SOME SPECIFIC APPLICATIONS OF PRINCIPLES IN TONE PRODUCTION.
It is no doubt valuable, indeed for most singers essential, to employ
a series of elaborate exercises, or _vocalises_, which in some cases
differ from each other only by slight gradations; but it is to be
borne in mind that all the actual principles involved can be expressed
practically in a very few exercises. These are: (1) The single
sustained tone; (2) the tones of a scale sung so as to be smoothly
linked together; (3) the same, sung somewhat more independently of
each other; (4) the same, but each tone beginning and ending very
suddenly. If the execution of any vocal musical composition be
analyzed, it will be found that these four methods cover substantially
the whole ground. As one other is very extensively used in giving
expression in the form of shading, it is worthy of special
mention--viz., (5) the swell. All others are modifications of the
above.
As these methods of tone-production are of so much importance, it will
be worth while to analyze them. It will be found that in each there is
a characteristic use of the breathing mechanism. The larynx and the
resonance-chambers are of course intermediate, as usual, between the
breath-stream and the result, the tone; without them there could be
no tones. But if the student have clearly in mind the memory of the
tone he wishes to produce, including its various properties of pitch,
volume, quality, etc., it will be found that the point requiring
strict attention, in production, is the breathing, especially the
manner of using the expiratory current.
1. The sustained tone requires an amount of breath proportional to its
length, and the great aim in its production should be to convert, so
to speak, all the breath into tone, as we explained in a previous
chapter. This sustained tone, which may be practised with advantage on
every one of the notes of a scale, is, in the nature of things, the
very foundation of all good singing and speaking.
2. In the second and third exercises the differences in the method lie
in the attack and the manner of using the breath. The smoothly linked
tones are the more difficult for most people, since they require
special control over the laryngeal mechanism and the breathing
apparatus. Between the singing of a scale in this manner (_legato_),
and as it is frequently done, there is the same difference as in
walking up-stairs as does a perfectly trained ballet-dancer, and this
act as carried out by a rough countryman, used only to ploughed
fields, etc. For a perfect execution, the attack, while decisive
enough, must be most carefully regulated, and the breathing, which is
always to be considered in a good attack, must be of the most even
character; the outflow requires the most perfectly controlled
movements of the respiratory apparatus. In the other form of exercise
(detached tones) there is often, at least, a little more emphasis on
the attack, and the breathing is perhaps not always so even, but in
some passages, in actual singing, the method employed for these less
closely linked tones is in most respects the same as the last.
3. Very different from all the preceding is the mode of production
usually designated by musicians _staccato_, _marcato_, etc. The tone
is attacked suddenly, and as suddenly dropped, which, expressed
physiologically, means that the entire vocal mechanism is rapidly
adjusted, one part to another, and as suddenly relaxed; and the one
seems to be about as difficult as the other. In this a certain sudden
tension of the vocal apparatus is essential. The whole respiratory
apparatus, after the breath is taken, is held more or less tense. In
executing these abrupt (staccato) effects the diaphragm is the chief
agent, and operates against the column of air in the lungs, the chest
and abdominal walls being kept more or less tense.
Though this is the case, the voice-producer will succeed best if he
gives attention to the resonance-chambers, after having put the
breathing mechanism into the right condition. There should be as
little movement of the chest walls, diaphragm, larynx, etc., as
possible. The whole is a question of tension, but not rigidity, and
the reason the staccato effect is so difficult for most persons is
that they attempt to accomplish it by _excessive movements_ of the
breathing apparatus or larynx.
The _mind_ must be relieved of any feeling of undue tension, and the
result attained by the establishment of a close connection between the
ear and the resonance-chambers. The first interrupted effects should
be of very brief duration and as _piano_ as possible, but the attempt
to produce the real staccato may to great advantage be preceded by an
exercise recommended in Chapter VIII.,--viz., singing a tone of some
duration, then suddenly interrupting it, and, with the same breath,
beginning the tone again as suddenly as it was interrupted. In fact,
till this can be done with ease the staccato proper should not be
attempted, for though the principles involved are the same, the
execution requires far more skill than the exercise recommended for an
earlier stage, and which it is well to continue throughout.
Simple as these exercises seem from mere description, or as carried
out with a certain degree of success, perfection in them is not to be
attained short of years of the most diligent study. How many singers
living can sing an ascending and a descending scale, in succession,
with a perfect staccato, to mention no other effect? Yet among all the
resources of dramatic singing and speaking none is more important than
this one. What so eloquent as the silence after a perfect stop--a
complete and satisfactory arrest of the tone? How many modern actors
are capable of it? How many singers? Instead of the perfect arrest,
the listener is conscious, not of the rounded and complete tone, but
of an edge more or less ragged. There is some noise with the actual
tone.
The above exercises, when carried out to a perfect result, give us
_bel canto_ singing, for which the old Italian school was so noted,
and which is now largely a lost art, not so much because the methods
are not known to teachers, as because students will not do the work
necessary to attain to this _bel canto_. We seek for short cuts, and
we get corresponding results.
The _bel canto_ is, simply, beautiful singing, the result of perfect
technique, and is opposed to effects which are not truly artistic,
though no doubt often highly expressive to the unmusical and the
inartistic. They may appeal to us as feats, but they are not artistic
results, and, as we have before insisted, they are injurious in many
cases to the vocal organs, while good voice-production strengthens
them.
5. The swell is simply a modification of the sustained tone. When a
tone is perfectly sustained, without any change in volume, etc., we
have a most valuable effect, and one very difficult to achieve,
because it implies such a steady application of the breath power and
such nice adjustments of all the parts concerned. To produce a tone
with variations in it is easy enough, and that is what is usually
given us instead of the perfectly even tone, reminding us of a
straight line.
In the swell, as the name suggests, the tone should rise gradually in
volume or loudness, and as gradually decline. If this can be done
readily, and continued for several seconds, it will be easy to produce
other effects, as the sudden swell, but such effects should come
after, not before, the slower ones. A critical observer soon realizes
the defects of modern technique when he listens to a singer's tones
when attempting slow effects, as in a softly sustained melody. Only
the well-trained vocalist can hope to sing such a melody, especially
if long sustained, in a way to meet the demands of an exacting ear and
advanced musical taste. It will be apparent that the swell is the
basis of shading, a quality that is so highly appreciated in this
refined age. He who can manage the swell perfectly has the secret of
this effect in his possession as have none others.
Although we have referred more to the singer than to the speaker, in
this chapter, it is to be understood that these and all other
exercises suggested are of great value in forming the voice for public
speaking. It is not so important, it must be admitted, for the speaker
as for the singer that his tones be musically perfect, as he relies
more on ideas than on tones, still, with every idea employed by the
public speaker there is the inseparable feeling, or "feeling-tone;" so
that the speaker, as well as the singer, is to some extent dependent
on tone painting--indeed, must be, if he will be no mere man of wood,
a "dry stick," to some extent, in spite of the use of appropriate
language, gestures, etc. There are many avenues to the heart, and that
by tones cannot with impunity be neglected by the speaker, though for
his purpose the singing of tones need occupy only weeks or months,
while for singers, in the case of all who would attain to a high
degree of excellence, it must extend over years.
"FORWARD," "BACKWARD," ETC., PRODUCTION.
Certain expressions are in common use by teachers and singers, such as
"to direct the breath forward," "forward production," "backward
production," etc. No doubt such terms may serve a practical purpose,
though they are often used with lamentable vagueness, but it must be
understood that they do not answer to any clearly demonstrated
physiological principles. There is, for example, no clear evidence
that the breath can be directed toward the hard palate in the
neighborhood of the teeth, as the drawings sometimes published would
indicate.
It has already been many times urged that when breathing is
satisfactory, breath does not escape to any considerable extent into
the mouth cavity, but that the expiratory blast is used to set the air
of the resonance-chambers into vibration. The changes that must be
made in these cavities, to lead to certain effects, are accompanied by
characteristic sensations, and these, and not the direction of the
breath, are largely responsible for the ideas on which the above
expressions rest.
As before shown, the soft palate is constantly being used more or
less, and when it and the tongue unite in action so as to cut off the
mouth cavity, or, more strictly, the anterior portion of it, from the
nasal chambers, a very pronounced modification in the tone results,
and, of necessity, such actual escape of breath as occurs takes place
through the nose. In reality, there is a special modification of the
shape of the resonance-chambers for every tone produced, and
especially when the color or quality is changed, as well as the pitch.
There is, therefore, not only "forward" and "backward" but also middle
production, though, in reality, these terms at best but imperfectly
describe, even for practical purposes, what happens.
It is to be feared that with some teachers of both singing and
speaking "forward production" has become a sort of panacea for all
vocal ills; but it is not, and just the reverse teaching is required
in certain cases. If a voice be brilliant, yet hard, it will be
improved by a more backward production, judiciously employed, and in
this way the French language is often to be recommended to such
singers, as it favors this backward production, with such use of the
nasal resonance as mellows the tones. The tenor who has not learned
the use of the nasal resonance, to give richness to the tones of his
middle and upper range, has missed a valuable principle. On the other
hand, for voices that are too soft, lack brightness, and fail in
carrying-power, a more forward production will often improve the
quality of the voice greatly. But a little consideration must convince
the student that if he is to be master of his voice-production
throughout, if he is to produce tones of every shade of quality, he
must be able to shift that voice about in every quarter as occasion
demands; in other words, _all the changes possible in the
resonance-chambers must be at his command_. Such is the case in the
very greatest singers of both sexes; and, of course, this applies
equally, if not still more, to speakers.
When the voice-producer has learned to intonate surely, when the voice
is "placed," and the secrets of the registers are known to him, he
will do well to experiment a little, cautiously, with his own
resonance-chambers, so as to widen his practical knowledge of the
principles underlying the modification of tones. Why should the
student of the voice remain a mere imitator, when the one who works in
any other direction is, or should be, encouraged to be an original
investigator? The inability of students to judge of either the grounds
for or the value of the exercises and methods recommended to them by
their teachers seems to the author to indicate a regrettable state of
things, which teachers of every form of vocal culture should endeavor
to remedy. Some teachers do not use the terms "backward" and
"forward," but "darkening" and "brightening" the voice; and, of
course, the result of a certain use of the tongue and soft palate is
to darken or veil the quality of the voice. But the attentive reader
will scarcely mistake the author's meaning in the above and other
references to this subject.
It is scarcely necessary to point out that in what has been said no
encouragement is intended to be given to the nasal twang, or any thing
resembling it--and it is easy to so use the nasal resonance that it
becomes a defect; but the value of a judicious use of the nose in
singing and speaking is, we are convinced, not as well known in vocal
teaching as it deserves to be.
SUMMARY.
The relation of vowels and consonants to singing and speaking.
Intonation should be by vowels only, at first. Consonants are a
necessary evil in singing, but all-important in the formation of
words--_i.e._, in imparting ideas.
Every language has its own special merits and defects for the purposes
of song and speech. That language which abounds in vowels is the best
adapted for vocal exercises, etc.
It is a cardinal error to begin a course in speaking and especially
singing with exercises based on words. Vowel sounds should be
exclusively employed at first. In the formation of vowels and
consonants the resonance-chambers are especially involved.
The tongue, soft palate, and lips are the most movable parts, and so
have the largest share in giving color and meaning to sounds--_i.e._,
they are the organs most important in the formation of the elements of
words.
The "open mouth" should mean open mouth cavity and duly separated
lips.
It is important that there be control of all parts of the
resonance-chambers, and always in relation to other parts of the vocal
apparatus.