An entirely different conception of voice culture has recently been advanced and has indeed made great headway. From the fact that the new doctrine found its first complete statement in the writer’s ‘Psychology of Singing’ (New York, 1908), it has come to be known as the psychological theory, in contradistinction to the mechanical theory embodied in the scientific system.
Briefly stated, the psychological theory of voice production is as follows: To the vocal problem propounded by nature the solution has also been furnished by nature herself. Nature has endowed the voice with a sufficient guide and monitor—the sense of hearing. There is a direct connection between the cerebral centres of hearing and the centres governing the muscles of the vocal organs. The volitional impulse to produce a certain sound involves the hearing of the sound in imagination; through the nerve fibres connecting the centres of hearing and of voice, the nerve impulse is sent to the vocal organs which causes them to assume the positions and perform the muscular contractions necessary for the production of the desired tone. Thus the voice is controlled by the ear, and it needs no other form of control than that furnished by the ear. A correct management of the voice in singing results in the production of tones of a distinct characteristic sound, while any incorrect use of the voice produces tones which differ from the correct type, more or less, according to the degree of faultiness in the vocal management. The ear is the only reliable judge of the voice. Only by listening to the tones it produces can it be determined whether a voice is correctly used or not. The object of vocal cultivation is first of all to enable the voice to produce the correct type of tone. This is accomplished by practice, which consists of repeated efforts to sing tones of the type recognized by the ear as correct. If the ear has the right conception of pure tone, the vocal organs gradually fall into the way of producing correct tones, that is, of operating in the correct manner. In this the voice is guided by its own instincts, which offer a safer and more efficient guidance than that provided by the conscious management of the vocal organs. No attention whatever need be paid to the mechanical operations of tone production. The vocal organs are informed by the mental ear what is expected of them, and perform their functions instinctively without any help from the intellect.
One advantage of the psychological doctrine is that it at once dispels all the mystery which has seemed to surround the early history of the subject, and which has extended even to the method of the Italian teachers of bel canto. Little notice has indeed been taken of the systems of vocal cultivation which flourished before the rise of the Italian school of vocal teachers. But since the universal adoption of the scientific doctrine, repeated efforts have been made to penetrate the secret of the old method. These efforts have always resulted in failure, for the reason already mentioned. Investigators have sought to re-discover the form of instruction used for the purpose of imparting a direct conscious control of the vocal organs; their conviction that no other means of vocal command is possible has blinded students of the subject to the instinctive processes actually followed. As our main purpose in the present chapter is to describe the system now known as the old Italian method, a fuller treatment of its records, both literary and traditional, will be reserved for a later section. A review of the early history of voice culture will lead most readily to the consideration of the old Italian method.
II
Ancient systems of vocal culture call for only passing mention. In the early civilizations of Egypt, Chaldea and Assyria the art of singing was cultivated assiduously. In the services of the temples this ancient art found its most serious and dignified employment. Each of the countries named possessed, at the time of its highest civilization, a highly elaborate ritual of worship, in which singing played a most important part. Every temple had its corps of trained singers, who were especially educated for this office. The most important feature of the education of the temple singers was the memorizing of the musical settings to which the various poems and chronicles of the ritual were sung and chanted. The course of instruction consisted of the actual singing of the music, under the tuition of a master whose memory was stored with the entire devotional repertoire of the cult. A proper performance of the music was the object sought, and to this the most earnest attention was paid. But incident to this was the production of the quality and type of tones which experience had shown to be best adapted to the use of the voice in the massive temples and in the open-air services. The temple music schools were under the constant supervision of the priests and other officials in charge and the classes met regularly for instruction and practice.
Very much the same system was followed in the Temple at Jerusalem. Of the musical system developed there we have a highly complete and satisfactory record. Here the art of singing was carried to a very high pitch of development. At the time of Solomon there were 4,000 Levites attached to the Temple, whose office it was to sing and intone the various services. The elaborate ritual contained musical settings for the Psalms and certain of the historical and prophetic books, which demanded a high degree of vocal ability for their rendition. Both the priests and the Levites received a lengthy training in the singing of the music allotted to them. The music of the Temple is especially interesting to the student of the history of singing, for the reason that it included a remarkably developed system of vocal ornamentation. It would have been impossible to sing this music without a thorough command of the voice, and the education of the priests and Levites therefore included a comprehensive system of vocal cultivation.
The experience of the early masters of the old Italian school taught them that the best means for training the voice in facility and flexibility is the actual singing of ornamental florid music. This was also the plan followed in the school attached to the Temple. A system of notation was in use, somewhat similar to that of the neumes used in Europe from the ninth to the thirteenth century. Every standard ornament and melodic phrase was represented by a letter, according to a strictly arbitrary system. A most important part of the Temple method of musical instruction was the memorizing of the various phrases, groups, runs, etc., represented by the significant letters. This was purely a matter of convention, that is, the meaning of the letters was recorded only in the memories of the instructors and the graduate students. The instructor taught the phrase for which a letter stood by singing it for his students and having them sing it after him until they had committed it to memory and learned to associate it with the letter. As the musical phrases were all melodious and in most cases ornamental, the voice thus received an effective training. One of the puzzling aspects of the first solo singing in European music is the difficulty found in tracing the origin of the vocal embellishments of which it so largely consisted. A possible explanation of this mystery may be found in the music of the Temple. How the traditions so carefully treasured there could have found their way into Italy after the lapse of nearly 2,000 years will be considered in a later section of this chapter.
In classic Athens the voice was trained for the purposes of both oratory and singing. A specially recognized profession was that of the vocal trainer or phonascus, whose duties embraced the vocal cultivation of both singers and public speakers. A well-developed system of voice culture was followed by these teachers, who superintended classes in the daily practice of systematic exercises. For the training of the speaking voice a pupil began his daily practice by repeating detached sentences at short intervals. From this he passed to the declamation of long phrases, beginning on the lowest notes of the voice, raising the pitch gradually until the highest notes were reached, and then again descending to the lowest range. The exercises in singing were very similar, although greater attention was paid to the sustaining of high notes. Owing to the immense size of the Greek open-air theatres, and to the masks that were always worn by the actors, volume and power of voice were of the utmost importance. The actors might justly be described as singers, as all their speeches were delivered in a style of vocal declamation not unlike our modern recitative.
Very much the same methods of vocal cultivation were followed in ancient Rome, although much more attention was paid to oratory than to singing. There is no reason to believe that voice culture in Europe was influenced in any way by the classic systems of either Greece or Rome.