PERIOD OF TRAINING
For this melancholy state of affairs the only remedy is a return to
sounder views. The fact must be recognised that there are no short cuts
to perfection in singing any more than in any other art, and that those
who wish to sing like the great ones of the past must be prepared to
work and study as they did, in order to attain this end.
What period of training should be considered sufficient to equip a vocal
student? In former days eight, nine, or even ten years were not
considered too much for this purpose. I need hardly say how very
different are the views prevailing nowadays, when students consider
themselves qualified to appear in public at the end of a year or two of
hasty and necessarily superficial training. Needless to say, no
satisfactory results can possibly be achieved in this length of time. I
consider a minimum of four years necessary to become a professional
singer.
Lilli Lehmann has put the matter happily. At least six years, she says,
should be considered the minimum period allowable--to which, she says
further, there should then be added an entire lifetime for further study
and improvement!
This is not to say that many great singers have not perfected their art
and even attained the very highest positions in a much shorter time. In
my own case my period of actual systematic training in the strict sense
of the term was comparatively brief--six months. But then in another
sense I was learning from my childhood. Moreover, I was exceptionally
lucky in that my voice was pitched just right, and had not to be trained
to do what is usually regarded as difficult.
Almost from my infancy it was my ambition to become an operatic singer,
and circumstances enabled me to benefit to the utmost extent by the
constant hearing of opera, and also the constant criticism of singers by
competent judges, so that I might be considered to have been studying
and gaining experience for my after career all my life.
Most students, however, are not so fortunately situated, and for them I
cannot urge too strongly the necessity of giving ample time to their
studies if they hope to make the best of their powers and to establish
their art on a firm foundation.
One can hardly write differently as to the period of training for the
amateur than for the professional. If Patti said that she was still
learning when she had retired from professional singing, no amateur can
hope ever to have learned all there is to be known about the art of
singing. And since he will always be a lover of song he will always be
anxious to learn.