THE NATURAL VOICE
Pupils are constantly urged to sing and speak naturally, because the "natural" tone is correct. This is exceedingly indefinite. It is natural for a child to imitate the first sound it hears, whether it be correct or incorrect. In either case the child imitates it, and for that child it becomes the natural tone. The child reared in the wilderness, beyond the hearing of a human voice, will imitate the notes of the whip-poor-will, the chatter of the monkey, and the hoot of the owl, and for him they are natural tones.
To be natural is the hardest lesson to learn and it is only the result of imitation or prolonged discipline. Untrained naturalness is the perfection of awkwardness. The involuntary functions of organic life are the only ones naturally performed correctly. Nature"s method of breathing, circulation, and digestion can be depended upon until disarranged by subsequent conditions, but unless proper vocalization is established by imitation and discipline this function is sure to be corrupted by false examples.
AGE TO BEGIN
After the child begins to talk, the sooner his vocal education begins the better. Even at that early age he can be made to understand the merits of head vibrations and by simple exercises produce them, and once taught will never forget them. Vocalizing, like every other art, is most easily learned by imitation, and the advantage of the early years, when that faculty is most active, should not be lost. In olden times the importance of this was fully realized. More than three centuries ago, old Roger Ascham wrote: "All languages, both learned and mother tongues, are begotten and gotten solely by imitation. For as ye used to hear so ye learn to speak. If ye hear no other, ye speak not yourself; and of whom ye only hear, of them ye only learn."
Nineteen centuries ago Quintillian wrote: "Before all let the nurses speak properly. The boy will hear them first and will try to shape his words by imitating them."
If the right way of using the voice is early taught it will be a guard against the contraction of bad habits which can only be corrected later with infinite trouble. It certainly would be unwise to put a young child under continued training; but even in the kindergarten the right method of voice production can and should be taught. Teachers of kindergarten and primary schools should be familiar with the principles of voice training and be able to start the pupils at once on the right road.
IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS
The sooner this branch of education is made a part of the curriculum of our common schools, the sooner shall we produce a race of good speakers and singers.
If, during the pupil"s school life, proper attention is paid to these primary principles and to _correct articulation_, a large majority of students will graduate from our common schools prepared to advance in the art of elocution or of singing without being obliged first to unlearn a vast amount of error and to correct a long list of bad habits.
If each day in the public schools a few minutes only are devoted to the subject by a teacher who understands it and who will call the attention of the pupils to the proper applications of the principles in their daily recitations, it will be found amply sufficient to develop and establish a good speaking and singing voice.
ARTISTRY
If artistry is to be attained, every organ must be individually well trained. Yet, during performance, no one part should be given undue prominence. The voice should be the product of all the organs equally well developed. Continued practice will enable the performer to correlate the whole--blend the strength of all in one.
It goes without saying that no one in singing or speaking should appear to be governed by a "method." During the early stages of education, pupils should be amenable to rules and methods, but they must not expect to be acceptable performers until able to forget their lessons and simply and unconsciously make use of all the advantages of their training. Even when the education is finished, and the _prima donna_ has made her successful debut, continued daily repet.i.tion of primary exercises is necessary to maintain excellence and insure the progress that every performer desires. Our best singers to-day are as diligent students of the technique of the voice as are the tyros struggling with the first elements.
LIFE"S PERIODS
Human life is divided into three periods: _first_, that of effort to get an education; _second_, of effort to maintain it; and _third_, of effort to resist the natural decline which comes with advancing years.
The singer and speaker must drill to develop the voice, must drill to keep it in condition, and must drill to resist the encroachments of senility. Eternal vigilance is the price of vocal success.
APPLICATION OF ESSENTIALS
The application of the principles here discussed will show that a musical voice is not the product of mysterious systems, but a matter of scientific certainty. The essentials are good breathing, good focusing, good resonance, and good articulation. These four elements are so interdependent that one cannot be perfected without the other.
With these attained, the intellect, the sentiment, and the emotion of the performer will culminate in artistic excellence.
REPOSE AS A PREPARATION FOR VOCAL EXERCISE
The nervousness or fear which manifests itself in constraint and rigidity of the muscles and sometimes in stage fright is a serious hindrance to progress. The effectual offset to this painful condition is repose.
The art of inducing a condition of repose can be readily acquired by any one who will carefully and faithfully do as follows: Place yourself in an easy lying or lounging position in a quiet place, with fresh air. Physical repose prepares for and invites mental repose. Now allow the mind to work care free at its own sweet will without any attempt to control it. Close the eyes and _breathe slowly, gently, and deeply, with steady rhythm_. In two or three minutes a sensation of quiet restful repose will be experienced, which may be continued for several minutes or may even lead to a natural sound sleep.
This result may not be attained at the first or the second trial, but a few repet.i.tions of the exercise will insure success in almost every case. After the art is attained in this formal way, ability to induce the same repose when sitting upright, or while standing, will be quickly developed.
This repose is the fitting preparation for a lesson or a performance and may be induced during the progress of either, to allay any trepidation incident to the situation. A mastery of this simple art will make progress in the work of voice development much more rapid, and make attainable a degree of discipline that is impossible without it. It will prove for the beginner a sure prevention of stage fright and a great relief to the most chronic sufferer from this malady.
THE VIBRATO
The _vibrato_ is a rhythmic pulsation of the voice. It often appears in untrained voices; in others it appears during the process of cultivation. Some have thought it the perfection of sympathetic quality; others esteem it a fault.
The vibrato is caused by an undulating variation of pitch or power, often both. The voice does not hold steadily and strictly to the pitch, and according to the amount of the variation a corresponding vibrato, or tremolo, is produced.
The action of stringed instruments ill.u.s.trates this statement. The finger of the violinist vibrates on the string by rocking rapidly back and forth and the vibrato is the result.
The same is true of the human instrument. By variation of the tension, the vocal apparatus sends forth several tones in alternation, of a slightly different pitch, which together produce the effect.
Three sources are ascribed for the vibrato; one is a rapid, spasmodic vibration of the diaphragm, causing variation of breath pressure; another is the alternate tension and relaxation of the larynx and vocal cords; a third is that commonest of faults--throat stiffness.
Either cause is possible, and variation in the pitch or intensity of the tone is the result. Sufficient investigations have not been made to make the matter certain, but tremolo, trembling of the vocal organs, and muscular stiffness, or unnatural tension, seem to go together.
It is quite possible in the early stages of culture so to train the voice as to use the vibrato or not at will, but if not early controlled this, like other bad habits, gains the mastery. Excessive vibrato has spoiled many good voices. It is not a fundamental quality of the voice. A little vibrato may occasionally be desirable when properly and skilfully used; more than this is to be shunned as a dangerous vice.
CHAPTER XI
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF VOCAL CULTURE
Mental conception precedes execution. The picture must exist in the artist"s mind before it can be drawn on the canvas. The architect must mentally see the majestic cathedral in all its details before he can draw the plans from which it can be built. In the field of physical activity no movement is made until the mind has gone before and prepared the way. A person"s ability to do is in a great degree measured by his determination to do, but sitting in a rocking-chair and thinking will never make an athlete. Mental action is necessary, but only through trained muscular action can the mental action materialize in a finished performance.
So too the mind must antic.i.p.ate the action of the vocal organs, but the organs themselves must be led to interpret the mental concept until such action becomes spontaneous. Action in turn quickens the mental process, and the mental picture becomes more vivid.
Note with emphasis that the mental concept _precedes_ the action and governs it. Therefore, instead of producing tone by local effort, by conscious muscular action of any sort, correctly _think the tone_, correctly shape and color it _mentally_. =Every vocal tone is a mental concept made audible.= The beginner and the confirmed bungler alike fail in this prime essential--they do not make this mental picture of tone before singing it. Kindred to this is deficiency in hearing, in discriminating between good tone color and poor. The student must constantly compare his tone as it is sung with the picture in his mind. Training the voice is therefore largely a training of mind and ear, a developing of nicety in discrimination. Singing is mental rather than physical, psychologic rather than physiologic. Think therefore of the effect desired rather than of the process.
In considering the details of voice production a.n.a.lytically we are apt to forget that man, notwithstanding his complexity, is a _unit_ and acts as a unit. Back of all and underlying man"s varied activity is the psychical. In the advanced stages of the art of speech and song this psychical element is of pre-eminent importance.
The speaker who essays to give expression to his own thoughts must have his ideas sharply defined and aflame in order to so utter them that they will arouse his hearers to enthusiasm. The speaker or singer who would successfully interpret the thoughts of others must first make those thoughts his very own. When this is attained, then the voice, action, and the whole spirit of the performer, responding to the theme, will beget a like responsiveness in his audience.
THE SINGER BEHIND THE VOICE
Books upon books have been written on voice training, and will continue to be written. The preceding pages have been devoted to the fundamental subject of tone production, but it is time to suggest that back of the voice and the song is the singer himself with his complex personality. Back of the personality is the soul itself, forever seeking utterance through its mask of personality. All genuine impulse to sing is from the soul in its need for expression. Through expression comes growth in soul consciousness and desire for greater and greater self-expression.
Singing is far more than "wind and muscle," for, as Ffrangcon-Davies puts it, "The whole spiritual system, spirit, mind, sense, _soul_, together with the whole muscular system from feet to head, will be in the wise man"s singing, _and the whole man will be in the tone_."
Of all the expressions of the human spirit in art form, the sublimated speech we call song is the most direct. Every other art requires some material medium for its transmission, and in music, subtlest of all the arts, instruments are needed, except in singing only.
FREEDOM