CONTENTS.
| [CHAPTER I.] | |
| Pages | |
| The Healthfulness of Singing | [1-5] |
| [CHAPTER II.] | |
| Management of the Breath | [6-7] |
| [CHAPTER III.] | |
| The Art of Managing Choir Boys | [8-11] |
| [CHAPTER IV.] | |
| Voice Training | [12-22] |
| [CHAPTER V.] | |
| Information on Voice-Training, collected by the Salisbury Diocesan Choral Association | [23-26] |
| [CHAPTER VI.] | |
| Pronunciation in Singing | [27-28] |
| [CHAPTER VII.] | |
| Singing by Ear and by Note | [29-30] |
| [CHAPTER VIII.] | |
| Flattening, and Singing out of Tune | [31-39] |
| [CHAPTER IX.] | |
| On the Training of Boys' Voices | [40-48] |
| [CHAPTER X.] | |
| The Special Difficulties of Agricultural Districts | [49-58] |
| [CHAPTER XI.] | |
| Notes on the Practice of various Choirmasters in Cathedrals, &c. | [59-68] |
| [CHAPTER XII.] | |
| Notes on the Practice of various Choirmasters in Parish Churches | [69-74] |
| [CHAPTER XIII.] | |
| Alto Boys | [75-89] |
| [CHAPTER XIV.] | |
| Schools for Choristers | [90-98] |
| [CHAPTER XV.] | |
| Concert Songs for Boys | [99-103] |
| [INDEX] | [104] |
CHAPTER I.
THE HEALTHFULNESS OF SINGING.
The boy's voice, though an immature organ of delicate structure, is capable of much work, providing only that its mechanism be rightly used and not forced. Some people are unnecessarily nervous about boys; as a rule, under competent guidance, they will get nothing but good from vocal work. A cathedral organist wrote to me the other day:—
"Our best solo boy, who has a splendid voice and who sings beautifully, has been unwell, and the Dean and Chapter doctor (who has an idea that every choir-boy should be as robust as a plough-boy) has just stated that the boy is too feeble to remain in the choir. Notwithstanding my remonstrances, the Dean and Chapter decided yesterday to uphold the doctor. I tried his voice last week, and he sang with full, rich tone up to the C above the stave, and that after he had been skating from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. I should have thought that a boy who could skate all day could not be in such a 'feeble' state as represented by the medical man. Three months ago a boy with a beautiful voice was sent away for the same reason. So you see what uphill work it is for me."
It is to be hoped that fastidiousness of this sort is not common. The abuse of the voice may lead, of course, to serious results. In the New York Medical Record of March 21, 1885, p. 317, there is a case recorded of the bursting of a blood vessel through too energetic singing, but this is altogether abnormal, and beyond the scope of our enquiry. The voice, properly used, will last as long as any other organ, and it benefits by exercise. Mr. D. W. Rootham of Bristol, who now at middle age has a strong constitution and a fine baritone voice, tells me that as a boy at Cambridge he sang for seven years at five services every Sunday. The thing seems incredible, and it is an extreme case, though it shows what work the voice, properly managed, will do.