The tone caused by the vibration of two such small bands as the vocal cords must, in the nature of the case, be very feeble. It becomes important for the reader to convince himself of the importance of resonance in sounding bodies and musical instruments.

When the stem of a tuning-fork so small that it can be scarcely heard when in vibration, except by, the person holding it, is laid against a solid body, as a table, its sound is at once so increased that it can be heard in the most distant part of a large room. When the same fork is held over an empty jar of suitable size and shape, a similar but much, less marked increase of its tone is to be observed.

If a cord of but moderate thickness be fastened at each end to a thin piece of wood, say a split shingle, and a little block of wood, in imitation of the bridge of a violin, be placed under the cord so as to render it tense, we have the essentials of a stringed instrument, the pitch of which can be made to vary by moving the block about and thus varying the tightness of the cord. But the sound of such an improvised instrument, produced by drawing a bow across the cord, is ridiculously feeble.

In the actual violin the volume of sound, as well as its quality, depends on the size, shape, and weight of the instrument. The strings serve the purpose of causing the body of the instrument, the air within it, and, in consequence, the air without, between it and the ear of the auditor, to vibrate or move in a specific manner.

Similarly, the imposing size of the grand piano is associated inevitably with loudness, as compared with a smaller instrument. A violoncello must produce a larger tone than a violin, though not necessarily one more intense.

These principles of resonance apply in the case of the singer and the speaker. The bass and barytone produce tones of larger volume (as well as different quality) than those of the tenor, because their resonance apparatus is different in size and shape. It is true, their vocal bands, their wind-power, and the laryngeal muscles are different—they are not of the same size, etc.—and, in a more remote sense, this is the cause of the differences in the tones they produce; but the immediate cause is to be sought in the resonance mechanism, and, above all, in the resonance-chambers.

It is true that when one speaks or sings, the chest, windpipe, and larynx may be felt to vibrate, but the essential vibrations are supra-glottic—above the vocal bands.

These resonance-chambers are the mouth cavity, in the widest sense, and the nasal chambers. It is highly probable that the vibrations of the chest walls and of the bones of the head may to some degree modify the vibrations of the air within the resonance-chambers, chiefly in the direction of intensification; but the idea that the hollow spaces in certain of the bones of the head have any appreciable influence on the tones of the speaker or singer, can at best not be considered as demonstrated, and it serves no practical purpose to take into account this possibility.

The great facts, the facts which are so plain that they may be demonstrated to a child, are these: that the quality of any tone—e.g., a vowel—is absolutely determined by the shape of these cavities, the mouth and nasal chambers. This subject will be treated further when the tones, etc., of speech are considered, but inasmuch as no one can sing, in the proper sense of the term, without the use of vowels, at least, and as we produce different vowels with ease, one may at once demonstrate to himself that this is done by altering the shape of his mouth cavity, and chiefly by the agency of the tongue and soft palate.



A short description of a part to which many voice-users remain strangers all their lives will now be given. These resonance-chambers remain, for many, an apparatus used daily and absolutely essential, yet never examined. Fortunately, a few illustrations, which should be followed by an examination of the student's own resonance-chambers and their various parts as they may be seen in a mirror, will remove all difficulty in the understanding of them, and prepare for that detailed study to be recommended in a subsequent chapter.

Passing from before backward, one meets the lips, the teeth and gums, the hard palate, which is a continuation of the gums; then, suspended from the hard palate, behind, is the soft palate, back of which lies the pharynx (often termed "the throat"), and above it and constituting its continuation, the naso-pharynx; and lying on the floor of the mouth there is the tongue.

Certain of these parts, as the teeth, gums, hard palate, nasal bones, etc., constitute fixed structures, and though they determine in no small measure the shape of the resonance-chambers, and so to a degree the quality of the voice, so movable are the lips, soft palate, and, above all, the tongue, that there is the widest scope for varying the quality and even the volume of the voice; so that it is a good thing, practically, for every one to believe that so far as quality, at all events, is concerned, he is the master of his own destinies.

Though we are accustomed to believe that the mouth and nose are, though neighbors, quite separate and independent of each other, such is not the case. Indeed, in the pre-natal condition these are not two, but one; and in some instances they remain imperfectly separated, owing to the failure of the hard palate to develop to the full—a condition known as "cleft palate," and giving rise to a peculiar nasal intonation, to be explained presently.

The nasal chambers are divided into two by a vertical partition, as one can readily demonstrate by the use of his fingers, and are still further broken up by certain bones, the scroll-shaped or turbinated bones, so that the nasal chambers are of very limited size, and much divided up by bony outgrowths from their walls. The vertical septum, while bony above, is cartilaginous and flexible below.

Without the aid of instruments and a good light the nose can be but indifferently examined from the front, while it requires the greatest skill on the part of a laryngologist to see it well from behind. However, the whole difficulty can be got over by visiting a butcher and securing a sheep's head split through from before back. In a few moments one can learn all the essential facts, including that one of great practical importance—viz.: that every part of the resonance-chambers is lined by the same mucous membrane which is also continued downward into the larynx and the gullet.

It will be thus observed that the throat and nose communicate in the freest manner behind, and that the only way of closing off the mouth cavity from the nasal chambers is by means of the tongue and the soft palate working together. As in the proper use of the tongue and soft palate lie many of the secrets of the art of the speaker and singer, special attention must be given to these parts.

The tongue, which completely fills the floor of the mouth, is made up of several muscles of different attachments, which explains why this organ is so movable. To say that it can with the greatest ease and rapidity be turned toward every one of the thirty-two points marked on a mariner's compass, is but to feebly express its capacity for movements. What we are most concerned with now is its power to alter the shape of the mouth cavity in every part.

The soft palate is suspended like a curtain from the hard palate, behind. It is composed of muscles arranged in pairs, and is continued into a conical tip below known as the uvula, and on each side into folds, the pillars of the fauces, between which lie the tonsils, which are in shape like very small almond nuts. When quite normal these should not protrude much, if at all, beyond the cavity made by the folds referred to above.

Both the tonsils and the uvula may become so enlarged as to be a source of awkwardness or more serious evil to the voice-user. They may, in fact, require operative interference. So serious, however, is the decision to operate, or the reverse, for the voice-user, that the author recommends that such operations be entrusted only to laryngologists who have some knowledge of their influence on voice-production.

It is of the greatest moment to observe that the quality of tones can be made to vary in the highest degree by the joint use of the tongue and soft palate. When in vocalizing the tongue is raised behind and the soft palate made to approach it, or actually to meet it, the tone assumes a more or less nasal character. The reason of this is that the cavity of the mouth proper, or "mouth" in the narrower sense, the forward part, is shut off from the hinder part, or the pharynx, so that the breath is then directed upward and passes chiefly through the nose, producing a nasal tone or twang—always a fault, and one fearfully common in America.

When the tongue alone is raised behind, or drawn back unduly, tones become muffled—indistinct, etc. This is also a very common fault, but is found in England and Germany also. English speech is often hard and guttural, German unduly guttural, if not so hard, and American slovenly and horribly nasal.

But what may in a certain degree be disagreeable and a vocal error, is in another a positive excellence; so, in this case, the use of the tongue and soft palate in the proper degree and at the right moment gives us emotional expression. This subject will, however, be considered again later; in the meantime, the student is advised to do a little experimenting in the use of his tongue and soft palate, with a view of noting how the quality of tone may be thus made to vary. He is also advised to use a hand-glass with the object of observing the parts mentioned in this chapter, and if he can also find a friend willing to lend his mouth for observation, so much the better.

The sooner any voice-user comes to feel that his vocal destinies lie in his own hands, the better. "Know thyself" is as necessary an admonition for the speaker and singer as for any other artist, but with that must go another, "Believe in thyself"—that thou canst produce tones of beautiful and expressive quality if thou wilt; it may be only after much wisely directed work, but yet it is possible.

Allusion must be made to the danger of those engaged in mathematical and physical investigations applying their conclusions in too rigid a manner to the animal body. It was held till recently that the pitch of a vocal tone was determined solely by the number of vibrations of the vocal bands, as if they acted like the strings of a violin or the reed of a clarinet, while the resonance-chambers were thought to simply take up these vibrations and determine nothing but the quality of tone; they were believed not to have any influence on pitch. Against this view the author long ago demurred. To Prof. Scripture, however, belongs the credit of demonstrating that the resonance-chambers determine pitch also. It seems probable that the vocal bands so beat the air within the resonance-chambers as to determine the rate of vibration of the air of these cavities, and so the pitch of the tone produced. These chambers not having rigid walls, one can the better understand that the tension of these parts may not only be different in individuals, but vary in the same person from time to time, according to the condition of his health, etc. Herein we find another source of explanation of variations in the voice. All these considerations make the resonance-chambers more important than ever, so that there is greater objection to speaking of the larynx as the vocal organ than we were aware of before these investigations were undertaken.

SUMMARY.

Without a resonator, which may be solid or hollow, the sound made by a reed or tense string is feeble. That the mouth can act as a resonator may be proved by holding a vibrating tuning-fork of suitable pitch before this chamber when open.

The resonating chambers of importance are supra-glottic. Of these the "mouth" including all as far back as the pharynx and the nasal chambers are the principal. These two main cavities are separated from each other by the hard palate, which is a bony floor, covered with mucous membrane, as are all the parts of the resonance-chambers. The hard palate extends horizontally from the gums backward, and is continued as the soft palate. The latter is a muscular and therefore movable curtain that divides, with varying degrees of completeness, the mouth (in the narrower sense) from the pharynx and naso-pharynx—i.e., the space back of the soft palate and the posterior nares (back nostrils) respectively. By the elevation of the back of the tongue and the lowering of the soft palate as when one speaks nasally, the mouth proper is largely shut off from the nasal chambers, so that the breath must be directed through the nose. "Cleft palate" also connects undesirably the mouth and nasal chambers. The tonsils lie between two folds, the pillars of the fauces, connected with the soft palate. When normal in size the tonsils should scarcely extend beyond these folds. The uvula is the central lower tip of the soft palate. The nasal chambers are divided by a central bony and cartilaginous partition, the septum nasi, but are further encroached upon, on each side, by three scroll-like (turbinated) bones. The tongue is composed of several muscles, which explains why its movements may be so complicated and delicate. The mouth cavity is bounded in front by the gums, teeth, and lips.

The form and, to some extent, possibly; the size of the resonance-chambers determine the quality of the tone produced in speaking and singing. The shape and size of the mouth can be made to vary by the soft palate and lips, but chiefly by the tongue, so that the movements of the latter, especially, cannot be too well studied.

It was formerly considered that pitch was determined solely by the rate of vibration of the vocal bands; though the author opposed this view as rigidly applied. Very recently Prof. Scripture, by the use of new methods, has shown that the supra-glottic chambers cannot be correctly likened to a resonator with rigid walls. It is held that the vocal bands give a number of sudden shocks to the air in the resonators, so that, in a sense, the resonance-chambers determine both the pitch and the quality of the tone; and as the tension of the resonators varies with both the physical and psychical condition of the individual, variations in tone-production, more especially as to quality, can now be the better understood. According to this view these chambers are not properly resonators but sounding cavities.

The reader's attention is particularly drawn to the new views of the method of action of the vocal bands, etc., referred to on this page. Since the above was written, such views have become more widely known, and it is hoped that as they are very radical they may be established by other methods.



CHAPTER X.

THE REGISTERS OF THE SINGING VOICE.[1]

[Footnote 1: The chapters on the Registers of the Singing Voice may be omitted by readers whose practical interest is confined to the Speaking Voice.]

About no subject in the whole range of voice-production has there been so much confusion, difference of opinion, and controversy as that of registers; so that it is important at the very outset to define register, and throughout to aim at the utmost precision and clearness.

"A register is a series of consecutive and homogeneous sounds rising from the grave to the acute, produced by the development of the same mechanical principle, the nature of which essentially differs from any other series of sounds equally consecutive and homogeneous, produced by another mechanical principle" (Manuel Garcia).

"A register consists of a series of tones which are produced by the same mechanism" (Behnke).

"A register is the series of tones of like quality producible by a particular adjustment of the vocal cords" (Mackenzie).

From a consideration of the above proposed definitions it will be seen that for the successful or, at all events, complete or ideal investigation of a subject so many-sided and difficult, many qualifications are desirable, if not absolutely essential. It is not too much to say that the ideal investigator of the registers should have a practical knowledge of general anatomy and physiology, together with a detailed and exact knowledge of the vocal organs; be versed in the laws of sound; have an adequate knowledge of music; be capable of examining himself with the laryngoscope (auto-laryngoscopy) as well as others (laryngoscopy); possess an acute ear for the pitch and quality of tones; be himself able to use his voice at least fairly well in singing and speaking; be provided with the all-important ballast of common sense, and an impartial mind longing above all things to learn the truth.

As few can hope to unite all these qualities in themselves in even a moderate degree, openness of mind, temperance in the expression of opinion, and common sense with experience, must be largely relied on to furnish working conclusions.

A discussion of a subject so difficult and complicated is not easy to follow. It is but just to other investigators, and fair to the reader, to present the views of those who have possessed special qualifications for dealing with the questions involved. The author will endeavor to present the grounds on which others have taken their stand, in a few words and clearly, if the reader will patiently follow. There will at first seem, possibly, to be little agreement, but it will be shown that on some of the most essential points there is substantial unity of opinion; and the subject is of such vital moment, as the author will endeavor to make clear, that it is hoped that the most patient examination will be given to the questions that arise, from the beginning to the end of the discussion. For the author to express a dogmatic opinion, and simply state his disagreement or agreement with others, would be contrary to the whole spirit of this work, and leave the subject where it once was—in the realm of hopeless disagreement and controversy. If the problem of the registers is to be solved to the satisfaction of the rational thinker, it must be by evidence, and not the mere opinions of any teacher or writer, however eminent. To lay this evidence before the reader is now the author's task.

One of those most eminently equipped, by a great variety of qualities, for the investigation of this subject, or any other question of the voice, was Madame Seiler. Whenever the author is obliged to differ from this really great investigator, he does so with the sense of the highest respect for her opinions generally, because she always sought for scientific grounds for such opinions. Her views may be thus briefly presented:

She recognized three registers, chest, falsetto, and head, with their subdivisions.

(1) The first chest register extends (1) The whole glottis (vocal to in men, bands) is moved in loose and to vibrations. in women.

(2) The second chest register extends (2) The vocal ligaments (or to in both ligamentous glottis) alone sexes. are in action.

(3) The first falsetto extends in (3) The edges alone of the females to vocal bands vibrate, but the and in males to .

(4) The second falsetto in the (4) The edges only of the female extends to and to vocal ligaments alone are in in women. action. [Transcriber's Note: So in original; "female" should probably be "male."]

(5) Above this point head tones (5) Edges only of the vocal begin. bands in vibration; partial closure of the ligaments posteriorly (behind).

It will be noted that Madame Seiler spoke of the vocal bands (cords) proper as the "ligamentous glottis," and included in the "glottis" the arytenoid cartilages themselves, or, at all events, that part of them, their lower anterior angles, known as the vocal processes (or extensions), to which the vocal bands proper are attached.

The above tabular statement shows (1) that Madame Seiler recognized five registers for both male and female voices; (2) that she used the term "falsetto" in a sense different from its ordinary one. Usually this term is not applied at all to the female voice, but only to that special modification of the male voice seldom employed now, and almost never except by tenors. With this writer, "falsetto" as applied to female voices replaces "middle," in the commoner usage.



Garcia, also, recognized five registers. Behnke, a teacher of singing, who practised laryngoscopy and auto-laryngoscopy in the investigation of the registers, used "lower thick," "upper thick," "lower thin," "upper thin," and "small," as answering to the "first chest," "second chest," etc., of Madame Seiler and others.

Nearly all writers have used the term "break" to indicate the point at which a new register begins. Behnke held that the break between the thick and the thin register occurred in both sexes at about . The vocal bands in this part of the scale vibrate in their entire breadth, and the series of tones above the point just referred to is produced by a new mechanism, but one which is the same for all voices and both sexes—i.e., only the inner edges of the vocal bands vibrate.

According to Behnke, the male voice has but two registers, the thick and the thin, but the female voice three, the thick, the thin, and the small. These terms were not original with Behnke, but had been used earlier by Curwen.

Behnke was emphatic on one point, to which we would call special attention, in his own words: "If there is straining anywhere, it is during the attempt to carry the mechanism of the upper thick beyond its natural limit."

Mackenzie (afterwards Sir Morell Mackenzie) held that "It is certain that however over-refined musicians may multiply the 'registers' of the voice, physiologically there are but two—i.e., 'chest' and 'head,' the falsetto of the man answering to the head production of women."

According to the same author, "The essential factor in chest production is the long reed, whilst the essential factor in head delivery is the short reed." The terms "long reed" and "short reed" were the equivalents of Madame Seiler's "glottis" and "ligamentous glottis" respectively. Mackenzie held that the cartilaginous (inter-arytenoid) glottis is generally open in the lower and gently closed in the upper tones of the chest register, while a segment of the ligamentous glottis (vocal bands proper) is tightly closed in the head voice.

As the result of the examination of 50 persons gifted with fine voices, 42 of whom were "trained" singers and 8 "natural" singers, Mackenzie formulated his conclusions as follows:

1. In tenor voices the whole glottis may be open to and not unfrequently to . Beyond this point there is closure of the cartilaginous glottis. Sometimes the whole glottis is open throughout.

2. In barytone voices the whole glottis is often open to , and occasionally to . Beyond this point the cartilaginous glottis is closed, except in rare cases.

3. In bass voices the whole glottis is sometimes open to . Beyond this point, except in a few instances, the cartilaginous glottis is gradually closed.

4. In sopranos and mezzo-sopranos the whole glottis is sometimes open to , often to , beyond which the cartilaginous glottis is usually closed. The glottis is sometimes closed throughout the scale, and in one case it was open throughout.

5. In contralto voices the whole of the glottis is often open to , beyond which the cartilaginous portion is closed.

6. In the head voice of women and the falsetto voice of men "stop-closure" (i.e., closure so tight that the cords in this region do not vibrate) always takes place in the posterior portion of the ligamentous glottis, and sometimes at the anterior part also.

This writer also held that "Boys who sing alto always use the chest register." He was of opinion that "The quality of the voice generally, but not always, indicates which mechanism is being used."

The views of the author, published at a former period, and based on the special examination of a large number of persons with the laryngoscope, etc., and on auto-laryngoscopy, may be briefly stated as follows:

A nomenclature for the registers involving no theory would be best, such, for example, as lower, middle, and upper registers. Mandl, who recognized only two registers, spoke of them as "lower" and "upper," equivalent to "chest" and "head," as commonly used.

The author examined with the laryngoscope 50 persons, who might (with Gruetzner) be divided into "trained singers," "natural singers," and "non-singers." The whole glottis was found to be open in all voices in the lowest tones of the chest register, and this condition obtained up to about , beyond which another mechanism came into play, except in rare cases.

The high falsetto of men and the head voice of women are produced by a similar mechanism and method.

In the investigation of registers more attention should be given to the use of the breathing organs than has hitherto been done by those writing on this subject.

As Madame Marchesi, of Paris, has taught with preeminent success, and with the greatest practical consideration for the preservation of the voice and the vocal organs in an unimpaired condition, and as the author has had, through her kindness, the opportunity to become acquainted with her methods by observation, her views on the registers are here presented. It is to be understood that as she teaches only ladies, her views are considered, so far as she is concerned, as applying only to female voices. These views are further presented because Madame Marchesi was herself taught by Garcia, who was in the direct line of the old Italian masters, though it will be observed that the pupil has retained only the essentials of the master's views on the registers.

1. There are three registers in female voices: chest, middle, and head.

2. While there are small differences in voices and individuals as regards the registers, the following principles apply to all of them:

(a) The chest register must never be carried above .

(b) should be "covered" or modified chest tones.

(c) In all cases must be a head tone.

(d) In quick passages chest should not be carried beyond —i.e., are middle in quick passages.



CHAPTER XI.

FURTHER CONSIDERATION OF THE REGISTERS OF THE SINGING VOICE.

It will, it is hoped, be apparent to the reader that the subject now under treatment may be considered either theoretically or practically. If science be exact, systematized, and, when complete, unified knowledge, then every source of information must be employed in the investigation of so difficult a subject as the registers. There may be differences of opinion as to the relative importance of some of these means of investigation—e.g., auto-laryngoscopy, but that it should be utilized, there can be no question. The value of photography of the larynx, as carried out up to the present, may be questioned; but there can be no doubt that if this method of studying the action of the vocal bands could be pushed to a certain point, much light might be thrown on the questions at issue.

Merely to assume that a method of treating the registers which has given, apparently, good practical results in the hands of one teacher is sound, and rests on a scientific basis, is unwarranted. It may be simply a little better or a little worse than some other. How is the student to distinguish, in his choice, between Mr. A and Mr. B, in the case of two successful teachers, both of whom recognize registers? A physiologist may be sound as far as he goes, yet lack that practical knowledge of the voice which the vocal teacher properly considers requisite in determining how a pupil shall use the registers. Among those who are most dogmatic on this and other questions there is often a plentiful lack of knowledge of the vocal organs; and some clever laryngologists must have learned, when they were carried into the discussion of this subject, that some knowledge of music and singing is absolutely indispensable, and that enough cannot be picked up, even by an able man, in a few minutes devoted to interrogating singers, especially when these vocalists have been trained by widely different methods, and have, as is too often the case, given but little real thought to the scientific, or, indeed, any other side of their art.

We find "break" confounded with "register," and the meaning attached to the latter, at best, one-sided or inadequate in some respects. The truth is, such a subject cannot be settled by the physiologist, even when a laryngologist, as such; nor can the solution to a scientific question of this kind be given by a singer, as a singer. Such a problem can only be settled, as we have throughout insisted, by those possessing many qualifications, and even when the investigator unites in himself every intellectual qualification, something will depend on his temperament and spirit. An atmosphere of controversy is not favorable to scientific investigation, and among the dangers that ever lie in the path of the teacher are pride and prejudice. The assumption that one is prepared to teach is too often associated with views and feelings that prevent the guide from remaining himself a student and being ready to learn even from the very beginner, as he must if he have the true spirit. Unfortunately, several of the most highly qualified writers on this subject have formulated their views under conditions unfavorable to the attainment of the whole truth.

It is to be borne in mind always that a register implies (1) a series of tones of a characteristic clang, timbre, color, or quality; (2) that this is due to the employment of a special mechanism of the larynx in a particular manner. It follows that in thinking of registers scientifically, one must take into account both the tones and the mechanisms by which they are produced.

Naturally, with most untrained people the passage from one register to another is associated with a suddenness of change which is unpleasant, and which is termed the break. It is often suggestive of weakness, uncertainty, etc., and to an ear at once sensitive and exacting through training is intolerable when very pronounced. Often this break is very marked in contraltos, and is invariably so pronounced in the male voice when it passes to the upper falsetto that even the dullest ear does not fail to notice the change.

It is, therefore, not surprising that teachers should have sought to lessen the unpleasant surprise for the listener caused by the break. Some have looked on registers as almost an invention of the Evil One, and forbidden the use of the term to their students; but such ostrich-like treatment of the subject—such burying of the head in the sand—does not do away with a difficulty, much less can such a plain fact as the existence of registers be ignored without the most detrimental results, as we shall endeavor to make plain. Some, feeling that the break was an artistic abomination, have proceeded to teach the student to reduce all tones to the same quality, which is about as rational as asking a painter to give us pictures, by the use of but one pigment.

To attempt to abolish registers would be like leaving but one string to the violin; which instrument, in its present form, has a register for each string; and the player endeavors to avoid the breaks that naturally occur in passing from string to string, and to get a smooth series of tones just as the intelligent vocalist does.

The registers may be represented to the eye by the method illustrated in figure 52.

The wise instructor recognizes registers; they are a fact in nature, and one to be valued. The more colors, the greater the range of the artist's powers, other things being equal, whether the artist paint with pigments or tones; but just as the painter uses intermediate tones of color to prevent rude transitions or breaks, so must the singer modify or "cover" the tones between the registers—i.e., use to some extent the mechanism of both neighboring registers.

The reader who has perused the previous chapter thoughtfully may naturally ask: "With such difference of opinion among eminent authors like those quoted, how am I to know which one to follow, and what to believe on this subject?"

The answer to that question we propose now to give. It will be wise to endeavor to show just wherein the writers quoted differ and on what they agree. A careful examination will show that there is substantial agreement on the most important points:

1. All agree that there are registers, or natural changes of quality of tone, corresponding to changes of mechanism or method.

2. All, with the exception of Madame Seiler, agree that the most important changes take place at or near in female voices, and the majority consider that this applies to both sexes equally.

3. Often in males there is some laryngeal change lower than this.

4. All agree that the high falsetto of tenors is of a special quality, and produced by a mechanism of its own—i.e., all consider it a separate register—and often, at least, it begins naturally about , which is usually, however, written an octave higher, though really sung as given above.



The point of greatest strain is generally, for both sexes, about this point, and many persons cannot sing higher than this—i.e., about for males, and its octave for females.

It is to be remembered, as Madame Seiler has pointed out, that at the period of greatest perfection in vocal training, some hundred and fifty years or more ago, concert pitch was very much lower than it is to-day; so that to teach tenors to sing in one register up to then, was quite a different matter from what that would be to-day. The old Italian masters were accustomed to train singers to the use of the falsetto, and whatever views may be held as to the desirability of the tenor using this register, so far as art is concerned, there can be no question whatever that physiologically it is easy, and one of the means by which relief may be sought from the high tension caused by carrying up the lower register.

The author, after a special investigation of this and other questions connected with the registers, came to the conclusion that the falsetto in males and the head voice in females are produced by a similar mechanism. In the high falsetto the vocal bands do not vibrate throughout their whole breadth, and there must be, for a successful result, in every case a feeling of ease, due to the relaxation of certain mechanisms in use up to that point and the employment of new ones.



The author now offers, with all respect, but confidence, a few criticisms on the eminent investigators whose conclusions and methods he has been discussing.

Madame Seiler was the writer who, as has been already said, brought more numerous and higher qualifications of a scientific and practical kind to the investigation of this subject than any other person. However, the study of physics, involving as it does the use of methods of extreme precision, tends to beget habits of mind which are not in all respects the best for the consideration of biological problems. Madame Seiler and her master, the physicist Helmholtz, regarded the vocal mechanism very much in the same light as they did their laboratory apparatus. Only in this way can the author explain some of Madame Seiler's positions; but on this assumption one can understand why she should make five registers, and consider them all, apparently, of equal importance. This latter, together with the tendency generally to present her views in too rigid a form, was, we think, her great error.

Behnke admitted that all five registers might be heard, especially in contraltos, but he did not attach equal importance to each of these registers.

Mackenzie the author conceives to have been misled by the very method that he considered a special virtue in his investigations—the examination of trained singers. Surely, if one would learn what is Nature's teaching on this subject, he must not draw conclusions from trained vocalists alone! By training one may learn to walk well on his hands, but this does not prove such a method the natural one, nor would it be good reasoning to draw this conclusion, even if a few individuals were found who could thus walk more rapidly than in the usual way.

The diversity that Mackenzie found in singers does not, in the author's opinion, exist in nature; much if not most of it was due to training, and all that can be said is that several people may sing in different ways with not greatly different aesthetic results; but such methods of investigation may, as in this case, lead to conclusions that are dangerously liberal.

The author holds to-day, as he did when he published his results many years ago, that "Impressions from general laryngoscopic observations or conclusions drawn from single cases will not settle these questions. Very likely differences such as these writers allude to may exist to a slight degree; but if they do, I question whether they are sufficiently open to observation ever to be capable of definition; nor is it likely that they interfere with methods of voice-production which are alike operative in all persons."

Holding these views, not only can the author not agree with those who believe that the change in a register occurs in different persons of the same voice (e.g., soprano) at appreciably different levels in the scale, and even varies naturally from day to day, but he holds that to believe this in theory and embody it in practice is to pursue a course not only detrimental to the best artistic results, but contrary to the plain teachings of physiology in general and that of the vocal organs in particular.

The change in a register should be placed low enough in the scale to suit all of the same sex. It is safe to carry a higher register down, but it is always risky, and may be injurious to the throat, to carry a lower up beyond a certain point. The latter leads not only to a limitation of resources in tone coloring, but also to straining, to which we have before alluded. Though this process may not be at once obviously injurious, it invariably becomes so as time passes, and no vocalist who hopes to sing much and to last can ignore registers, much less make the change at a point to any appreciable extent removed from those that scientific investigation and equally sound practice teach us are the correct ones at which to make the changes.

Why is it that some artists of world-wide reputation sing as well to-day as twenty years ago, while others have broken down or have become hopelessly defective in their vocal results in a few years? There is but one answer in a large proportion of these cases: correct methods in the former and wrong methods in the latter class of singers—and "correct" in no small degree refers to a strict observance of registers.

The author has known a professional soprano to sing every tone in the trying "Hear, O Israel" (Elijah) in the chest register. How can such a singer hope to retain either voice or a sound throat? But so long as audiences will applaud exhibitions of mere lung-power and brute force the teachings of physiology and healthy art will be violated. But, surely, all artists themselves and all enlightened teachers should unite in condemning such violations of Nature's plain teachings!

The question of the registers is generally considered now a somewhat simpler one for males than for females. Basses and barytones sing in the chest register only; tenors are usually taught to sing in the chest register; but few teachers believe that the high falsetto is worth the expenditure of the time and energy necessary to attain facility in its use.

Probably in many male voices there are the distinctions of register Madame Seiler alludes to—i.e., first chest and second chest, or some change analogous to the middle of females; but, from one cause and another, this seems to readily disappear. Whether it would not be worth maintaining is a question that the author suggests as at least worth consideration. Certain it is that, speaking generally, there is no change in males equally pronounced with the passage from the lowest to the next higher (chest to middle) register in females.

What, then, are the views that the author believes so well grounded, in regard to the registers, that they may be made, in all confidence, the basis of teaching?

Without hesitation, he recommends that arrangement of the registers set forth in the last chapter. It is not the exclusive invention nor the basis of practice of any one person, but it may fittingly enough be associated with the name of a woman who for over fifty years has taught singing with so much regard for true art and for Nature's teachings—i.e., for physiological as well as artistic principles.

Such a method for female voices is wholly consistent with the best scientific teaching known to the author; it is in harmony with the laws of vocal hygiene; it gives the singer beautiful tones, and leaves her with improved, and not injured, vocal organs. Such an arrangement of the registers is not marred by the rigidity of Madame Seiler's nor the laxity of Mackenzie's, but combines flexibility with sufficiently definite limitations.

As to just how much a teacher of singing should say to the pupil on the subject of registers, and especially in a physiological way, must depend on circumstances. About the wisdom of teachers of singing (and elocution) understanding the vocal mechanism, and carefully weighing the matter of registers from every point of view, the reader of this book will have no doubt, by this time, the author ventures to hope.

Of course, one may object that for every tone, as it differs slightly in quality from its neighbor in the scale, there should be a new register—a new mechanism. Such an objection, though theoretically sound, is of no practical weight. What students wish to know and instructors to teach is how to attain to good singing—the kind that gives genuinely artistic results, and leaves the throat and entire body of the vocalist the better for his effort. The teaching of this work in regard to the registers and other subjects is intended to accomplish this, and not to occupy the attention of readers with vocal or physiological refinements of no practical importance.

The author has always been of opinion that those who have investigated and written on this subject have devoted insufficient attention to one point—viz., the manner of using the breath. The breathing in the use of the high falsetto, for example, is as different as are the laryngeal processes; and this is a point of practical importance, for the voice-user must ever consider economy in breathing. It is expenditure in this direction that most taxes all singers, even the best trained and the most highly endowed.

But the student, deeply impressed with the importance of the subject of registers, may ask: "How am I to distinguish between one register and another? How am I to know when I am singing with chest, middle, or head voice?" The answer is: "By sensations"—chiefly by hearing, but also by certain sensations (less properly termed "feelings") in the resonance-chambers and to a certain extent in the larynx. Of course, before one can thus identify any register, he must have heard a singer of fairly good voice form the tones of this particular register. One who has never heard sounds of a particular color or quality cannot, of course, learn to recognize them from mere description, though by this means he is often prepared to hear, and to associate clear ideas with that hearing.

As the registers are of such great practical importance, especially for the female voice, there is no period when it is of so much value to have a lady teacher as just when the voice is being "placed"—which should mean the recognition of its main quality, and the teaching of registers by imitation as well as description. The student should be made to understand, by practical examples, the subject of "covering," or modification. Certainly, the training of a vocalist cannot be adequately undertaken by even the most learned musician, however good an instrumentalist, if he has paid no attention to the voice practically. Much of the teaching done by those ignorant of voice-production, however well meant, may be a positive drawback, and leave the would-be singer with faults that may never be wholly eradicated.

The author would recommend all students who have begun a serious practical study of the registers to hear, if possible, some singer of eminence who observes register formation strictly. In this way more can often be done in getting a clear notion of their characteristic qualities, in a single evening, than by listening to an ordinary amateur, or to such a voice as an otherwise excellent vocal teacher can bring to her work, on many occasions; better one hour listening to a Melba, with her observance of registers, covering, etc., as set forth by the author in this chapter, than a score of vocalists of indifferent, even if not incorrect production. One then has before her an individual who, after long and careful training, attains results not, indeed, within the reach of all, but such as may be approached if the same methods are pursued long enough; and in Madame Melba, and others that might be named, the student has examples of how those using correct methods, and not worshipping at the shrine of mere vocal power, may retain the vocal organs uninjured and the voice unimpaired after the lapse of well-nigh a score of years of exacting public singing. Teachers will do well to encourage their pupils to hear the best singers; for do not students need inspiration as well as discipline?

Granted that the ear can at once determine what register the pupil herself or another singer may be using, what other guide has she?

There are certain sensations, as already said, felt within the resonance-chambers and larynx, which are sure guides. In a person who had learned to recognize the correct register formation by the help of the ear and those sensations now referred to, the latter would suffice to be a partial guide, at least, even had he become deaf. While these sensations are absolutely characteristic, it is difficult to describe them; they must be experienced to be understood. To attempt to describe the taste of a peach to one who knew that of an apple but had never eaten a peach would be, perhaps, not absolutely useless, but would certainly serve little purpose. The sensation must accompany the correct formation of the tone. The term "straining" carries with it the idea of unpleasant sensations; all understand practically what this term means; yet the sensation of strain in a tenor carrying his chest register too high is no more marked than the sensation of relief when he changes to the falsetto.

When once the voice has been well placed, little attention need be, or is usually, paid consciously to the sensations associated of necessity with all changes in the vocal organs. When one becomes unduly conscious of any of the normal sensations of the body, he is no longer a perfectly healthy person. At the same time, as we have pointed out in Chapter II., and shall do more at length shortly, sensations are absolutely essential guides for all muscular and other processes of the body; but they should enter just so much into consciousness, and no more.

It is practically helpful to the voice-producer and the teacher to think of the resonance-chambers and the ear as bearing a close relationship to the movements essential to tone-production. The sensations from these parts are of importance above all others in voice-production. They are the chief guides, and the attention may to advantage be concentrated on them.

No doubt the question of registers for the speaker must be considered, but this can be done to greater advantage in a later chapter.

SUMMARY.

All good definitions of a register must recognize two things: change of quality in the voice, and change of mechanism in the vocal apparatus. A break is not a register, but occurs because of the existence of registers. The abrupt transition, or break, is to be avoided by covering, or modification of the upper tones of the lower (at least) register.

For an adequate scientific examination of the question of registers, many qualifications are required in the investigator; and the student, when not an investigator, should endeavor to weigh the evidence presented so as to choose with caution from among conflicting opinions. He should be suspicious of those who scout the value of scientific study of this or any other subject, and also of those who claim that experience is of no importance in settling such a question.

Though several well-qualified persons who have written on the subject differ in some respects, they are in agreement as to many of the more important points. They are practically all convinced that there is commonly a change of register for all voices, at or near one point in the scale (F), and that if this be practically disregarded, dangerous straining may result.

Conclusions drawn from trained singers, alone, may be misleading. All classes of persons should be examined with the laryngoscope, if correct and far-reaching generalizations are to be safely made.

The precision and rigidity of physics and mathematics cannot be introduced with safety into a subject of this character; otherwise the division and limits of registers will be fixed with a narrowness of margin that does not comport with Nature's methods.

In all questions of register, the method of breathing—i.e., the nature of the application of the expiratory blast—must be duly considered.

With male voices, the subject is usually considered much simpler than in the case of female voices. Men sing mostly in the chest register; basses and barytones wholly so, with the rarest exceptions. Tenors are taught to do so. Whether there might not be a subdivision of this register made to advantage in training, the author leaves as an open question; but about straining, in the case of tenors and all others, and as to the importance of recognizing three registers for female voices, there is in his mind no question. The fact that some may not be able to produce head tones does not justify carrying up the chest register to any appreciable extent, even by altos.

Now, as in past times, the high falsetto for males, if good, the result of proper training, has the warrant of both art and sound physiology.

In the use of registers, sensations are infallible guides. Of these, the most important are those associated with the organs of hearing, but those arising in the vocal organs are also valuable.

Those only should expect to sing artistically, and to preserve their voices unimpaired for a long period, who wisely observe Nature's teachings in regard to registers.



CHAPTER XII.

FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES UNDERLYING VOICE-PRODUCTION.

It is highly important for the speaker or singer to realize early in his career that all forms of artistic expression can be carried out only through movements—muscular movements; in other words, technique or execution implies the use of neuro-muscular mechanisms. However beautiful the conception in the mind of the painter, it can only become an artistic thing when it assumes material form—when it is put on canvas. The most beautiful melody is no possession of the world while it is in the mind of the composer alone; till it is expressed, it is as good as non-existent.

Even poetry can only affect us when it exists in the form of words produced by lip or pen. Between the glowing thought of the poet and the corresponding emotion produced in ourselves there must intervene some form of technique—i.e., some application of neuro-muscular action. This latter term is a convenient one, and has been already explained. It is a condensed expression for that use of the nervous and muscular systems that results in movements, simple or complex.

Without nerve-cells and muscles movements are impossible, speaking generally, and for a willed or voluntary movement there must be something more, an idea or concept. Before one can make a movement resulting in a simple line or even dot on a piece of paper, he must have the idea of that line or dot in mind. In like manner, before one plays or sings a single note, he must have the idea of that note in mind; in other words, the idea is the antecedent to the movement, and absolutely essential. To have such an idea, memory is necessary. It is impossible to sing a tone after another, as an imitative effort, unless one has the power to retain that tone in memory for at least a brief period of time; and before this same tone can be reproduced on sight of it as represented by a written note, the memory of the sound to which it answers must first be recalled; and not only so, but other memories—indeed, memories of all the sensations associated with the bodily mechanism used in producing it.

This applies to all movements, of whatever kind, that we at any time execute. Without the past—i.e., without memories—no present. Some of the memories associated with an act may be lost, and others, sufficient for its performance in some fashion, remain. A man may forget, after the lapse of months or years, how to tie his necktie in a certain way, as he stands before a mirror; yet on turning away he may succeed at once. In this case the visual memories, those that come through the eyes, were lost, but others, those associated with muscular movements, remain. The muscular sense may prove an adequate guide when the visual is ineffective.

In the same way, one may call up a melody by moving the fingers over the piano keys, when it cannot otherwise be recovered, or one rescues an air from oblivion by humming a few of its tones; all of which is explained by the revival of muscular and similar memories.

All voluntary movements are at first accomplished relatively slowly and with difficulty. They soon weary us. A child learns to walk with the greatest difficulty, and only after numberless failures or errors. The first tones of the would-be pianist or violinist are produced but slowly and with great difficulty, in spite of the most determined effort. If the attempts to vocalize are any more successful, it is because one has already learned to talk—a process that in the first instance (in infancy) was even more laborious than that of walking.

The degree to which any one succeeds in his earliest efforts to sing a scale will depend on the readiness with which he can use a variety of neuro-muscular mechanisms—indeed, all those associated with the respiratory, laryngeal, and resonance apparatus. Fortunately for the voice-user, this apparatus has all been in use in ordinary speaking. But when this latter process is analyzed, it is found that it is not essentially different from singing. In each the same mechanism is used, and in much the same way; but every one knows that not all who can talk are able to sing, and it is usual to say that those who cannot have no "ear" for music; and this expresses a part of the truth, though not in a scientific way. What is really the truth is found to be, on analysis, that certain guiding sensations, chiefly those from the hearing apparatus (ear, nerves, brain), are insufficient, owing either to natural defect or lack of training; but that this is not the only explanation is plain from the fact that many composers with the most vivid musical imagination, the most perfect auditory memory, and the most acute ear, cannot sing in any but the most imperfect manner. As we have said before, the speaker of great power to affect his fellows through tones, or the artistic singer, must be a sort of vocal athlete. In the athlete there is a very perfect association into one whole of certain sensations from eye, skin, muscles, etc., and certain movements. These exist in all men, but in very unequal degree. The singer is a tone specialist in whom the perception of the pitch and the quality of sounds may not be more acute than in the composer, possibly less so, but he can do what the composer of music often cannot—viz., associate these sensations with muscular movements of a highly perfect character; in different words, he has the technique which others have not in an equal degree.

In the singer and speaker there is a very close association between the sensations of the resonance-chambers, the larynx, and other parts of the vocal mechanism, and those from the ear. So perfect does this become from training that the necessary technique at last becomes easy. But it is of the greatest importance that the exact nature of this process be realized by both students and teachers, for weighty considerations grow out of it.

We wish to impress the fact that the nature of all neuro-muscular processes is essentially the same. Learning to sing is like learning to talk, and the latter is not radically different from learning to walk. This last is at first slow, imperfect, laborious, and largely a voluntary or willed process, or, more strictly, a series of processes. As progress is made, there is less of the voluntary and more that is involuntary, or what physiologists term reflex. When ideas, feelings, etc., enter into a process which is carried out reflexly, a habit is formed.

One may say that talking implies a series of associated reflexes, the parts associated being the respiratory, the laryngeal, and the resonance apparatus. Singing only approaches this condition of reflex action and habit after practice, and yet no air is perfectly sung except when the result is the outcome of a sort of new habit. Every song involves, the learning of new vocal habits. One forms a new habit of an athletic character all the more readily because of previous ones. A man learns to play one game of ball the better, usually, if he have already played at another, the reason being that he has only to modify the action of neuro-muscular mechanisms, not associate new mechanisms together to the same extent as in the formation of a habit of a widely different kind, as rowing a boat. At the same time, one must always unlearn something—break up old habits, to some extent. An opera singer often makes a failure of oratorio at first. The sets of reflexes or the habits, bodily and mental, which he has found valuable for the one form of art do not suit the other perfectly; nevertheless, the same materials are used, the reflexes are in the main the same. He must use preventions, or inhibitions, as the physiologists term them. Rather is it that he must avoid doing certain things—i.e., modify his neuro-muscular processes or reflexes, than form wholly new ones.

Were it not for reflexes and habits, learning would be so slow one lifetime would not suffice to make an artist. It must be apparent that habits and reflexes are Nature's ways of economizing energy. As the best have but a limited amount of energy, it should be the aim of every one who will not be a mere reckless spendthrift to economize, to make the most of what Nature has given him; hence the purpose of practice is not only to render success more certain and more perfect, but to make efforts tell to the fullest extent with as little expenditure of energy to the speaker or singer as possible. He sings or speaks best who attains the end with the least expenditure of energy.

It may with scientific accuracy be said that the object of the student should be to attain to the formation of correct habits in singing and speaking, and of the teacher to guide in this process. It follows that all practice by the beginner should be carried out only in the presence of one who knows the correct methods and can teach the student how to form his habits wisely. Practice alone may not only do little good, but, by the formation of wrong habits of production, be positively mischievous; yet a trainer of athletes often lays more restrictions on his ward as to when and how he shall practise, and exercises more supervision over it, than do some teachers of singing, in spite of the fact that the apparatus the singer or speaker uses is much more delicate, and wrong habits much more injurious.

The admonition "Practise, practise," is greatly overdone. The best results cannot be obtained in either singing, speaking, or playing, with the lengthy and necessarily more or less imperfect if not careless practice in which many students of music indulge. Better ten minutes with the whole attention of a fresh and interested mind given intelligently to a subject than ten hours of mere mechanical movement. It is a mistake to suppose that the acquirement of a sound technique is a purely mechanical process. We have shown that for all successful effort there must be the idea, and as soon as that fades, from weariness, etc., the practice should be discontinued. Students are not treated fairly when given exercises the meaning or purpose of which is not explained to them.

There is now more need than ever that the teacher of music or elocution should be intellectual and not mechanical in his methods. Technique is mechanism, but it should be mechanism subordinated to ideas. Technique is essential to art, but it is not art. Art is the soul, technique the body. The soul will be unknown to the world without technique; hence the author strives in this book to teach the principles on which a sound vocal technique rests, but only that what is best in the soul be not hidden, that the one noble or poetic thought shall be multiplied a thousand times—indeed, that if it be sufficiently worthy, it shall, like Tennyson's Brook, "go on forever." To believe, on the one hand, that the highest art can be attained with a very mediocre technique, and, on the other, that a perfect technique is the main object of musical training, are alike great and mischievous errors.

The author has been asked frequently such questions as the following: "When is the best time to practise? How long should a singer practise at one time, and for how long during a single day? Should one practise softly (piano) or vigorously (forte)?"—etc.

Often the student is puzzled by contradictory opinions on this subject. One celebrated prima donna states that she never practises more than one hour a day; another, equally distinguished, that she has often spent several hours in almost continuous strenuous practice. What is the student to believe, and whom to follow? No one, for no two persons are alike. All the above questions can be safely and surely answered in the light of science and experience combined, but such questions cannot be settled by the dictum of any singer, teacher, or writer, nor does the experience, in itself, of any one person furnish an adequate guide for others.

[Illustration: FIG. 53. By this diagram the author has attempted to give the reader some idea of the nature of the chain of processes involved in singing a single tone, from the time the eye looks on the note till the muscles concerned have given it utterance as a tone. The various nervous centres concerned are all in the brain (though the spinal cord supplies some subordinate centres). There are sensory centres, or those for the eye and the ear, and motor centres, or those sending the commands to the muscles involved. Further, these must be connected by paths not shown in detail, but represented by one centre spoken of as an "association" centre, which may also, possibly, have much to do with emotions, etc. But, at all events, the dependence of movements on ingoing messages or sensations is emphasized. The deaf cannot speak or sing, and the blind cannot read (ordinary) music. The defect may not be in either senses or muscles, but in the relating nervous mechanism between them. As explained in the body of the work, execution depends on at least two factors, sensations, or ingoing messages, and movements determined by these. Now the connection between the ingoing and the outgoing impulses is the most important and the least understood part, but the above diagram will at least serve to emphasize the fact that such connections exist, and that in a general way the result, performance, can be explained. No attempt has been made to trace the path of other sensory impulses than those from eye and ear, as this would make the diagram too complicated.]

Investigation has shown that the use of muscles tends to the accumulation of the waste products of vital activity; that such accumulation is associated with the experience in consciousness of what we term "fatigue," and which is preceded by "weariness." The latter is a warning that the more serious condition is approaching, but is to be distinguished from another feeling not necessary to name, often present in unwilling youthful students, and for which various forms of treatment are sometimes tried so unsuccessfully that it is as well to discontinue study altogether.

1. The time at which, as a rule, any work can best be carried out is during the early hours of the day, so that if it is possible, practice should be begun early, and after some preliminary exercise for the good of the body generally—e.g., a short walk, during which the lungs may be filled with pure air. As the muscles of the chest, etc., are to be used in voice-production, such a walk or other form of general exercise should not be lengthy. Energy should be reserved for the muscular activities involved in vocal practice.

2. The principle that guides in all use of the muscles, all exercise, is that it be taken under the most favorable circumstances and short of fatigue, even of weariness; hence the question whether the student should practise five minutes or one hour is one that he himself, and he alone, can determine, provided he is old enough and observant enough to know when he begins to feel weary in his vocal mechanism, whether it be in the respiratory organs, the larynx, or the resonance-chambers. With some there is a weak spot, and this settles the question for all other parts. As a rule, beginners will do well not to practice, at first, for longer at one time than five minutes, not only because of the possible weariness, but because at the outset it is difficult to keep the attention fixed. The ear and brain tire as well as the muscles.

Naturally, the condition of the student at the time has much to do with the length of a practice, but all things are determined by the sensible application of that principle which science and experience alike show to be a safe guide.

Naturally, as in other exercises, the duration of an exercise may be gradually lengthened with experience. One singer may find an hour a day sufficient, if she be already perfectly trained in every respect—be "in good form," or "fit," as the athletes say—and have only light or coloratura parts to sing; but would this suffice to form a singer to sustain the heaviest dramatic parts for hours together before a large public audience? The training of a hundred-yards sprinter should not be the same as that prescribed for a long-distance runner or a wrestler.



3. In all practice it is ever to be borne in mind that the end, even in an exercise, is artistic. Tones of that quality only which is the best possible to the singer at the time are to be produced, and everything else must yield to this.

4. No wise trainer ever allows his charges to go on a racing track and at once run a hundred yards at the highest possible speed. Such a course would be against all sound knowledge and all the best experience. Hence the question of piano and forte practice answers itself; the singer should never begin any exercise forte, but either piano or moderato—as to which depends on the individual. Some persons can only after long study produce really good tones piano; such if not most persons should, of course, begin practising with moderate force.

Certainly, the voice-user should, in order to gain volume, gradually increase the vigor of his practice, but exactly how to do this, and to what extent daily, are questions in which the advice of a sensible and experienced teacher is of great value, though the principle on which that opinion should be founded is clear enough.

5. The questions as to the total amount of time to be devoted to practice in a single day, and as to whether practice should be continued day after day for weeks and months without interruption, must be decided by the condition of the student, and not by any arbitrary opinion. Some individuals and some racers have a capacity for steady work not possessed by others, and happy are they; but there are others who go on by spurts, and such natures are often capable of reaching lofty artistic heights, if they be wisely managed. They need much the same sort of care as a very fleet but uncertain race-horse, and they are often a source of disgust to themselves and of worry to their teachers; but they in some cases get far beyond what the more steady ones can attain to, while others are so unsteady without being talented that they are a trial, and a trial only, to all concerned. Such people should, even when clever, not be encouraged in their vagaries, but brought gradually and tactfully under a stricter discipline.

6. "Hasten slowly" applies to all musical practice, that of the voice included, and there never was a time in the history of the world, unfortunately, when people believed in it less. The author would especially warn the student against attempting to force progress by violent or unduly long-continued practices, for if the vocal apparatus be strained, it may remain impaired for months or even for life. "Little and often" is a good maxim for vocal practice, all the more as the discontinuation, for the time, of voice-production need not imply that the mind must cease to act. An artist is not formed by vocalization alone, but by processes of education that are many and complicated, into which we might be tempted to enter did they not lie beyond the range of the present work.

If the principles set forth in this chapter are scientifically reliable, and we believe they will not be questioned, certain practical considerations are well worthy of special attention. If practice, repetition, leads to the formation of habits more or less fixed, then there can be no surer way to ruin a speaker or vocalist than to permit him to practise by a wrong method; the more he practises, the more he stamps in what is bad. It follows that the most hopeless cases eminent teachers have to deal with are to be found among those vocalists who come to them after years of professional life before the public. One must look on some of these people as on a building spoiled by a bad architectural design. In some cases there is nothing to do but to take the whole structure apart and put it together afresh. It may be humiliating to the vocalist, and it is a severe condemnation of certain methods of teaching, but there is often no other course open, the only question being as to whether the material is good enough to warrant such a radical proceeding. Every eminent teacher can recall such cases, and might fill volumes with their histories. If more of these were published as warnings to students and teachers, a good purpose would be served. It is truly sad to find that the prospects of one who might have been formed into a fine artist have been hopelessly ruined by years of practice based on principles that are radically unsound.

In the next chapter some specific applications of the principles discussed in the foregoing pages will be considered.

SUMMARY.

All forms of artistic and other expression imply movements. For a willed or voluntary movement there are required (1) an idea, (2) a neuro-muscular mechanism. Such movements may be relatively simple or highly complex. They all tend, when frequently carried out, to become reflex, and to some extent unconscious or subconscious. Combinations of reflexes when associated with consciousness become habits. Movements only attain their highest perfection when they reach this stage. It follows that the purpose of all musical practice should be to establish those reflexes which attain the end, the ideal, and to form correct habits. A poem properly recited or a song satisfactorily sung implies a combination of certain reflexes or habits. Some of these are in their main features common to all speech and song, but many are peculiar to each example.

As phonation implies the use of the muscles (neuro-muscular mechanisms) of the (1) respiratory organs, (2) vocal bands, (3) resonance-chambers, and as these must all work in harmony, or be "co-ordinated," it will be seen that speaking and singing are physiologically highly complex. When, in addition, ideas and feelings are associated, and determine the exact form of these co-ordinations, the whole matter is seen to be still more complex. The emission of a single tone implies (1) an idea—the nature of the sound as to pitch and quality, (2) such an arrangement of all the parts of the mechanism as will produce it. The former involves memory of the tone; the latter, memories of former movements. Then, partly as a series of voluntary acts and partly reflexly, according as the student is more or less advanced, or the particular tone new or old in experience, do the various neuro-muscular arrangements pass into orderly action. In this process the ear is the chief guide, always in relation to memories. When one uses the printed page, the eyes also guide—i.e., the nervous impulses that pass in through these avenues determine the outgoing ones that bring the muscles into action. In doing so they rouse many others (associated nervous connections) which are highly important when an artistic result is to be reached.

To consider a single case: Assume that the note is to be sung. The following are required: (1) Memory of this tone. (2) Adaptation through eye and ear of all the neuro-muscular mechanisms required for (a) bringing the vocal bands into the correct position and degree of tension; (b) the proper shape, tension, etc., of the resonance-chambers; (c) that use of the breathing apparatus suitable to cause the proper vibrations of the vocal bands. All use of the voice implies this much, but in most instances there are associated nervous mechanisms and ideas that are highly important in determining the exact volume, quality, etc., of the tone as related to expression of ideas and feelings according to conventional usage.

The breath-stream must in all cases be so employed that there shall be economy of energy—no waste. Waste occurs whenever air escapes to any appreciable extent through the glottis chink, as that implies an imperfect adjustment of the vocal bands and the expiratory current. From this and other points of view it may be said that he is the best singer who gets the most perfect result with the least expenditure of energy.

It is of the highest importance that during every practice, and every moment of each practice, attention be given to as perfect a result as possible, and that the same method be invariably employed.

All questions as to methods of practising can be decided on well-known scientific principles which harmonize with experience, and need not be left in that loose and unsatisfactory condition when the dictum of some individual is substituted for principles capable of actual experimental demonstration.



CHAPTER XIII.

CHIEFLY AN APPLICATION TO VOICE PRODUCTION OF FACTS AND PRINCIPLES PREVIOUSLY CONSIDERED.

Certain sounds may be made without the use of words or syllables, even without the employment of vowels or consonants, but intonation proper cannot be carried out without vowels, at least.

The exact nature of vowels and consonants will be considered in the next chapter, but in the meantime it may be pointed out that a vowel is a free and open sound requiring for its production a certain form of the resonance-chambers. Neither vowels nor consonants are absolutely pure—that is, entirely free from foreign elements, from noise; but for all practical purposes a vowel is a pure sound, a consonant a sound accompanied inevitably by much noise. This noise is largely due to the difficulties of sounding consonants, the breath breaking against the vocal organs, especially the teeth, lips, etc., much as the waves of the sea against a rocky beach. So far then as musical quality is concerned, a consonant is an unmitigated nuisance. On the other hand, none but the most elemental communication by sounds could be carried out by the use of vowels alone. The consonants stop the breath-current, separate the vowels, and thus lay the foundation for the expression of ideas. Ideas imply differences; a new idea is conveyed by a new word, which in its simplest form is a syllable.

When a consonant is introduced after a vowel sound, a momentary arrest is produced in the breath-flow, and this has its corresponding effect on the mind. It is, in fact, equivalent to a pause—say a comma or a period. If introduced before a vowel, it is marked off in a more definite way. The effect of this is to enable the ear the better to grasp the sounds. There is the principle of differentiation and the principle of rest, both highly important in all sensory and other psychic or mental processes.

Consider the sentence "He is a man"—composed purely of monosyllables. Remove the consonants, and we have the following: "e i a a." Their ineffectiveness in conveying ideas is at once plain, for though "a man" conveys two ideas, such are not expressed by the vowels, which are identical, while "e" and "i" are common to too many words of one syllable to serve any useful purpose, alone, in the conveyance of definite ideas. The consonants at once mark off the limitations; they fence around the ideas, so to speak. For the communication of ideas they are indispensable; nevertheless, being largely noises, they are musically abominable.

It follows that voice-production should begin with vowel sounds, and not words—not even syllables. For successful intonation, the first steps should be made as simple as possible, as we have already endeavored to show, hence no such complication as a consonantal noise should be introduced. Upon this point there is room for no difference of opinion, though as to which vowel sound is best suited for the beginner, and for more advanced voice-production, there has been great diversity in teaching—a diversity which we propose to show, in the next chapter, need not exist to any appreciable extent.

Certain vowel sounds may be said to be common to most of the languages used by civilized peoples. These are u (oo), ō, a (ah), ā, i (ei), and ē. There is, fortunately, among teachers considerable agreement as to the question of the best vowel sound with which to begin intonation, or the process of forming musical tones. There can be no question that a (ah) is for general purposes the best, the reason for which will appear later. Unfortunately, there is not in the minds of students or teachers generally a sufficiently deep conviction of the importance of forming the voice by long-continued practice with vowels only, for which lack the spirit of the times is largely responsible. Until a student of either speaking or singing can form every vowel perfectly, which implies the recognition of these sounds as pure and perfect, and the ability to sing them as the tones of a musical scale, he should not take a single step in any other direction. To do so is to waste tune and to lower artistic ideals.

When words are to be used, the question as to which language should be employed is for the singer, at least, a very important one. The ideal vocalist who will bring before the ideal public the best in vocal music must sing in Italian, French, German, and English, at least. Each of these languages produces its own effects through the voice, and each presents its own advantages and difficulties; but all competent to judge are agreed that Italian, because of the abundance of vowels in its words, is the best language in which to sing, or, at all events, to begin with as a training. Because of the prevalence of consonants, the German and the English languages are relatively unmusical. The English abounds in hissing sounds, which are a trial to the singer with an exacting ear and perfect taste, and produce most unwelcome effects on the refined listener who really puts music first and the conveyance of ideas second in a vocal composition. It should, of course, be the aim of the student to overcome these difficulties, as German and English, the languages of Goethe, Schiller, and Shakespeare, are for dramatic and some other purposes not equalled by any other languages.

But the artist, and above all the musical artist, must be a citizen of the world. He deals with those forms of emotion common to all mankind, and not with the peculiar little combinations of ideas that grow up in a province, city, or village; though of course he will not neglect local coloring, so well illustrated in the folk-songs or popular melodies that have survived for ages in different countries.

Though a vowel can be produced pure only when the resonance-chambers assume a certain form, this is, of course, only one link in the chain of production. The breathing apparatus and the larynx are also concerned, and we are again brought back, as ever, to the triple combination of the three sets of mechanisms so often alluded to, yet, we venture to think, very inadequately linked in the minds of learners, if not also of teachers.

In producing a vowel sound the end aimed at is, on the one hand, purity, on the other, as a result, the easy and effective use of mechanisms—i.e., the technique. In every case the breath must be used without waste—just enough, and no more; the laryngeal apparatus, the vocal bands, must be so adapted as to set the air of the resonance-chambers into perfect vibration, which only occurs when the expiratory blast is applied in the correct way and at the right moment to the properly adjusted vocal bands. This latter we have defined as the attack. It implies giving a good start to the tone. It is not all, but it is a large half, in the artist and for the auditor.

RECONSIDERATION OF THE RESONANCE-CHAMBERS

We shall now give further attention to some of the more important parts of the resonance-chambers, in so far as they bear directly on voice-production.

In singing and speaking, the larynx should be steadied, but not held rigidly fixed in any one position. It will be remembered that to this part of the vocal mechanism are attached, below, the trachea, and above, the tongue, indirectly through the hyoid bone and the thyro-hyoid membrane, as well as certain muscles which influence the relative position of these various parts, so that to maintain the larynx in the same position, absolutely, must be against Nature's methods. The tongue alone must in its movements tend to alter the position of the larynx, as we have before pointed out. At the same time, the laxness and lack of control which some singers permit in their vocal organs, under the mistaken idea that all the parts of the "throat" cannot be too free, prevents them from getting the effects they desire, with that vigor and certainty the public so much admires, and rightly so. The golden mean should be observed; between undue tension, which implies inability to control, whether it be in the larynx or the breathing apparatus, and a looseness inconsistent with neat and certain results, the voice-producer must choose, with that common sense so indispensable to success in all undertakings, but which will never be adequately encouraged till students look more frequently for the reasons of the procedures recommended to them, and teachers strive to gain influence with their pupils by showing them that what they recommend lies beyond their own minds—that it, in fact, has its foundation in the laws of Nature.

Of the tongue, soft palate, and lips, which are the principal modifiers of the shape of the mouth cavity, the tongue has by far the most influence. When the tongue lies flat in the mouth, it may be considered to be in its primary position, and it is important that in singing and speaking the student learn to begin his voice-production with this organ in that position, or a slight modification of it, for it is only when it is thus placed that a tone at once round, full, and pure can be produced.

In order to secure this result, the vocalist or speaker must begin by taking breath through the mouth, as we have already insisted, and at once, before there is time for any stiffening of parts, commence to intonate—i.e., as soon as enough air has been inhaled for the purpose intended. The correct position is facilitated when one taking breath through the mouth acts as if about to yawn. If this act be well imitated, the student will find, on looking into a hand-glass, that the tongue is more or less furrowed behind in the middle—in other words, it forms a sort of trough; and the deeper the trough the student learns to form at will, the better, for there are times in actual singing and speaking when this must be as deep as possible. It is clear that in this way the central convexity above, formed by the hard palate, forms with the corresponding concavity in the tongue a sort of trumpet-shaped organ admirably adapted for the production of the desired tone.

The tongue is important in the highest degree not only in the formation of vowels, as will be shown more fully in the next chapter, but also in shaping consonants.

It is sometimes important to move the tongue from one position to another with great rapidity. Such a composition as Figaro's song (cavatina) in Rossini's "Barber of Seville" could not be properly sung by any one not possessing great control over the tongue. Indeed, this composition may be considered a perfect test of the extent to which the singer is a master of mouth gymnastics; and this is only one of many such works. In like manner, many passages in Shakespeare and others of the best writers in all languages can only be spoken with effect by those with a mastery over the tongue, lips, soft palate, etc., but above all, the tongue.

Important as are the lips, many persons tend to use them too much, and the tongue too little, in speaking and singing. They attempt to make up for a mouth almost closed in front by the teeth, by excessive movements of the lips.

Special tongue and lip practice should be carried out before a mirror. The lips should be kept rather close to the gums, and moved away as little as possible (i.e., the lips), as to do so serves no good purpose, and is unpleasant to the eye of the observer. Teeth and lips must be regarded, so far as musical sounds are concerned, as danger regions—rocks on the shore, against which the singer or speaker may shipwreck his tones. His object should be to use them adequately to form vowels and consonants—in other words, in the formation, not the spoiling, of words, as is so often the case.

We cannot too much insist on both speaker and singer attending to forming a connection between his ear and his mouth cavity. He is to hear, that he may produce good tones, and the tones cannot be correctly formed if they be not well observed. To listen to one's self carefully and constantly is a most valuable but little practised art. The student should listen as an inexorable critic, accepting only the best from himself.

This leads to the consideration of the question of the open mouth. The expression "open mouth" means, no doubt, to most people, the open lips rather than the open mouth cavity—i.e., open in front, the teeth well separated. In voice-production, by "open mouth" both open cavity and open lips must be understood.

There is a special tendency in many, perhaps in most persons, to close the mouth cavity unduly in singing a descending scale. This is often accompanied by a bad use of the breath, and a general relaxation of the vocal apparatus, which is possibly more frequent in sopranos and tenors, whose chief effects are often produced by their high tones. But to-day, more than ever, when refined intellectual and emotional effects are demanded, is it important that the lower tones, so effective in producing emotional states, should not be neglected by any singer of whatever voice; while for speakers high tones are really comparatively little used.

Much more attention is paid by teachers and students to the open mouth at the present time than formerly; in fact, like some other good things, it is often overdone. The individuality of the singer and speaker must always be borne in mind. If some are obliged to open the mouth as much as others, the result will not be happy. Any one may demonstrate to himself that the quality of a tone may be at once changed by unduly opening or closing the mouth. One may say that the mouth should be sufficiently opened to produce the best possible effect. We have never seen the mouth opened to such an extent that it was positively unsightly—reminding one of the rhinoceros at a zoo—without feeling that the tone had suffered thereby.

If all would remember that the mouth is best opened by simply dropping the lower jaw, passively, in the easiest manner possible, the difficulties some students experience would disappear. Many act as if the process were chiefly an active one, while the reverse is the case, as one may observe in the sleeper when the muscles become unduly relaxed—a condition that is often accompanied by snoring, which is produced by a mouth-breathing that gives rise to vibrations of the soft palate. We mean to say that the lower jaw drops when muscles relax, and that opening the mouth is largely a passive thing, while closing the mouth is an active process.

The position of the head in its influence on tone-production is an insufficiently considered subject. It is impossible that the head be much raised or lowered without changes being produced in the vocal apparatus, especially the larynx, and if the tone is not to suffer in consequence, special care must be taken to make compensatory changes in the parts affected. It is only necessary to sing any vowel, and then raise the chin greatly, to observe a distinct change in the quality of the tone, with corresponding sensations in the vocal organs.

To speak or sing with the head turned to one side is plainly unfavorable to the well-being of the parts used, because it leads to compression, which gives rise to that congestion before referred to as the source of so many evils in voice-users. To sit at a piano and sing is an unphysiological proceeding, because it implies that the head is bent in reading the music on a page much lower than the eyes, and when, with this, the head is turned to one side to allow of reading the music on the distant side of the page, furthest from the middle line of the head, the case is still worse. If all who thus use the vocal organs do not give evidence of the truth of the above by hoarseness, etc., it is simply because in young and vigorous organs there may be considerable power of resisting unfavorable influences. The student is recommended to use his voice in the standing position only, when possible, as all others are more or less unnatural.

One often has the opportunity to observe how the effect is lost when a reader bends his head downward to look at his book or manuscript; and he himself, if the process is long-continued, will almost certainly feel the injurious influence of this acting on his vocal organs.



CHAPTER XIV.

SOME SPECIFIC APPLICATIONS OF PRINCIPLES IN TONE PRODUCTION.

It is no doubt valuable, indeed for most singers essential, to employ a series of elaborate exercises, or vocalises, which in some cases differ from each other only by slight gradations; but it is to be borne in mind that all the actual principles involved can be expressed practically in a very few exercises. These are: (1) The single sustained tone; (2) the tones of a scale sung so as to be smoothly linked together; (3) the same, sung somewhat more independently of each other; (4) the same, but each tone beginning and ending very suddenly. If the execution of any vocal musical composition be analyzed, it will be found that these four methods cover substantially the whole ground. As one other is very extensively used in giving expression in the form of shading, it is worthy of special mention—viz., (5) the swell. All others are modifications of the above.

As these methods of tone-production are of so much importance, it will be worth while to analyze them. It will be found that in each there is a characteristic use of the breathing mechanism. The larynx and the resonance-chambers are of course intermediate, as usual, between the breath-stream and the result, the tone; without them there could be no tones. But if the student have clearly in mind the memory of the tone he wishes to produce, including its various properties of pitch, volume, quality, etc., it will be found that the point requiring strict attention, in production, is the breathing, especially the manner of using the expiratory current.

1. The sustained tone requires an amount of breath proportional to its length, and the great aim in its production should be to convert, so to speak, all the breath into tone, as we explained in a previous chapter. This sustained tone, which may be practised with advantage on every one of the notes of a scale, is, in the nature of things, the very foundation of all good singing and speaking.

2. In the second and third exercises the differences in the method lie in the attack and the manner of using the breath. The smoothly linked tones are the more difficult for most people, since they require special control over the laryngeal mechanism and the breathing apparatus. Between the singing of a scale in this manner (legato), and as it is frequently done, there is the same difference as in walking up-stairs as does a perfectly trained ballet-dancer, and this act as carried out by a rough countryman, used only to ploughed fields, etc. For a perfect execution, the attack, while decisive enough, must be most carefully regulated, and the breathing, which is always to be considered in a good attack, must be of the most even character; the outflow requires the most perfectly controlled movements of the respiratory apparatus. In the other form of exercise (detached tones) there is often, at least, a little more emphasis on the attack, and the breathing is perhaps not always so even, but in some passages, in actual singing, the method employed for these less closely linked tones is in most respects the same as the last.

3. Very different from all the preceding is the mode of production usually designated by musicians staccato, marcato, etc. The tone is attacked suddenly, and as suddenly dropped, which, expressed physiologically, means that the entire vocal mechanism is rapidly adjusted, one part to another, and as suddenly relaxed; and the one seems to be about as difficult as the other. In this a certain sudden tension of the vocal apparatus is essential. The whole respiratory apparatus, after the breath is taken, is held more or less tense. In executing these abrupt (staccato) effects the diaphragm is the chief agent, and operates against the column of air in the lungs, the chest and abdominal walls being kept more or less tense.

Though this is the case, the voice-producer will succeed best if he gives attention to the resonance-chambers, after having put the breathing mechanism into the right condition. There should be as little movement of the chest walls, diaphragm, larynx, etc., as possible. The whole is a question of tension, but not rigidity, and the reason the staccato effect is so difficult for most persons is that they attempt to accomplish it by excessive movements of the breathing apparatus or larynx.

The mind must be relieved of any feeling of undue tension, and the result attained by the establishment of a close connection between the ear and the resonance-chambers. The first interrupted effects should be of very brief duration and as piano as possible, but the attempt to produce the real staccato may to great advantage be preceded by an exercise recommended in Chapter VIII.,—viz., singing a tone of some duration, then suddenly interrupting it, and, with the same breath, beginning the tone again as suddenly as it was interrupted. In fact, till this can be done with ease the staccato proper should not be attempted, for though the principles involved are the same, the execution requires far more skill than the exercise recommended for an earlier stage, and which it is well to continue throughout.

Simple as these exercises seem from mere description, or as carried out with a certain degree of success, perfection in them is not to be attained short of years of the most diligent study. How many singers living can sing an ascending and a descending scale, in succession, with a perfect staccato, to mention no other effect? Yet among all the resources of dramatic singing and speaking none is more important than this one. What so eloquent as the silence after a perfect stop—a complete and satisfactory arrest of the tone? How many modern actors are capable of it? How many singers? Instead of the perfect arrest, the listener is conscious, not of the rounded and complete tone, but of an edge more or less ragged. There is some noise with the actual tone.

The above exercises, when carried out to a perfect result, give us bel canto singing, for which the old Italian school was so noted, and which is now largely a lost art, not so much because the methods are not known to teachers, as because students will not do the work necessary to attain to this bel canto. We seek for short cuts, and we get corresponding results.

The bel canto is, simply, beautiful singing, the result of perfect technique, and is opposed to effects which are not truly artistic, though no doubt often highly expressive to the unmusical and the inartistic. They may appeal to us as feats, but they are not artistic results, and, as we have before insisted, they are injurious in many cases to the vocal organs, while good voice-production strengthens them.