COMPASS AND QUALITY
Having found your teacher, the next thing you will want to know is
precisely what sort of voice you have--and this is a matter, curiously
enough, which cannot always be determined off-hand. The strangest
mistakes have, indeed, not infrequently been made in this respect--as in
the well-known instance of Jean de Reszke, who actually began his public
career as a baritone and continued singing for some years before he
finally came to the conclusion that his voice was, in reality, a tenor.
The important task of discovering whether a voice is bass, baritone,
tenor, contralto, mezzo-soprano, or soprano, and the exact character of
the general ranges of these voices is a matter of great delicacy, and
cannot be decided at one hearing. It is largely individual, and
sometimes a matter of health and circumstances. The ranges of different
classes of the human voice may be generally stated as follows. In the
bass voice two octaves of E, the contralto two octaves of E with a tone
and a half more in the upper notes leading to G; the tenor, which
sounds an octave lower than the soprano, and the soprano voice itself
two octaves of C. There are also the baritone and mezzo-soprano voices,
the former of which is neither bass nor tenor, and the latter neither
contralto nor soprano. The average range covers two octaves of G or A in
baritones and mezzo-sopranos.
In all cases there are, of course, exceptions, as, for example, the bass
that extends to a melodious low C and can even reach the baritone top F.
There is a further classification which has relation to the _timbre_, or
colour, which distinguishes whether the artist is dramatic or purely
lyric. If of a lyric tendency the artist will do well to avoid dramatic
declamation until maturity and experience has taught him this difficult
side of our art and _vice versa_.
It is not a question of compass only, but of compass in addition to the
distinctive character and quality of the voice. But compass is
undoubtedly essential, and in regard to this Lamperti’s practice was to
judge not only by the notes which could be taken, but by the facility
with which words could be enunciated on them at the same time.
Thus, in the case of a girl student, if she could not only sing the
upper G, but could also enunciate words easily on that note, he
considered that she was a true soprano; and so on with all the other
voices. Thus a baritone might be able to take notes almost as high as a
tenor. But if he could not pronounce words comfortably on those notes he
was not, in Lamperti’s judgment, to be classed as anything but a
baritone.
But, as a general rule, your teacher will not have much difficulty in
deciding as to the classification of your voice, and, presuming this to
have been decided, we must consider next the question of training it.
Here I feel that I must go carefully, for if there is one thing more
certain than another, in my opinion, it is that the pupil who hopes to
get the best results from his training must place himself unreservedly
in his teacher’s hands, since otherwise he cannot possibly hope to do
justice to his teaching. That is to say, he should not confuse his mind
by accepting the advice and instruction of other people--so far, at all
events, as concerns what may be called the strictly technical side of
his training.
Therefore, I shall confine myself to general hints and observations
only, based on my own experiences and herewith offered for what they are
worth.