Songwriter

“ In the
fusing of melody and words into an utterance of song—at last into a strophe—music worked potently, shaping the composition of the lines, moulding them to rhythm, insisting upon sonorousness in the words, promoting their assonance and at last compelling them to rhyme so as to meet the stress, or mark the ending, of the musical periods. Thus the exigencies of melody helped to evoke the finished verse, while the words reciprocating through their vocal capabilities and through the inspiration of their meaning, aided the evolution of the melodies. ”

“ In the reactions against sophisticated poetry which set in from lime to time, the popular ballad—the true folk-song—has often been exalted at the expense of other forms of verse. It is idle to attempt to arrange the various forms of poetry in an order of absolute values; it is enough that each has its own quality, and, therefore, its own value. The drama, the epic, the ballad, the lyric, each strikes its note in the complete expression of human emotion and experience. ”

“ Gradually, two essentials of good singing—tone-quality and truth of intonation—began to be neglected. But why should either of these two factors be less essential to a singer than to an instrumentalist?
Of late it has been tacitly assumed, if not boldly claimed, that sentiment, passion, temperament, atoned for—even if they did not entirely replace—voice and lack of skill in the artist. But what constitutes an artist? Art has been defined by an English lexicographer as “Doing something, the power for which is acquired by experience, study or observation;” ”

“ Historians exaggerate, perhaps, the function of music in awakening and guiding the exercise of lyrical poetry. The lyric exists, they tell us, as an accompaniment to the lyre; and without the mechanical harmony the spoken song is an artifice. Quite as plausibly might it be avowed that music was but added to verse to concentrate and emphasize its rapture, to add poignancy and volume to its expression. But the truth is that these two arts, though sometimes happily allied, are, and always have been, independent. ”

“ It is almost impossible to make them idealize the words through the elocution of singing; and yet in the artistic rendition of a song, a ballad, or a dramatic aria, the words are often of more importance than the music. The singer should study the story of a song by reading it aloud upon the highest plane or level of emotional or dramatic expression. ”

“ CHAPTER I TONE-PRODUCTION AND VOICE CULTURE
In no other form of expression do art and nature seem so closely identified as in the art of singing. A perfect voice speaks so directly to the soul of the hearer that all appearance of artfully prepared effect is absent. Every tone sung by a consummate vocal artist seems to be poured forth freely and spontaneously. There is no evidence of calculation, of carefully directed effort, of attention to the workings of the voice, in the tones of a perfect singer. ”

“ At harvest time in our country I hear, or I imagine I hear, a sort of chorus rising over all the hills, and I meet no man who is not, deep down within him, a singer! So song follows work: so art grows out of life! ”

“ It has been plain to me as a teacher, and it grows stronger every year, that all success in singing arises from a comprehension of the ego within us, and the cultivation of these attributes bearing directly upon singing and music. Three only of those attributes may be considered now.
First,—ambition. What would you become? Yes, a musician and singer. Consult one who knows your body better than you and enough of your mind to judge well, and if he says you may become one, plan your life work to making your ambition gratified. Aim high. But few persons lack the capacity of singing well. ”

“ The musician composes a song; he puts words to music. Imagine a singer coming out and telling us only the words; he will be far from the fulfillment of his task; he will have accomplished but the half of it, the lesser part of it. ”

“ But surely many, almost all people capable of conquering the physiological, psychological, technical, and musical difficulties to be overcome before learning to sing at all well, possess these qualities. And even if modern songs of the best type abound in subtle, emotional expression and varying shades of intellectual significance, it is, I believe, possible for most singers to gain in interpretative facility by learning to connect the thought and feeling underlying the song with the spoken words which are their natural outlet and expression. ”

“ I seem to be only now, for the first time in my life, beginning to form some slight notion what singing really means--as if all that I have done hitherto, under the impression that it was singing, was utterly poor and miserable--and that the true singer's craft was only beginning to dawn upon me. You must certainly yourself be a mighty master of song. ”

“ The singer must feel the mood of each song, and must sing as he feels, if he is to perform with real expression. This is a much more vital matter in song interpretation than the mere mechanical observation of tempo and dynamic indications. ”

“ Upon the broad foundations of general culture, which distinguishes the man of refinement from his less fortunate brother, rests also the specific ability to sing with distinction. Moreover, the singer must have definite musical ability, natural and developed by study. He must thoroughly comprehend rhythm, melody, and harmony in order that his attention may not be distracted from interpretative values to ignoble necessities of time and tune. ”

“ None the less, however, must every song possess not so much a revelation of the personality of the singer as a certain community of sentiment, which meets with response from all sides; which excites in others a like emotion and so, too, passes from mouth to mouth. Songs which are not generally current as such in their time are seldom of the genuine stamp. As an essential distinction in the composition of song I will merely emphasize two main aspects which I have already referred to. ”

“ It is the outcome of so much patience and skill that by a little adjustment it can be made to produce any kind of music—vocal or instrumental—from a single voice singing the simplest melody, up to the grandest orchestral masterpieces. ”

“ There are few cases in which mere popularity should be considered a proper test of merit; but the case of song-writing is, I think, one of the few. In speaking of song-writing, I mean, of course, the composition of brief poems with an eye to their adaptation for music in the vulgar sense. In this ultimate destination of the song proper, lies its essence—its genius. ”

“ And not until singers realise that the composition is but the raw material waiting to be imbued with expression at their hands, waiting, in fine, to be given life, personality, and real being, can they thoroughly grasp the innermost meaning of music which, rendered by the true artist, expresses more clearly than any words ever written, the true emotions of the soul. ”

“ The most necessary Study for singing Airs in Perfection, and what is more difficult than any other, is to seek for what is easy and natural, as well as of beautiful Inventions. One who has the good Fortune to unite such two rare Talents, with an agreeable putting forth of the Voice, is a very happy Singer. ”

“ One hundred songs and eighty-five
Are found in songbooks, perfect, pure,
With all accessories complete,
Unblemished in their phrasing sure.
On earth is nothing nobler found,
Nor yet in heaven, than vocal song ”

“ It is well to aim at the highest, yet in my heart of hearts I believe that every really great singer is born rather than made.
No teacher living can impart temperament and an infallible ear for music. A perfect chest, larynx, and resonance chambers are also gifts of God; and so, too, are the musical intuition, the ravishing voice, the industry, the ambition, and the perfect physical health, which are all attributes of vocalists who have become really great. ”

“ And so easily are our musical sensibilities awakened, and so readily are we influenced by song-power, that these effects may be exerted upon us, to a very considerable extent, even by the singer of ordinary abilities. But by a beautiful cantatrice, gifted with a pure, resonant, sympathetic voice, its natural sweetness and power supplemented by careful artistic cultivation, possessing a pleasing, unaffected manner of appearance and expression, all these effects may be amplified, intensified. ”

“ The education of the singer of to-day requires to be conducted on broader and more comprehensive lines than in the past, on account of the different conditions which have presented themselves. Singing—that is, the alliance and utterance of Music and Poetry—is one of the highest manifestations of the Beautiful, and is man’s supreme and greatest creation. ”

“ But hush!—here is a strain of music! Oh! what lips breathed forth that gush of touching melody which flows in such linked sweetness from the flute of an unseen performer? How soft, how gentle, but oh, how very mournful are the notes! ”

“ But why should I occupy your time by quotations from celebrated poets or prose writers, to prove the influence of music, when I have it in my power to verify the saying of that eminent composer whose life I have undertaken to sketch?
"The effect of music on a man should be to strike fire from his soul." ”

“ It will now have become clear, what according to the view of music that I have endeavoured to explain, is the task of a song composer. He has far more to do than to express again in tones the feeling of the song. He has to furnish a composition that, in the first place, has life; and, in the domain of art, to have life is to have beauty. ”

“ Leaving this actual experience and its effects on the community, let us ask ourselves what this singing means to the individuals who do it. In the first place, it makes articulate something within them which never finds expression in words or acts. In the second place, it permits them to create beauty instead of standing outside it. Or, to speak still more definitely, it not only gives them an intimate familiarity with some great compositions, but it accustoms them to the technique by means of which music expresses itself. ”

“ Every year adds to the number of those who recognize singing as an art, whose vision is clear enough to see that the work of the scientific investigator should be confined to the laboratory and that it has no place in the studio. We are beginning to see that the basic principle of singing is freedom in the expression of the beautiful, and that the less there is of the mechanical in the process the better. ”

“ All music is what awakes from you when you are reminded by the instruments, It is not the violins and the cornets, it is not the oboe nor the beating drums, nor the score of the baritone singer singing his sweet romanza, nor that of the men’s chorus, nor that of the women’s chorus, It is nearer and farther than they. ”

“ In fact, it was proved that their power as singers held sway wherever they sang; wherever was found a soul in unison with melodious sound, a heart capable of human emotion. It was not so much the words of their songs—these, it is true, were not without merit in a religious sense—as the strangely pathetic and delightful melody of their music, and the freshness and heartiness of the rendering, that gave them their greatest charm. ”

“ The elocution of singing depends upon a knowledge and control of all the principles considered up to this point of study,—a knowledge and control of physical, mental, and emotional power, of freedom of form and action, of artistic vowel form and automatic articulation, of the removal of all restraint, in fact, of all true conditions of tone. To interpret well, the singer must have mastered the elocution of singing, must be able to bring out every vowel and consonantal element of the words, must know how to use and apply tone color and tone character, the impressive, persuasive, fervent voice. ”

“ What is the voice of song, when the world lacks the ear of taste? ”

“ All the men but one leaned back upon the settles or forward upon the tables, their hands on their tankards, watching the one who sang a ballad—a ballad known to them so well that they seemed not to listen, but simply to let the melody surge about them and provoke what thoughts it would. ”

“ So much difficulty has been introduced into the study of the first developments of song, by confusing these distinct sorts of composition under the name of popular poetry, that it may be well, in writing of a poem which occupies a middle place between epic and ballad, to define what we mean by each. ”

“ For the art of the singer is brought into immediate relation with all the other arts. The singer has to deal with poetry and literature and the drama—if he takes up opera—in a way quite unknown to the mere instrumentalist.
A man might be a great pianist or a fine violinist—he might even be a great composer—without ever concerning himself at all with the other arts. ”

“ The singers do not beget, only the Poet begets, The singers are welcom’d, understood, appear often enough, but rare has the day been, likewise the spot, of the birth of the maker of poems, the Answerer, (Not every century nor every five centuries has contain’d such a day, for all its names.) The singers of successive hours of centuries may have ostensible names, but the name of each of them is one of the singers, The name of each is, eye-singer, ear-singer, head-singer, sweet-singer, night-singer, parlor-singer, love-singer, weird-singer, or something else. ”