Vocal training

“ It is not within my province to discuss the technical details of voice-training. I will only say that every system of vocal instruction should aim at strengthening the power of the voice, increasing its compass, and purifying its tone, and, above all, at giving the speaker perfect control over it, even in the very whirl-wind of oratorical passion. It would be well if every school in the land had a master of elocution attached to it, and if the art of delivery were taught to every boy as part of the regular course of education. ”

“ The usual analogies then which are drawn between the adult female voice and the child-voice, in so far as they imply a similar physiological condition 43 of the vocal organ and similar vocal training, are not only useless, but misleading. He who tries to train the average child-voice on the theory of two, three or five clearly-defined breaks, or natural changes in the forms for vocal vibration assumed by the vocal bands will get very little help from nature. ”

“ For many years I have had a conviction that voice training is much simpler and less involved than it is generally considered. I am convinced that far too much is made of the vocal mechanism, which under normal conditions always responds automatically. Beautiful tone should be the primary aim of all voice teaching, and more care should be given to forming the student’s tone concept than to that of teaching him how to control his throat by direct effort. The controlling power of a right idea is still much underestimated. ”

“ More important than any of the reasons just given to account for the present state of the art of singing, is the decline in the art of training voices. The prospects of an improvement in the art of Voice Culture, imagined by the early investigators of the vocal mechanism, have not been realized. Voice Culture has not progressed in the past sixty years. Exactly the contrary has taken place. Before the introduction of mechanical methods every earnest vocal student was sure of learning to use his voice properly, and of developing the full measure of his natural endowments. ”

“ The student of the voice can get physical training and physical culture from many teachers and many books. It may not be training that will so directly and definitely develop and strengthen the vocal muscles and the organ of sound itself, or training that will so directly influence the voice as does our system, which is especially arranged for the singer; but any good system of physical development, any system that gives the student health and strength, is good for the singing voice. "Activity is the source of growth, both physical and mental." "Strength to be developed, must be used. ”

“ Soft singing is the cure for all the ills of the vocal organs.” It would be hard to find a more terse or truthful statement than the first sentence of the above as 50 regards the voices of little children from five to seven or eight years of age. It is unmitigated foolishness to talk about vocal training as applied to children of that age. The voice-culture which is suited to little children is that sort of culture which promotes growth—food and sleep and play. ”

“ A large part of the vocal teacher’s training should be learning how to listen and what to listen for. This means training the ear, which is the mind, until it is in the highest degree sensitive to tone quality as well as to pitch. When there is a failure in voice training it may be counted upon that the teacher’s listening faculty is defective. The gist of the whole thing is what the teacher’s ear will stand for. If a tone does not offend his ear he will allow it to continue. If it does offend his ear he will take measures to stop it. ”

“ The benefits of teaching music reading in the schools are a matter of daily comment. Is it, then, likely that the good resulting from the formation of correct habits in the use of the voice will fail of recognition? Not so. For the effect of good vocal training in school music would be 133 so general and so beneficent that even unfriendly critics might be silenced. ”

“ On the physical side the singer's voice is felt by the hearer to be in a condition of balanced and harmonious muscular activity.
When the possessor of a good natural voice goes through a proper course of vocal training, the faults of production native to the untrained voice are gradually corrected. Wrong muscular tension is imperceptibly relaxed. Little by little the student acquires facility in handling the voice. ”

“ Simultaneously there is an openness of the whole throat and tone passage. All the organs of voice are thus brought into right conditions. When this condition is violated there is a misuse of the voice.
Vocal training consists in the use of such simple exercises as will establish all these conditions that have been mentioned, especially the last. The conditions of voice must be co-ordinated, the vocal organs must respond to thinking and feeling. We cannot ignore, we must demonstrate on every plane. Man is given the greatest opportunity for progress. ”

“ No mistake of greater magnitude was ever made since voice training began than that of holding the throat open by direct effort. It never resulted in a tone a real musician’s ear could 8endure, nevertheless during the latter part of the nineteenth century and even the early part of the twentieth it was made such an integral part of voice culture that it seemed to be incorporated in the law of heredity, and vocal students, even before they were commanded, would try to make a large cavity in the back of the throat. ”

“ In order to understand the nature of a method of Voice Culture, it is necessary first to consider the relation which exists, in modern instruction, between training in tone-production, and the development of vocal technique. According to the accepted theory, the voice must be "placed" before the real study of singing is undertaken. After the voice has been properly "placed," it is supposed to be in condition to be developed by practice in singing technical exercises. But in actual practice this distinction between "voice-placing" exercises and technical studies is seldom drawn. ”

“ These, then, are the first exercises in the second step in vocal training. This step is called Freeing the Tone.
First.—Yawn, noting the sensation.
Second.—Just before the throat breaks into the yawn, stop, and, instead of carrying out the yawn, speak. Repeat this fifty times a day, or ten times, as often as you will. Only, keep at it. Take always a single full-voweled monosyllable; one, or four, or no, or love, or loop, or dove, etc. ”

“ A correct knowledge of how to train the voice must be gained in the studio, not in the laboratory. Its basis is the musical sense rather than the mechanical or scientific. All of the scientific or mechanical knowledge that 14the world has to offer is no preparation for voice training. A knowledge of the art of teaching begins when the teacher takes his first pupil, not before. Therefore the aim shall be to present the subject as it appears to the teacher.
We hear much of the value of vocal physiology as a guide to good voice production. ”

“ Before attempting the exercises involved in the first step, let us examine a tone in the making, or, rather, let us feel how it is made—for the process of tone production, so far as it concerns us, is not of physio [Pg 302] logical, but rather psychological, significance. The huge tomes on the physiology of the voice which are of vital interest to the student of anatomy are not only of no use, but are apt to be a positive hindrance to the student of vocal training. ”

“ In practical delivery, the elements of expression are never used independently of each other, two or three being always combined, even in the utterance of the shortest passage. The perfection of vocal training, therefore, requires a command, not merely of each individual modification of the voice, but of all their numerous combinations. ”

“ STUDIES IN VOCAL EXPRESSION THE VOCAL VOCABULARY
There is a theory that it is dangerous to go beyond the mere freeing of the instrument in either vocal or physical training. In accordance with this theory I was advised by a well-known actress to confine my study for the stage, so far as the vocal and pantomimic preparation was concerned, to singing, dancing, and fencing. "Get your voice and body under control," she said. "Make them free, but don't connect shades of thought and emotion with definite tones of the voice or movements of the body; don't meddle with Delsarte or elocution." ”

“ 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. ”

“ People with little or no musicianship have been known to wrangle ceaselessly on whether or not the thyroid cartilage should tip forward on high tones. It is such crude mechanics masquerading under the name of science that has brought voice training into general disrepute. The voice teacher is primarily concerned with learning to play upon the vocal instrument rather than upon its mechanical construction, two things which some find difficulty in separating.
KNOW WHAT YOU WANT
This means much. In voice production it means the perfect tone concept. It means far more than knowing what one likes. ”

“ Modern teachers are certainly as well acquainted with the mechanical features of tone-production as the old masters were. Yet, judged by their results, modern methods are distinctly inferior to the old Italian method. [Pg 305]
There is absolutely no ground for the belief that the old masters owed their success to a knowledge of vocal physiology. This idea of ascribing scientific knowledge to the early teachers results only from erroneous belief that no other means of training the voice is possible. ”

“ Every teacher of elocution or of vocal music, entrusted with the training of a voice of some value to its possessor, should have a good, practical knowledge of the mechanism of the voice. Good voices are often injured by injudicious management on the part of some incompetent instructor. It is always prudent to cease speaking or singing in public the moment there is any hoarseness or sore throat. ”

“ For this reason, if for no other, the director of a boy choir must be a thoroughly qualified voice trainer. He, of course, takes no voice that is not reasonably good to start124 with, but after admitting a boy with a naturally good vocal organ it is his task so to train that voice as to enable it to withstand several hours of singing each day without injury and to produce tones of maximal beauty as a matter of habit. ”

“ These two factors of voice-production, the physical and the psychical, should be recognized both by the teacher and by the student in striving to develop the voice, and by the physician who seeks to restore an impaired voice to its pristine quality. The substitution by teachers of various methods, originated by themselves, for the natural physiological method to which the vocal organs become self-adjusted and for the correct processes of auto-suggestion originating within the well-taught singer himself, is the cause of most ruined voices. ”

“ To train a voice is in reality a very simple matter. Nothing is required of the student but straightforward singing. Provided the student's [Pg 358] daily practice of singing be guided by a naturally keen ear and a sound musical taste, the voice will steadily progress. Little need be said here about the technical demands made on the voice in modern music. The standards of vocal technique are well known to all vocal teachers, and indeed to musicians generally. Further, the scope of this work is limited to the basic principle of vocal technique,—correct tone-production. ”

“ As faces and people differ, so do also the voices. There are general rules to be observed that all can understand, but outside of that, teaching of the voice becomes an individual study of every conscientious and capable teacher. No one should attempt it unless he understands perfectly the anatomy of the muscles that are used and compose the vocal apparatus, their placement and uses. Instructors should be perfect singers themselves and able to give an example of every tone as accurately as it can be produced by the human voice. ”

“ The very first principle of a vocal method should be, to establish so correct a use of the vocal organs that nature in this respect becomes second nature. For correct action of the voice-organs can develop into a habit so perfectly acquired that the singer acts upon it automatically; and the most disastrous result of poor teaching is that a bad habit also becomes second nature and is almost impossible to eradicate. ”

“ It seems inadvisable also to give any instruction regarding the emission of air from the lungs in singing. None but cultivated singers, after long practice and through a complete command of the muscles concerned, can vocalize all the air at the vocal bands. The absolute purity of tone which is thus secured is a result that may or may not be reached in any particular case. It depends upon the mental and physical organization of the pupil as well as upon the method of the teacher. ”

“ Carefully and correctly directed exercises in ornamentation are in the highest degree necessary to the formation of tone; they tire the voice far less than sustained notes, and accustom it to an exact enunciation of the tones. But because persevering practice is necessary to the cultivation of vocal flexibility, the teaching of this is to be begun at the very first; and not until later, when the voice is habituated to a right touch and to a perfectly clear tone, is the pupil to be given those favorite exercises with long-sustained notes, which are sung with one continuous breath. ”