A majority of the more than fifty authors whose works I have examined have laid great stress on the distinction between head and chest tones, open and closed tones, pure and impure tones, have warned against the nasal tone, and have constantly advocated a natural tone. That there is no essential difference between a head tone and a chest tone has already been discussed and, it would seem, conclusively proven. Any tone, closed or open, is pure and musical if properly focused and delivered, and the singer is at liberty to use either upon any note of the scale if it will serve better to express the sentiment he wishes to convey to the hearer. The cooing of the love song, the cry of alarm for help, and the shout of the military charge require very different qualities of voice to express the feelings, yet each may be musical and will be so if properly delivered.
CHAPTER VI
Resonance in General
The intimate relationship existing between voice culture and the science of acoustics was formerly slightly perceived. The teaching of singing, as an art, then rested altogether on an empirical basis, and the acoustics of singing had not received the attention of scientists.
With the publication in 1863 of Helmholtz's great work[4] a new era began, although singer and scientist yet continue to look upon each other with suspicion. Teachers of the voice, casting about for a scientific basis for their work, were greatly impressed with Helmholtz's revelations in regard to vocal resonance—the fact that tones are modified in quality as well as increased in power by the resonance of the air in the cavities of pharynx and head.
Writing in 1886, Edmund J. Meyer speaks of the importance of a "study of the influence of the different resonance cavities as the voice is colored by one or the other, and the tuning each to each and each to all"; yet, he adds, "the subject is seldom heard of outside of books."
The basic importance of resonance in the use of the voice is still too little recognized, though obvious enough in the construction of musical instruments. With the exception of a few instruments of percussion, all musical instruments possess three elements,—a motor, a vibrator, and a resonator. The violin has the moving bow for a motor, the strings for a vibrator, and the hollow body for a resonator. The French horn has the lungs of the performer for a motor, the lips for a vibrator, and the gradually enlarging tube, terminating in the flaring bell, for a resonator. In the pianoforte the hammer-stroke, the strings, and the sounding-board perform the corresponding offices. Though improvements in other parts of the piano have done much to increase the volume of the tone, yet in the radical change of form, size, and other physical qualities of the sounding-board consists the evolution of the modern pianoforte from the primitive clavichord.
In all these instruments the quality and power of the tone depend upon the presence of these three elements,—the perfection of their construction, their proper relation as to size and position, and the perfect adaptation of each part. A split sounding-board spoils the pianoforte, the indented bell destroys the sweet tone of the French horn, and a cracked fiddle is the synonym for pandemonium itself.