The pure head tone, without admixture of palatal resonance, is feeble close at hand, but penetrating and of a carrying power equalled by no other. Palatal resonance without admixture of the resonance of the head cavities (head tones) makes the tone very powerful when heard near by, but without vibrancy for a large auditorium. This is the proof of how greatly every tone needs the proper admixture.
SECTION XVIII
THE HIGHEST HEAD TONES
As we have already seen, there is almost no limit to the height that can be reached by the pure head tone without admixture of palatal resonance. Very young voices, especially, can reach such heights, for without any strain they possess the necessary adaptability and skill in the adjustment to each other of the larynx, tongue, and pillars of the fauces. A skill that rests on ignorance of the true nature of the phenomenon must be called pure chance, and thus its disappearance is as puzzling to teacher and listener as its appearance had been in the first place. How often is it paired with a total lack of ability to produce anything but the highest head tones! As a general rule such voices have a very short lease of life, because their possessors are exploited as wonders, before they have any conception of the way to use them, of tone, right singing, and of cause and effect in general. An erroneous pressure of the muscles, a wrong movement of the tongue (raising the tip, for instance,
), an attempt to increase the strength of the tone,—all these things extinguish quickly and for all time the wonder-singer's little light.
We Lehmann children in our youth could sing to the very highest pitch. It was nothing for my sister Marie to strike the 4-line e a hundred times in succession, and trill on it for a long time. She could have sung in public at the age of seven. But since our voices, through the circumstances of our life and surroundings, were forced to early exertions, they lost their remarkable high notes; yet enough was left to sing the Queen of Night (in Mozart's opera "Die Zauberflöte"), with the high f.
After I had been compelled to use my lower and middle ranges much more, in the study of dramatic parts, I omitted the highest notes from my practice, but could not then always have relied on them. Now that I know on what it all depends, it is very easy for me to strike high f, not only in passing, but to combine it with any tone through three octaves. But upon the least pressure by any organ, the head resonance loses its brilliancy; that is, the breath no longer streams into the places where it should, and can create no more whirling currents of sound to fill the spaces.