This means much. In voice production it means the perfect tone concept.
It means far more than knowing what one likes. What one likes and what
he ought to like are usually quite different things. What one likes is
the measure of his taste at that particular time and may or may not be
an argument in its favor. I have never seen a beginner whose taste was
perfectly formed, but the great majority of them know what they like,
and because they like a certain kind of tone, or a certain way of
singing, they take it for granted that it is right until they are shown
something better. This error is by no means confined to beginners.
If your pupil does not produce good tone one of two things is
responsible for it. Either he does not know a good tone or else the
conditions are not right. In the beginning it is usually both. Your
pupil must create his tone mentally before he sings it. He must create
its quality no less than its pitch. In other words _he must hear his
tone before he sings it and then sing what he hears_. Until he can do
this his voice will have no character. His voice will be as indefinite
as his tone concept, and it will not improve until his concept, which is
his taste, improves. Inasmuch as everything exists first as idea, it
follows that everything which is included in the rightly produced voice
and in interpretation are first matters of concept. The singer uses a
certain tone quality because he mentally conceives that quality to be
right. He delivers a word or phrase in a certain way because that is his
concept of it.
A word at this point on imitation. One faculty of a musical mind is that
of recording mentally what it hears and of producing it mentally
whenever desired. Most people possess this in some degree, and some
people in a marked degree. Almost any one can hear mentally the tone of
a cornet, violin, or any instrument with which he is acquainted. In the
same way the vocal student must hear mentally the pure singing tone
before he can sing it. It is the business of the teacher to assist him
in forming a perfect tone concept, and if he can do this by example, as
well as by precept, he has a distinct advantage over the one who cannot.
Arguments against imitation are not uncommon, and yet the teachers who
offer them will advise their students to hear the great singers as often
as possible. Such incongruities do not inspire confidence.
On this human plane most things are learned by imitation. What language
would the child speak if it were never allowed to hear spoken language?
It would never be anything but
"An infant crying in the night.
And with no language but a cry."
There are but few original thinkers on earth at any one time. The rest
are imitators and none too perfect at that. We are imitators in
everything from religion to breakfast foods. Few of us ever have an
original idea. We trail along from fifty to a hundred years behind those
we are trying to imitate.
When there is little else but imitation going on in the world why deny
it to vocal students? The argument against imitation can come from but
two classes of people--those who cannot produce a good tone and those
who are more interested in how the tone is made than in the tone itself.
The following are the qualities the teacher undertakes to develop in the
student in preparing him for artistic singing. They are fundamental and
must be a part of the singer's equipment no matter what method is
employed. They are what all musicians expect to hear in the trained
singer. They all exist first as concepts.
An even scale from top to bottom of the voice.
Every tone full of strength and character.
A sympathetic quality.
Ample power.
A clear, telling resonance in every tone.
A pure legato and sostenuto.
Perfect freedom in production throughout the compass.
A perfect swell, that is, the ability to go from pianissimo to full
voice and return, on any tone in the compass, without a break, and
without sacrificing the tone quality.
The ability to pronounce distinctly and with ease to the top of the
compass.
Equal freedom in the delivery of vowels and consonants.
Sufficient flexibility to meet all technical demands.
An ear sensitive to the finest shades of intonation.
An artistic concept or interpretive sense of the highest possible order.
The process of acquiring these things is not accretion but _unfoldment_.
It is the unfoldment of ideas or concepts. The growth of ideas is
similar to that of plants and flowers. The growth of expression follows
the growth of the idea, it never precedes it. From the formation of the
first vowel to the perfect interpretation of a song the teacher is
dealing with mental concepts.
At the Gobelin Tapestry works near Paris I was told that the weavers of
those wonderful tapestries use twenty-four shades of each color, and
that their color sense becomes so acute that they readily recognize all
of the different shades. Now there are about as many shades of each
vowel, and the mental picture of the vowel must be so definite, the
mental ear so sensitive, that it will detect the slightest variation
from the perfect form. Direct control could never accomplish this. Only
the automatic response of the mechanism to the perfect vowel concept can
result in a perfect vowel.
All of those qualities and elements mentioned above as constituting the
artist come under the heading =KNOW WHAT YOU WANT=.
The second step =HAVE THE CONDITIONS RIGHT= means, in short, to free the
mechanism of all interference and properly manage the breath. This
getting rid of interference could be talked about indefinitely without
wasting time. It is far more important than most people suspect. Few
voices are entirely free from it, and when it is present in a marked
degree it is an effectual bar to progress. So long as it is present in
the slightest degree it affects the tone quality. Most students think
they are through with it long before they are.
This interference, which is referred to as tension, rigidity,
throatiness, etc., is in the nature of resistance to the free emission
of tone. It is not always confined to the vocal cords, but usually
extends to the walls of the pharynx and the body of the tongue. The
vocal cavities, the pharynx and mouth, exert such a marked influence on
tone quality that the least degree of rigidity produces an effect that
is instantly noticeable to the trained ear. These parts of the vocal
mechanism which are so largely responsible not only for perfect vowels,
but for perfect tone quality as well, must at all times be so free from
tension that they can respond instantly to the tone concept. If they
fail to respond the tone will be imperfect, and these imperfections are
all classed under the general head "throaty." Throaty tone means that
there is resistance somewhere, and the conditions will never be right
until the last vestige of it is destroyed. The difficulty in voice
placing which so many have, lies in trying to produce the upper tones
without first getting rid of resistance. This condition is responsible
for a number of shop-worn statements, such as "bring the tone forward,"
"place the tone in the head," "direct the tone into the head," etc. I
recall a writer who says that the column of breath must be directed
against the hard palate toward the front of the mouth in order to get a
resonant tone. Consider this a moment. When the breath is properly
vocalized its power is completely destroyed. Any one may test this by
vocalizing in an atmosphere cold enough to condense the moisture in his
breath. If he is vocalizing perfectly, he will observe that the breath
moves lazily out of the mouth and curls upward not more than an inch
from the face. The idea that this breath, which has not a particle of
force after leaving the vocal cords, can be directed against the hard
palate with an impact sufficient to affect tone quality is the limit of
absurdity. If the writer had spoken of directing the sound waves to the
front of the mouth there would have been an element of reasonableness in
it, for sound waves can be reflected as well as light waves; but breath
and sound are quite different things.
What does the teacher mean when he tells the pupil to place the tone in
the head? He doubtless means that the student shall call into use the
upper resonator. If one holds a vibrating tuning-fork before a
resonating tube, does he direct the vibrations into that resonating
cavity? No. Neither is it necessary to try to drive the voice into the
cavities of the head. Such instructions are of doubtful value. They are
almost sure to result in a hard unsympathetic tone. They increase rather
than diminish the resistance. The only possible way to place the tone in
the head is to let it go there. This will always occur when the
resistance is destroyed and the channel is free.
In numerous instances the resistance in the vocal cords is so great that
it is impossible to sing softly, or with half voice. It requires so much
breath pressure to start the vibration, that is, to overcome the
resistance, that when it does start it is with full voice. In a majority
of male voices the upper tone must be taken either with full chest voice
or with falsetto. There is no _mezza voce_. This condition is abnormal
and is responsible for the "red in the face" brand of voice production
so often heard.
Of this we may be sure, that no one can sing a good full tone unless he
can sing a good _mezza voce_. When the mechanism is sufficiently free
from resistance that a good pianissimo can be sung then the conditions
are right to begin to build toward a _forte_.
Further, when the mechanism is entirely free from resistance there is no
conscious effort required to produce tone. The singer has the feeling of
letting himself sing rather than of making himself sing.
The engineer of a great pumping station once told me that his mammoth
Corliss engine was so perfectly balanced that he could run it with ten
pounds of steam. When the voice is free, and resting on the breath as it
were, it seems to sing itself.
An illustration of the opposite condition, of extreme resistance was
once told me by the president of a great street railway system that was
operated by a cable. He said it required eighty-five per cent of the
power generated to start the machinery, that is, to overcome the
resistance, leaving but fifteen per cent for operating cars. It is not
at all uncommon to hear singers who are so filled with resistance that
it requires all of their available energy to make the vocal instrument
produce tone. Such singers soon find themselves exhausted and the voice
tired and husky. It is this type of voice production rather than
climatic conditions, that causes so much chronic laryngitis among
singers. I have seen the truth of this statement verified in the
complete and permanent disappearance of many cases of laryngitis through
learning to produce the voice correctly.
The second step in securing right conditions is the proper management of
the breath.