In securing right conditions the teacher is often confronted with the
problem of registers. The literature on this subject is voluminous and
varied. Opinions are offered without stint and the number of registers
which have been discovered in the human voice ranges from none to an
indefinite number. How one scientist can see two, and another one five
registers in the same voice might be difficult to explain were it not a
well known fact that some people are better at "seeing things" than
others.
But here again the teacher soon learns that laboratory work is of little
value. His view point is so different from that of the physicist that
they can hardly be said to be working at the same problem. The physicist
tries to discover the action of the mechanism, in other words, how the
tone is made. The voice teacher is concerned primarily with how it
sounds. One is looking at the voice, the other is listening to it, which
things, be it known, are essentially and fundamentally different; so
different that their relationship is scarcely traceable. The ability to
train the voice comes through working with voices where the musical
sense, rather than the scientific sense, is the guide. It is a specific
knowledge which can be gained in no other way. It begins when one takes
an untrained voice and attempts to make it produce a musical tone.
The problem of registers is, in short, how to make an even scale out of
an uneven one. It must be solved in the studio. Anatomical knowledge is
of no avail. The teacher who has learned how to produce an even scale
possesses knowledge which is of more value to the student than all of
the books ever written on vocal mechanism.
The depressions in the voice known as "changes of register" result from
tension. With one adjustment of the vocal cords the singer can, by
adding tension, make a series of four or five tones, then by a change of
adjustment he can produce another similar series, and so on to the top
of his compass. These changes occur when there is such an accumulation
of tension that no more can be added to that adjustment without
discomfort. The solution of this problem lies in gaining such freedom
from tension in the vocal instrument that it automatically readjusts
itself for each tone. The tension is then evenly distributed throughout
the scale and the sudden changes disappear. This is precisely what
happens when the singer has learned to produce an even scale throughout
his compass; his voice production is not right until he can do this.
The statement is frequently made in public print that there are no
registers in the trained voice. This order of wisdom is equally
scintillating with that profound intellectual effort which avers that a
bald headed man has no hair on the top of his head, or that hot weather
is due to a rise in the temperature. These statements may be heavy-laden
with truth, but to the voice teacher they are irrelevant. His work is at
least seven-eighths with untrained voices. By the time he has worked out
an even scale with all of the other problems that go hand in hand with
it, for a great deal of the art of singing will naturally accompany it,
a large majority of his pupils are ready to move on. Only a small per
cent prepare for a musical career. Most of his work is with voices that
still need to be perfected. It is for voices of this kind that the
teacher lives. It is for such voices that vocal methods are evolved and
books written.
A lighthearted, easy going assurance is not sufficient alone to compass
the problems that present themselves in the studio. If the teacher is
conscientious there will be times when he will feel deeply the need of
something more than human wisdom. The work in the studio has more to do
with the future than with the immediate present. The singing lesson is a
small part of what the student carries with him. The atmosphere of the
studio, which is the real personality of the teacher, his ideals, aims,
the depth of his sincerity, in short, his concept of the meaning of
life, goes with the student and will be remembered when the lesson is
forgotten.
V