"We live in a world of unseen realities, the world of thoughts
and feelings. But 'thoughts are things,' and frequently they
weigh more and obtain far more in the making of a man than do
all the tangible realities which surround him. Thoughts and
feelings are the stuff of which life is made. They are the
language of the soul. By means of them we follow the development
of character, the shaping of the soul which is the one great
purpose of life."
_Appreciation of Art_. Loveridge.
Every year a large number of young men and women go in quest of a
singing teacher. The impulse to sing, which is inborn, has become so
insistent and irrepressible that it must be heeded; and the desire to do
things well, which is a part of the mental equipment of every normal
human being, makes outside assistance imperative. Wherever there is a
real need the supply is forthcoming, so there is little difficulty in
finding some one who is ready, willing, in fact rather anxious, to
undertake the pleasant task of transforming these enthusiastic amateurs
into full-fledged professionals.
The meeting of the teacher and student always takes place in the studio,
and it is there that all vocal problems are solved. Let no one imagine
that any vocal problem can be solved in a physics laboratory. Why?
_Because not one of the problems confronting the vocal student is
physical. They are all mental._ The writer has reached this conclusion
not from ignoring the physical, but from making a comprehensive study of
the vocal mechanism and its relation to the singer.
The anatomy and physiology of the vocal mechanism are absorbing to one
who is interested in knowing how man, through untold centuries of growth
has perfected an instrument through which he can express himself; but no
matter how far we go in the study of anatomy and physiology all we
really learn is what mind has done. If man has a more perfect and highly
organized vocal instrument than the lower animals it is because his
higher manifestation of mind has formed an instrument necessary to its
needs.
When man's ideas and needs were few and simple his vocabulary was small,
for language is the means by which members of the species communicate
with each other. Whenever man evolved a new idea he necessarily invented
some way of communicating it, and so language grew. A word is the symbol
of an idea, but invariably the idea originates the word. The word does
not originate the idea. The idea always arrives first. All we can ever
learn from the study of matter is phenomena, the result of the activity
of mind.
Thus we see that so called "scientific study" of the vocal mechanism is
at best, but a study of phenomena. It creates nothing. It only discovers
what is already taking place, and what has been going on indefinitely
without conscious direction will, in all probability, continue.
The value attached by some to the study of vocal physiology is greatly
overestimated. In fact its value is so little as to be practically
negligible. It furnishes the teacher nothing he can use in giving a
singing lesson, unless, perchance he should be so unwise as to begin the
lesson with a talk on vocal mechanism, which, by the way, would much
better come at the last lesson than the first. All we can learn from the
study of vocal physiology is the construction of the vocal instrument,
and this bears the same relation to singing that piano making bears to
piano playing. The singer and his instrument are two different things,
and a knowledge of the latter exerts very little beneficial influence on
the former.
To reach a solution of the vocal problem we must understand the relation
existing between the singer and his instrument.
The singer is a mentality, consequently everything he does is an
activity of his mentality. Seeing, hearing, knowing, is this mentality
in action. The two senses most intimately associated with artistic
activity are seeing and hearing, and these are mental. In painting,
sculpture, and architecture we perceive beauty through the eye. In music
it reaches us through the ear; but _the only thing that is cognizant is
the mind_. To man the universe consists of mental impressions, and that
these impressions differ with each individual is so well understood that
it need not be argued. Two people looking at the same picture will not
see exactly the same things. Two people listening to a musical
composition may hear quite different things and are affected in
different ways, because _it is the mind that hears_, and as no two
mentalities are precisely the same, it must be apparent that the
impressions they receive will be different. The things these mentalities
have in common they will see and hear in common, but wherein they differ
they will see and hear differently. Each will see and hear to the limit
of his experience, but no further.
To be a musician one must become conscious of that particular thing
called music. He must learn to think music. The elements of music are
rhythm, melody, harmony, and form, and their mastery is no less a mental
process than is the study of pure mathematics.
The human mind is a composite. It is made up of a large number of
faculties combined in different proportions. The germs of all knowledge
exist in some form and degree in every mind. When one faculty
predominates we say the individual has talent for that particular thing.
If the faculty is abnormally developed we say he is a genius, but all
things exist as possibilities in every mind. Nature puts no limitations
on man. Whatever his limitations, they are self imposed, nature is not a
party to the act.
Now this is what confronts the teacher whenever a student comes for a
lesson. He has before him a mentality that has been influenced not only
by its present environment, but by everything that has preceded it. "Man
is," as an old philosopher said, "a bundle of habits," and habits are
mental trends. His point of view is the product of his experience, and
it will be different from that of every one else. The work of the
teacher is training this mentality. Understanding this it will be seen
how futile would be a fixed formula for all students, and how
necessarily doomed to failure is any method of voice training which
makes anatomy and physiology its basis. Further, there is much to be
done in the studio beside giving the voice lesson. Whistler said that
natural conditions are never right for a perfect picture. From the
picture which nature presents the artist selects what suits his purpose
and rejects the rest. It is much the same in the training of a singer.
In order that the lesson be effective the conditions must be right. This
only rarely obtains in the beginning. The student's attitude toward the
subject must be right or the lesson will mean little to him. The lesson
to be effective must be protected by _honesty_, _industry_ and
_perseverance_. If these are lacking in various degrees, as they often
are, little progress will be made. If the student is studying merely for
"society purposes," not much can be expected until that mental attitude
is changed. Students always want to sing well, but they are not always
willing to make the sacrifice of time and effort; consequently they lack
concentration and slight their practice. Sometimes the thought uppermost
in the student's mind is the exaltation of the ego, in other words,
fame. Sometimes he measures his efforts by the amount of money he thinks
he may ultimately earn, be it great or small. Sometimes he overestimates
himself, or what is equally bad, underestimates himself. It is a very
common thing to find him putting limitations on himself and telling of
the few things he will be able to do and the large number he never will
be able to do, thus effectually barring his progress. Then there is
always the one who is habitually late. She feels sure that all of the
forces of nature are leagued in a conspiracy to prevent her from ever
being on time anywhere. She, therefore, is guiltless. There is another
one who is a riot of excuses, apologies and reasons why she has not been
able to practice. Her home and neighborhood seem to be the special
object of providential displeasure, which is manifested in an unbroken
series of calamitous visitations ranging from croup to bubonic plague,
each one making vocal practice a physical and moral impossibility.
All of these things are habits of mind which must be corrected by the
teacher before satisfactory growth may be expected. In fact he must
devote no inconsiderable part of his time to setting students right on
things which in themselves are no part of music, but which are elements
of character without which permanent success is impossible.
A great musical gift is of no value unless it is protected by those
elements of character which are in themselves fundamentally right.
Innumerable instances could be cited of gifted men and women who have
failed utterly because their gifts were not protected by honesty,
industry and perseverance.
I have spoken at some length of the importance of the right mental
attitude toward study and the necessity of correcting false conceptions.
Continuing, it must be understood that the work of the teacher is all
that of training the mind of his student. It is developing concepts and
habits of mind which when exercised result in beautiful tone and
artistic singing. It must also be understood that the teacher does not
look at the voice, he listens to it. Here voice teachers automatically
separate themselves from each other. No two things so diametrically
opposite as physics and metaphysics can abide peaceably in the same
tent.
Let me emphasize the statement that _the teacher does not look at the
voice, he listens to it_. The teacher who bases his teaching on what he
can see, that is, on watching the singer and detecting his mistakes
through the eye, is engaged in an activity that is mechanical, not
musical. No one can tell from observation alone whether a tone is
properly produced. A tone is something to hear, not something to see,
and no amount of seeing will exert any beneficial influence on one's
hearing.
The process of learning to read vocal music at sight is that of learning
to _think tones_, to _think in the key_, and to _think all manner of
intervals and rhythmic forms_. It is altogether mental, and it is no
less absurd to hold that a knowledge of anatomy is necessary to this
than it is essential to the solution of a mathematical problem. The
formation of tone quality is no less a mental process than is thinking
the pitch. If the student sings a wrong pitch it is because he has
thought a wrong pitch, and this is true to a large extent at least, if
his tone quality in not good. He may at least be sure of this, that _he
never will sing a better tone than the one he thinks_.
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.
More is known of vocal mechanism today than at any other time in the
world's history, and yet who dares to say that voice teaching has been
improved by it? Is voice teaching any more accurate now than it was a
hundred years ago? Did the invention of the laryngoscope add anything of
value to the voice teacher's equipment? No. Even the inventor of it said
that all it did was to confirm what he had always believed. An enlarged
mechanical knowledge has availed nothing in the studio. The character of
the teacher's work has improved to the degree in which he has recognized
two facts--first, the necessity of developing his own artistic sense as
well as that of his pupil, second, that the process of learning to sing
is psychologic rather than physiologic.
When the student takes his first singing lesson what does the teacher
hear? He hears the tone the student sings, but what is far more
important, he hears in his own mind the tone the student ought to sing.
He hears his own tone concept and this is the standard he sets for the
student. He cannot demand of him anything beyond his own concept either
in tone quality or interpretation.
Young teachers and some old ones watch the voice rather than listen to
it. At the slightest deviation from their standard of what the tongue,
larynx, and soft palate ought to do they pounce upon the student and
insist that he make the offending organ assume the position and form
which they think is necessary to produce a good tone. This results in
trying to control the mechanism by direct effort which always induces
tension and produces a hard, unsympathetic tone.
The blunder here is in mistaking effect for cause. The tongue which
habitually rises and fills the cavity of the mouth does so in response
to a wrong mental concept of cause. The only way to correct this
condition is to change the cause. The rigid tongue we see is effect, and
to tinker with the effect while the cause remains is unnecessarily
stupid. An impulse of tension has been directed to the tongue so often
that the impulse and response have become simultaneous and automatic.
The correction lies in directing an impulse of relaxation to it. When it
responds to this impulse it will be found to be lying in the bottom of
the mouth, relaxed, and ready to respond to any demand that may be made
upon it. To try to make the tongue lie in the bottom of the mouth by
direct effort while it is filled with tension is like trying to sweep
back the tide with a broom. The only way to keep the tide from flowing
is to find out what causes it to flow and remove the cause. The only way
to correct faulty action of any part of the vocal mechanism is to go
back into mentality and remove the cause. It will always be found there.