposition and so break his engagement.
THE SINGER IN HIS STUDIO
"It makes such a difference—in quality of tone and in effect—whether you sing in a small or large space. Things you do in the studio and which may sound well there, are quite different or are lost altogether in a large hall. You really cannot tell what the effect will be in a great space, by what you do in your studio. In rehearsing and study, I use half voice, and only occasionally do I use full voice, that is when I wish to get a better idea of the effect."
VOCAL MASTERY
As we stood at the close of the conference, I asked the supreme question—What do you understand by Vocal Mastery? The artist looked as though I were making an impossible demand in requiring an answer to so comprehensive a subject. He took a few strides and then came back.
"I can answer that question with one word—Disregard. Which means, that if you have such control of your anatomy, such command of your vocal resources that they will always do their work, that they can be depended upon to act perfectly, then you can disregard mechanism, and think only of the interpretation—only of your vocal message. Then you have conquered the material—then you have attained Vocal Mastery!"