Everything in the universe that has come under the scrutiny of mortal
man has been subjected to a perpetual reformation. Nothing is too great
or too small to engage the attention of the reformer. Religion,
politics, medicine and race suicide are objects of his special
solicitude, but nothing else has been forgotten. No phase of human
activity has been allowed to remain at rest. So far as we know nothing
but the multiplication table has escaped the reformer. There is a
general feeling that nothing is exactly right. This may be the operation
of the law of progress, doubtless it is, but it occasions a mighty
unrest, and keeps the world wondering what will happen next. This law of
progress is but another name for idealism to which the world owes
everything. Idealism is that which sees a better condition than the one
which now obtains. The process of realizing this better condition is in
itself reformation.
As far back as we have any knowledge of the art of singing the reformers
have been at work, and down through the centuries their energies have
been unflagging. We owe to them whatever advance has been made toward a
perfect system of voice training, but they are also responsible for many
things pernicious in their nature which have been incorporated in
present day methods of teaching, for it must be admitted that there are
false prophets among singing teachers no less than among the members of
other professions. There is one interesting thing connected with the
work of these vocal reformers. From the beginning they have insisted
that the art of _bel canto_ is lost. Tosi (1647-1727), Porpora
(1686-1766), Mancini (1716-1800), three of the greatest teachers of the
old Italian school, all lamented the decadence of the art of singing.
Others before and since have done the same thing. It seems that in all
times any one who could get the public ear has filled it with this sort
of pessimistic wail. From this we draw some interesting conclusions:
First, that the real art of singing was lost immediately after it was
found. Second, that the only time it was perfect was when it began.
Third, that ever since it began we have been searching for it without
success. If any of this is true it means that all of the great singers
of the past two hundred years have been fakers, because they never
really learned how to sing. It is surprising that we did not see through
these musical Jeremiahs long ago. In all ages there have been good
teachers and bad ones, and it would not be surprising if the bad ones
outnumbered the good ones; but the weak link in the chain of argument is
in estimating the profession by its failures. This is a cheap and much
overworked device and discloses the egotism of the one using it. There
are teachers today who thoroughly understand the art of _bel canto_.
They have not lost it, and the others never had it. This condition has
obtained for centuries and will continue indefinitely. An art should be
measured by its best exponents, not by its worst. To measure it by its
failures is illogical and dishonest.
In recent years the process of reformation has been applied to all
branches of music teaching with the hope of reducing these failures to a
minimum. The profession has suddenly awakened to the fact that it must
give a better reason for its existence than any heretofore offered. It
has become clear to the professional mind that in order to retain and
enlarge its self-respect music must be recognized as a part of the great
human uplift. To this end it has been knocking at the doors of the
institutions of learning asking to be admitted and recognized as a part
of public education. The reply has been that music teaching must first
develop coherence, system and standards. This has caused music teachers
to look about and realize as never before that the profession as a whole
has no organization and no fixed educational standards. Every teacher
fixes his own standard and is a law unto himself. The standard is
individual, and if the individual conscience is sufficiently elastic the
standard gives him no serious concern. But as a result of this awakening
there is a concerted action throughout the country to standardize, to
define the general scope of learning necessary to become a music
teacher. The trend of this is in the right direction, and good may be
expected from it, although at best it can be but a very imperfect method
of determining one's fitness to teach. The determining factors in
teaching are things which cannot be discovered in any ten questions. In
fact an examination must necessarily confine itself to general
information, but in teaching, the real man reveals himself. His high
sense of order, logic, patience, his love and appreciation of the
beautiful, his personality, his moral sense, the mental atmosphere of
his studio, these all enter into his teaching and they are things
difficult to discover in an examination. Unconsciously the teacher gives
out himself along with the music lesson, and it is equally important
with his knowledge of music. Therefore it is as difficult to establish
definite standards of teaching as it is of piano or violin making.
In attempting to establish standards of voice teaching the problem
becomes positively bewildering. The voice is so completely and
persistently individual, and in the very nature of things must always
remain so, that an attempt to standardize it or those who train it is
dangerous. Yet notwithstanding this, voice teachers are the most
industrious of all in their efforts to organize and standardize. The
insistence with which this aim is prosecuted is worthy of something
better than is likely to be achieved.
That there is no standard among voice teachers save that of the
individual will be admitted without argument; and until there is such a
thing as a fixed standard of musical taste this condition will remain,
for the musical taste of the teacher is by far the most potent factor in
the teaching of tone production.
Of late there have been vigorous efforts to establish a standard tone
for singers. This, according to the apostles of "Harmony in the ranks,"
is the one way of unifying the profession. As an argument this is
nothing short of picturesque, and can be traced to those unique and
professedly scientific mentalities that solve all vocal problems by a
mathematical formula. As an example of the chimerical, impossible and
altogether undesirable, it commands admiration. If it is impossible to
establish a standard tone for pianos where the problem is mechanical,
what may we expect to do with voice where the problem is psychological?
When we have succeeded in making all people look alike, act alike, think
alike; when we have eliminated all racial characteristics and those
resulting from environment; when people are all of the same size,
weight, proportion, structure; when skulls are all of the same size,
thickness and density; when all vocal organs and vocal cavities are of
the same form and size; when we have succeeded in equalizing all
temperaments; when there is but one climate, one language, one
government, one religion; when there is no longer such a thing as
individuality--then perhaps a standard tone may be considered. Until
that time nothing could be more certain of failure. The great charm of
voices is their individuality, which is the result not alone of
training, but of ages of varied experience, for man is the sum of all
that has preceded him. It is, to say the least, an extraordinary
mentality that would destroy this most vital element in singing for the
sake of working out a scientific theory.
But there is no immediate danger. Nature, whose chief joy is in variety
and contrast, is not likely to sacrifice it suddenly to a mere whim.
When we speak of a standard tone we enter the domain of acoustics and
must proceed according to the laws of physics. In this standard tone
there must be a fundamental combined with certain overtones. But who
shall say which overtones, and why the particular combination? The
answer must be "because it sounds best." A tone being something to hear,
this is a logical and legitimate answer. But if the listener knows when
it sounds right he knows it entirely separate and apart from any
knowledge he may have of its scientific construction; hence such
knowledge is of no value whatever in determining what is good and what
is bad in tone quality. A tone is not a thing to see and the teacher
cannot use a camera and a manometric flame in teaching tone production.
Any knowledge he may have gained from the use of such instruments in the
laboratory is valueless in teaching.
If it were possible to adopt as a standard tone a certain combination of
fundamental and overtones (which it is not), and if it were possible to
make all singers use this particular tone (which, thank heaven it is
not), then all voices would sound alike and individuality would at once
disappear.
The advocates of this kind of standard tone cannot disengage themselves
from the belief that all vocal organs are alike. The exact opposite is
the truth. Vocal organs are no more alike than are eyes, noses, hands
and dispositions. Each of these conforms only to a general type. The
variation is infinite.