FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES UNDERLYING VOICE-PRODUCTION.
It is highly important for the speaker or singer to realize early in
his career that all forms of artistic expression can be carried out
only through movements--muscular movements; in other words, technique
or execution implies the use of neuro-muscular mechanisms. However
beautiful the conception in the mind of the painter, it can only
become an artistic thing when it assumes material form--when it is put
on canvas. The most beautiful melody is no possession of the world
while it is in the mind of the composer alone; till it is _expressed_,
it is as good as non-existent.
Even poetry can only affect us when it exists in the form of words
produced by lip or pen. Between the glowing thought of the poet and
the corresponding emotion produced in ourselves there must intervene
some form of technique--_i.e._, some application of neuro-muscular
action. This latter term is a convenient one, and has been already
explained. It is a condensed expression for that use of the nervous
and muscular systems that results in movements, simple or complex.
Without nerve-cells and muscles movements are impossible, speaking
generally, and for a willed or voluntary movement there must be
something more, an idea or concept. Before one can make a movement
resulting in a simple line or even dot on a piece of paper, he must
have the idea of that line or dot in mind. In like manner, before one
plays or sings a single note, he must have the idea of that note in
mind; in other words, the idea is the antecedent to the movement, and
absolutely essential. To have such an idea, memory is necessary. It is
impossible to sing a tone after another, as an imitative effort,
unless one has the power to retain that tone in memory for at least a
brief period of time; and before this same tone can be reproduced on
sight of it as represented by a written note, the memory of the sound
to which it answers must first be recalled; and not only so, but other
memories--indeed, memories of all the sensations associated with the
bodily mechanism used in producing it.
This applies to all movements, of whatever kind, that we at any time
execute. Without the past--_i.e._, without memories--no present. Some
of the memories associated with an act may be lost, and others,
sufficient for its performance in some fashion, remain. A man may
forget, after the lapse of months or years, how to tie his necktie in
a certain way, as he stands before a mirror; yet on turning away he
may succeed at once. In this case the visual memories, those that come
through the eyes, were lost, but others, those associated with
muscular movements, remain. The muscular sense may prove an adequate
guide when the visual is ineffective.
In the same way, one may call up a melody by moving the fingers over
the piano keys, when it cannot otherwise be recovered, or one rescues
an air from oblivion by humming a few of its tones; all of which is
explained by the revival of muscular and similar memories.
All voluntary movements are at first accomplished relatively slowly
and with difficulty. They soon weary us. A child learns to walk with
the greatest difficulty, and only after numberless failures or errors.
The first tones of the would-be pianist or violinist are produced but
slowly and with great difficulty, in spite of the most determined
effort. If the attempts to vocalize are any more successful, it is
because one has already learned to talk--a process that in the first
instance (in infancy) was even more laborious than that of walking.
The degree to which any one succeeds in his earliest efforts to sing a
scale will depend on the readiness with which he can use a variety of
neuro-muscular mechanisms--indeed, all those associated with the
respiratory, laryngeal, and resonance apparatus. Fortunately for the
voice-user, this apparatus has all been in use in ordinary speaking.
But when this latter process is analyzed, it is found that it is not
essentially different from singing. In each the same mechanism is
used, and in much the same way; but every one knows that not all who
can talk are able to sing, and it is usual to say that those who
cannot have no "ear" for music; and this expresses a part of the
truth, though not in a scientific way. What is really the truth is
found to be, on analysis, that certain guiding sensations, chiefly
those from the hearing apparatus (ear, nerves, brain), are
insufficient, owing either to natural defect or lack of training; but
that this is not the only explanation is plain from the fact that many
composers with the most vivid musical imagination, the most perfect
auditory memory, and the most acute ear, cannot sing in any but the
most imperfect manner. As we have said before, the speaker of great
power to affect his fellows through tones, or the artistic singer,
must be a sort of vocal athlete. In the athlete there is a very
perfect association into one whole of certain sensations from eye,
skin, muscles, etc., and certain movements. These exist in all men,
but in very unequal degree. The singer is a tone specialist in whom
the perception of the pitch and the quality of sounds may not be more
acute than in the composer, possibly less so, but he can do what the
composer of music often cannot--viz., associate these sensations with
muscular movements of a highly perfect character; in different words,
he has the technique which others have not in an equal degree.
In the singer and speaker there is a very close association between
the sensations of the resonance-chambers, the larynx, and other parts
of the vocal mechanism, and those from the ear. So perfect does this
become from training that the necessary technique at last becomes
easy. But it is of the greatest importance that the exact nature of
this process be realized by both students and teachers, for weighty
considerations grow out of it.
We wish to impress the fact that the nature of all neuro-muscular
processes is essentially the same. Learning to sing is like learning
to talk, and the latter is not radically different from learning to
walk. This last is at first slow, imperfect, laborious, and largely a
voluntary or willed process, or, more strictly, a series of processes.
As progress is made, there is less of the voluntary and more that is
involuntary, or what physiologists term reflex. When ideas, feelings,
etc., enter into a process which is carried out reflexly, a _habit_ is
formed.
One may say that talking implies a series of associated reflexes, the
parts associated being the respiratory, the laryngeal, and the
resonance apparatus. Singing only approaches this condition of reflex
action and habit after practice, and yet no air is perfectly sung
except when the result is the outcome of a sort of new habit. Every
song involves, the learning of new vocal habits. One forms a new habit
of an athletic character all the more readily because of previous
ones. A man learns to play one game of ball the better, usually, if he
have already played at another, the reason being that he has only to
modify the action of neuro-muscular mechanisms, not associate new
mechanisms together to the same extent as in the formation of a habit
of a widely different kind, as rowing a boat. At the same time, one
must always unlearn something--break up old habits, to some extent. An
opera singer often makes a failure of oratorio at first. The sets of
reflexes or the habits, bodily and mental, which he has found valuable
for the one form of art do not suit the other perfectly; nevertheless,
the same materials are used, the reflexes are in the main the same. He
must use preventions, or _inhibitions_, as the physiologists term
them. Rather is it that he must avoid doing certain things--_i.e._,
modify his neuro-muscular processes or reflexes, than form wholly new
ones.
Were it not for reflexes and habits, learning would be so slow one
lifetime would not suffice to make an artist. It must be apparent that
habits and reflexes are Nature's ways of economizing energy. As the
best have but a limited amount of energy, it should be the aim of
every one who will not be a mere reckless spendthrift to economize, to
make the most of what Nature has given him; hence the purpose of
practice is not only to render success more certain and more perfect,
but to make efforts tell to the fullest extent with as little
expenditure of energy to the speaker or singer as possible. _He sings
or speaks best who attains the end with the least expenditure of
energy._
It may with scientific accuracy be said that the object of the student
should be to attain to the formation of correct habits in singing and
speaking, and of the teacher to guide in this process. It follows that
all practice by the beginner should be carried out only in the
presence of one who knows the correct methods and can teach the
student how to form his habits wisely. Practice alone may not only do
little good, but, by the formation of wrong habits of production, be
positively mischievous; yet a trainer of athletes often lays more
restrictions on his ward as to when and how he shall practise, and
exercises more supervision over it, than do some teachers of singing,
in spite of the fact that the apparatus the singer or speaker uses is
much more delicate, and wrong habits much more injurious.
The admonition "Practise, practise," is greatly overdone. The best
results cannot be obtained in either singing, speaking, or playing,
with the lengthy and necessarily more or less imperfect if not
careless practice in which many students of music indulge. Better ten
minutes with the whole attention of a fresh and interested mind given
intelligently to a subject than ten hours of mere mechanical movement.
It is a mistake to suppose that the acquirement of a sound technique
is a purely mechanical process. We have shown that for all successful
effort there must be the idea, and as soon as that fades, from
weariness, etc., the practice should be discontinued. Students are
not treated fairly when given exercises the meaning or purpose of
which is not explained to them.
There is now more need than ever that the teacher of music or
elocution should be intellectual and not mechanical in his methods.
Technique is mechanism, but it should be mechanism subordinated to
ideas. Technique is essential to art, but it is not art. Art is the
soul, technique the body. The soul will be unknown to the world
without technique; hence the author strives in this book to teach the
principles on which a sound vocal technique rests, but only that what
is best in the soul be not hidden, that the one noble or poetic
thought shall be multiplied a thousand times--indeed, that if it be
sufficiently worthy, it shall, like Tennyson's Brook, "go on forever."
To believe, on the one hand, that the highest art can be attained with
a very mediocre technique, and, on the other, that a perfect technique
is the main object of musical training, are alike great and
mischievous errors.
The author has been asked frequently such questions as the following:
"When is the best time to practise? How long should a singer practise
at one time, and for how long during a single day? Should one practise
softly (_piano_) or vigorously (_forte_)?"--etc.
Often the student is puzzled by contradictory opinions on this
subject. One celebrated prima donna states that she never practises
more than one hour a day; another, equally distinguished, that she
has often spent several hours in almost continuous strenuous practice.
What is the student to believe, and whom to follow? No one, for no two
persons are alike. All the above questions can be safely and surely
answered in the light of science and experience combined, but such
questions cannot be settled by the dictum of any singer, teacher, or
writer, nor does the experience, in itself, of any one person furnish
an adequate guide for others.
[Illustration: FIG. 53. By this diagram the author has attempted to
give the reader some idea of the nature of the chain of processes
involved in singing a single tone, from the time the eye looks on the
note till the muscles concerned have given it utterance as a tone. The
various nervous centres concerned are all in the brain (though the
spinal cord supplies some subordinate centres). There are sensory
centres, or those for the eye and the ear, and motor centres, or those
sending the commands to the muscles involved. Further, these must be
_connected_ by paths not shown in detail, but represented by one
centre spoken of as an "association" centre, which may also, possibly,
have much to do with emotions, etc. But, at all events, the dependence
of movements on ingoing messages or sensations is emphasized. The deaf
cannot speak or sing, and the blind cannot read (ordinary) music. The
defect may not be in either senses or muscles, but in the relating
nervous mechanism between them. As explained in the body of the work,
execution depends on at least two factors, sensations, or ingoing
messages, and movements determined by these. Now the _connection_
between the ingoing and the outgoing impulses is the most important
and the least understood part, but the above diagram will at least
serve to emphasize the fact that such connections exist, and that in a
general way the result, performance, can be explained. No attempt has
been made to trace the path of other sensory impulses than those from
eye and ear, as this would make the diagram too complicated.]
Investigation has shown that the use of muscles tends to the
accumulation of the waste products of vital activity; that such
accumulation is associated with the experience in consciousness of
what we term "fatigue," and which is preceded by "weariness." The
latter is a warning that the more serious condition is approaching,
but is to be distinguished from another feeling not necessary to name,
often present in unwilling youthful students, and for which various
forms of treatment are sometimes tried so unsuccessfully that it is as
well to discontinue study altogether.
1. The time at which, as a rule, any work can best be carried out is
during the early hours of the day, so that if it is possible, practice
should be begun early, and after some preliminary exercise for the
good of the body generally--_e.g._, a short walk, during which the
lungs may be filled with pure air. As the muscles of the chest, etc.,
are to be used in voice-production, such a walk or other form of
general exercise should not be lengthy. Energy should be reserved for
the muscular activities involved in vocal practice.
2. The principle that guides in all use of the muscles, all exercise,
is that it be taken under the most favorable circumstances and short
of fatigue, even of weariness; hence the question whether the student
should practise five minutes or one hour is one that he himself, and
he alone, can determine, provided he is old enough and observant
enough to know when he begins to feel weary in his vocal mechanism,
whether it be in the respiratory organs, the larynx, or the
resonance-chambers. With some there is a weak spot, and this settles
the question for all other parts. As a rule, beginners will do well
not to practice, at first, for longer at one time than five minutes,
not only because of the possible weariness, but because at the outset
it is difficult to keep the attention fixed. The ear and brain tire as
well as the muscles.
Naturally, the condition of the student at the time has much to do
with the length of a practice, but all things are determined by the
sensible application of that principle which science and experience
alike show to be a safe guide.
Naturally, as in other exercises, the duration of an exercise may be
gradually lengthened with experience. One singer may find an hour a
day sufficient, if she be already perfectly trained in every
respect--be "in good form," or "fit," as the athletes say--and have
only light or _coloratura_ parts to sing; but would this suffice to
form a singer to sustain the heaviest dramatic parts for hours
together before a large public audience? The training of a
hundred-yards sprinter should not be the same as that prescribed for a
long-distance runner or a wrestler.
[Illustration: FIG. 54. The above is a diagrammatic representation of
a highly magnified section (or very thin slice) through the outermost
or most superficial part of the great brain (cortex cerebri), and is
inserted to help the reader to form some idea of the complexity of
structure of the most important part of the brain so far as the
highest mental processes are concerned. This complexity is greater in
man than in other animals.]
[Illustration: FIG. 55. A nerve-cell from the outer rind of the great
brain (cortex cerebri), much magnified. (Schäfer.)]
3. In all practice it is ever to be borne in mind that the end, even
in an exercise, is artistic. Tones of that quality only which is the
best possible to the singer at the time are to be produced, and
everything else must yield to this.
4. No wise trainer ever allows his charges to go on a racing track and
at once run a hundred yards at the highest possible speed. Such a
course would be against all sound knowledge and all the best
experience. Hence the question of _piano_ and _forte_ practice answers
itself; the singer should never begin any exercise _forte_, but either
_piano_ or _moderato_--as to which depends on the individual. Some
persons can only after long study produce really good tones _piano_;
such if not most persons should, of course, begin practising with
moderate force.
Certainly, the voice-user should, in order to gain volume, gradually
increase the vigor of his practice, but exactly how to do this, and to
what extent daily, are questions in which the advice of a sensible and
experienced teacher is of great value, though the principle on which
that opinion should be founded is clear enough.
5. The questions as to the total amount of time to be devoted to
practice in a single day, and as to whether practice should be
continued day after day for weeks and months without interruption,
must be decided by the condition of the student, and not by any
arbitrary opinion. Some individuals and some racers have a capacity
for steady work not possessed by others, and happy are they; but there
are others who go on by spurts, and such natures are often capable of
reaching lofty artistic heights, if they be wisely managed. They need
much the same sort of care as a very fleet but uncertain race-horse,
and they are often a source of disgust to themselves and of worry to
their teachers; but they in some cases get far beyond what the more
steady ones can attain to, while others are so unsteady without being
talented that they are a trial, and a trial only, to all concerned.
Such people should, even when clever, not be encouraged in their
vagaries, but brought gradually and tactfully under a stricter
discipline.
6. "Hasten slowly" applies to all musical practice, that of the voice
included, and there never was a time in the history of the world,
unfortunately, when people believed in it less. The author would
especially warn the student against attempting to force progress by
violent or unduly long-continued practices, for if the vocal apparatus
be strained, it may remain impaired for months or even for life.
"Little and often" is a good maxim for vocal practice, all the more as
the discontinuation, for the time, of voice-production need not imply
that the mind must cease to act. An artist is not formed by
vocalization alone, but by processes of education that are many and
complicated, into which we might be tempted to enter did they not lie
beyond the range of the present work.
If the principles set forth in this chapter are scientifically
reliable, and we believe they will not be questioned, certain
practical considerations are well worthy of special attention. If
practice, repetition, leads to the formation of habits more or less
fixed, then there can be no surer way to ruin a speaker or vocalist
than to permit him to practise by a wrong method; the more he
practises, the more he stamps in what is bad. It follows that the most
hopeless cases eminent teachers have to deal with are to be found
among those vocalists who come to them after years of professional
life before the public. One must look on some of these people as on a
building spoiled by a bad architectural design. In some cases there is
nothing to do but to take the whole structure apart and put it
together afresh. It may be humiliating to the vocalist, and it is a
severe condemnation of certain methods of teaching, but there is often
no other course open, the only question being as to whether the
material is good enough to warrant such a radical proceeding. Every
eminent teacher can recall such cases, and might fill volumes with
their histories. If more of these were published as warnings to
students and teachers, a good purpose would be served. It is truly sad
to find that the prospects of one who might have been formed into a
fine artist have been hopelessly ruined by years of practice based on
principles that are radically unsound.
In the next chapter some specific applications of the principles
discussed in the foregoing pages will be considered.
SUMMARY.
All forms of artistic and other expression imply movements. For a
willed or voluntary movement there are required (1) an idea, (2) a
neuro-muscular mechanism. Such movements may be relatively simple or
highly complex. They all tend, when frequently carried out, to become
reflex, and to some extent unconscious or subconscious. Combinations
of reflexes when associated with consciousness become habits.
Movements only attain their highest perfection when they reach this
stage. It follows that the purpose of all musical practice should be
to establish those reflexes which attain the end, the ideal, and to
form correct habits. A poem properly recited or a song satisfactorily
sung implies a combination of certain reflexes or habits. Some of
these are in their main features common to all speech and song, but
many are peculiar to each example.
As phonation implies the use of the muscles (neuro-muscular
mechanisms) of the (1) respiratory organs, (2) vocal bands, (3)
resonance-chambers, and as these must all work in harmony, or be
"co-ordinated," it will be seen that speaking and singing are
physiologically highly complex. When, in addition, ideas and feelings
are associated, and determine the exact form of these co-ordinations,
the whole matter is seen to be still more complex. The emission of a
single tone implies (1) an idea--the nature of the sound as to pitch
and quality, (2) such an arrangement of all the parts of the mechanism
as will produce it. The former involves memory of the tone; the
latter, memories of former movements. Then, partly as a series of
voluntary acts and partly reflexly, according as the student is more
or less advanced, or the particular tone new or old in experience, do
the various neuro-muscular arrangements pass into orderly action. In
this process the ear is the chief guide, always in relation to
memories. When one uses the printed page, the eyes also guide--_i.e._,
the nervous impulses that pass in through these avenues determine the
outgoing ones that bring the muscles into action. In doing so they
rouse many others (associated nervous connections) which are highly
important when an artistic result is to be reached.
To consider a single case: Assume that the note [Illustration: a'] is
to be sung. The following are required: (1) Memory of this tone. (2)
Adaptation through eye and ear of all the neuro-muscular mechanisms
required for (_a_) bringing the vocal bands into the correct position
and degree of tension; (_b_) the proper shape, tension, etc., of the
resonance-chambers; (_c_) that use of the breathing apparatus suitable
to cause the proper vibrations of the vocal bands. All use of the
voice implies this much, but in most instances there are _associated_
nervous mechanisms and ideas that are highly important in determining
the exact volume, quality, etc., of the tone as related to expression
of ideas and feelings according to conventional usage.
The breath-stream must in all cases be so employed that there shall be
economy of energy--no waste. Waste occurs whenever air escapes to any
appreciable extent through the glottis chink, as that implies an
imperfect adjustment of the vocal bands and the expiratory current.
From this and other points of view it may be said that _he is the best
singer who gets the most perfect result with the least expenditure of
energy_.
It is of the highest importance that during every practice, and every
moment of each practice, attention be given to as perfect a result as
possible, and that the same method be invariably employed.
All questions as to methods of practising can be decided on well-known
scientific principles which harmonize with experience, and need not be
left in that loose and unsatisfactory condition when the dictum of
some individual is substituted for principles capable of actual
experimental demonstration.