STUDIES IN VOCAL TECHNIQUE
STUDIES IN VOCAL TECHNIQUE
THE UNINTERRUPTED TONE
When a rich, dramatic temperament seeks for its instrument of expression
the control of faultless technique the result ought to be art of the
highest order. Such is the art of Gracia Ricardo. She has translated her
English name into musical Italian, but does her country the honor to
announce her beautiful voice as an American soprano.
Every tone of Gracia Ricardo's singing voice is as absolutely free from
effort as the repeated note of the hermit thrush's song, and her tone as
pure tone has the effect of that liquid call. But could you freight the
thrush note with knowledge of human passion,--with throb of joy or pulse
of pain, you would get from it the effect of Gracia Ricardo's singing of
a Heine-Schubert song, a Schumann, Brahms, or Franz _lied_, or one of
our English ballads. It must always be a song, for Gracia Ricardo does
not exploit her voice in astonishing vocal feats. She simply _sings her
song_. It was her wish to interpret the _lieder_ of all countries that
sent her in search of a method which would free her voice to that high
use. She found that method, not in her own country, alas, but in
Germany, where for twelve years she has used it in the guidance of her
own voice and that of many others. She finds the American pupil
"difficult," because "You are so impatient of a long, quiet preparation.
You wish to try your skill at every step of the way--and not in the
privacy of your study, but in a public's hearing." Poor American public!
How it has suffered from this _impatience_. It is true, is it not, we
are not willing to take time to establish a right condition for tone
before using the tone in what should be final efforts of the perfected
instrument. _Blessed be drudgery_ has not become a beatitude in the
gospel of the American artist. When it is so recognized by the student
of vocal expression perhaps we can reclaim this great singer and
teacher, Madame Ricardo. This book would further that end.
It has been my good fortune while making this book for you to do some
brief but intensive studying under Madame Ricardo. It is by her gracious
consent that I shall leave with you as an incentive toward the ideal for
which we are striving the two _watchwords_ of her teaching which were
most potently suggestive to me. The exercises which constitute her
method require personal supervision, but the active principle of those
exercises for both tone production and breath control is clearly
indicated by the two phrases "the uninterrupted tone" and "the constant
mouth-breath." These two ideas fully sensed by a voice will work swift
wonders in its use.
Like Mr. Mabie's pool of expectancy, these watchwords of the Ricardo
method suggest their own application; but let us consider them somewhat
more closely. Think then with me of an _uninterrupted tone_--a tone
which is not interfered with at any point in its production. Think of a
breath that flows freely on and on, constantly reinforced, but never
interrupted--a breath that is allowed to enter the vocal box, pass
between the vocal chords, where it is converted into tone; yield itself
to the organs of speech and controlled by the speech process, issue from
the mouth in beautiful speech forms, in the words which constitute a
language!
Tracing the process of tone production in this way, we find that three
distinct steps are involved. Even as I write the words distinct and
steps I realize their inharmony with the idea of flowing tone. Rather
then let us say three phases in the evolution of speech: _breath_,
_tone_, _speech_. In using the word speech to designate the final phase
in this evolution I am thinking of it in its broadest sense--really in a
sense identical with language. With this final phase beyond its mere
initiation this book cannot deeply concern itself. For work along this
line I must refer you to Prof. T. R. Lounsbury's _Standard of
Pronunciation in English_; to the article on _The Acquiring of Clear
Speech_ by John D. Barry, published in _Harper's Bazaar_ for August,
September, and October, 1907; to _The Technique of Speech_, by Dora Duty
Jones.
Not technique of speech, but _technique_ of _tone_ is our study. Not how
to make beautiful speech forms, but how to make beautiful speech-tones;
not how to distinguish one speech from another in a language, or the
speech forms of one language from those of another, but how to
distinguish interrupted speech-tone from _uninterrupted_
speech-tone--such is our problem.
But tone is breath before it becomes speech, so our first concern is
with the initial stage. The process of breath control in the Ricardo
method of tone production (as in my own) is analogous to the process of
pumping water. Let your chest with its lungs represent the reservoir,
your diaphragm, the great muscle at the base of the lungs, becomes the
piston and your mouth the mouth of the pump. If the mouth of the pump
runs dry the pump itself runs down and has to be primed. Priming a pump
is precisely analogous to "catching your breath" in speech.
The active principle of breath control in the Ricardo method is the idea
of a _constant mouth-breath_. A sense of uninterrupted breath is as
essential to a knowledge of correct tone as a sense of uninterrupted
tone is to a knowledge of correct speech and song.
In breathing to speak or sing there must be such perfect diaphragmatic
control that the mouth shall never be out of breath. You must learn in
speaking and reading to take easily and quietly breath enough and _often
enough_ to supply the tone which is to be made into a single word, a
phrase, a sentence, or a series of sentences, and leave the mouth-breath
unexhausted, even unaffected. You must never catch your breath; the
breath must pass continuously, the _mouth-breath_ remaining a _constant_
quantity.
It was gratifying in my work with this master of tone production to find
that my own method in the training of the speaking voice was in accord
at almost every point with her method in the training of the singing
voice. In reprinting for you the exposition of my own method, as set
down in _The Speaking Voice_, I have found it necessary to make but few
changes. I have altered entirely the method of handling the tongue. I
have added a word as to the part the lips play in the production of
speech. In the few exercises it is safe to offer under the reinforcing
of tone I have used the _[=e]_ instead of the _ae_, convinced that it is
the more effective vowel sound through which to work for uninterrupted
tone.
It was also a pleasure to find my own instrument, through its training
for speech, adequately prepared for the work in song. The studies which
constitute _Part Three_ of this book, if faithfully attended, will fit
your voices for higher work in either art.
LEARNING TO SUPPORT THE TONE
Before attempting the exercises involved in the first step, let us
examine a tone in the making, or, rather, let us feel how it is
made--for the process of tone production, so far as it concerns us, is
not of physiological, but rather psychological, significance. The huge
tomes on the physiology of the voice which are of vital interest to the
student of anatomy are not only of no use, but are apt to be a positive
hindrance to the student of vocal training. A vivid picture of the
larynx or vocal cords, a cross-section of the trachea, or a highly
illuminated image of any of the cavities concerned in the production of
that most wonderful thing in the world, a pure tone of the human voice,
is a source of delight to the physiologist, but will only interfere with
that _feel_ for the free, full volume of sound which the student of
voice as an instrument of thought and emotion is to make, as a first
step in vocal training. Then, not as anatomists or physiologists, but as
makers of music, let us look at, let us feel for, a tone.
I am "stung by the splendor of a sudden thought"; I desire to share it
with you; the desire causes me to take a deep breath, a column of air
rises, is converted into tone, passes into the mouth, and is moulded
into the words which symbolize my thought. Let us, without further
analysis, try this. Close your eyes, think of some line of prose or
poetry which has moved you profoundly; let it take possession of you
until you are seized by the desire to voice it. Still with closed eyes,
feel yourself take the breath which is to be made into tone, and then
into the words which stand for the thought. Hold that sensation, and
study it with me for a moment. "But," you say, "the desire to voice the
thought does not seize me." Very well, let me ask you a question. "Do
you believe in examinations?" Now your thought was converted so swiftly
into speech that you had no time to study the conversion. Once more,
whether your answer be Yes or No, close your eyes and feel for the tone
you are to use in making the single word.
Now, a little more in detail, let us see what happens. A thought full of
emotion meets the question, the desire to answer is born; the need of
breath to meet the desire contracts the diaphragm (the pump); the chest
(the reservoir) fills; a column of air, pumped and controlled by the
diaphragm, and reinforced in the chest, rises, strikes the vocal cords
(the "strings" of the instrument), the strings vibrate, converting the
air into sound, into tone; the tone, reinforced in all the chambers of
the head, passes into the mouth, and is there moulded by the
juxtaposition of the organs of speech (lips, teeth, tongue) into the
word, the single, monosyllabic word, Yes or No, which frames the
thought. Now, once more, with closed eyes, sense the process and hold
the sensation, but do not speak the word. Now, still once more, and this
time, speak. Alas! did we say we were "makers of music"? Is this
harmony,--this harsh, hard, breathy, strident note? What is the trouble?
First of all, fundamental to all, and beyond a doubt the secret of the
dissonance, you did not breathe before you spoke or as you spoke. I
mean, really breathe. And that is the first point to be attacked.
Breathe, breathe, breathe! you must learn how to breathe; you must get
your pump, your diaphragm, into working order, you must master it, you
must control it, you must not fetter it, you must give it a free chance
to do its work. If you are a man, you have probably at least been fair
in not tying down your pump; you have not incased yourself in steel
bands and drawn them so tight that your diaphragm could not descend and
perform its office. Yes, and if you are the athletic girl of to-day, you
have probably learned the delight and benefit of free muscular action.
But you may still be suffering from the effect of your mother's crime in
this direction. It may have sent you into the world with weakened
muscles in control of the great pumping-station upon which must depend
the beauty of your voice.
But whatever the condition or the cause, it must, if wrong, be made
right. We must learn to breathe properly, freely, naturally. (Do not
confuse _naturally_ and "habitually." In this connection these terms are
opposites rather than synonyms.) To breathe naturally we must do away
with all constriction. We must choose between the alleged beauty of a
disproportionately small waist and the charm of a beautiful and
alluring voice. We cannot have both. Then, off with tight corsets! Thank
Heaven! they are the exception and not the rule to-day. Please note that
I distinctly do not say, "Off with corsets," but only "Off with
_ill-fitting_ corsets," for which tight is but another name. I believe,
to digress a moment, with our present method of dress, a properly fitted
corset is an absolute necessity, except in the rare instances where a
perfectly proportioned and slender figure is also under the control of
firm, well-trained muscles. In a first flush of rapture over the vision
of the gentle ladies of Mr. Howell's Altruria, seen _Through the Eye of
the Needle_, we feel that we can take a step toward that paradise by
discarding the strait-laced tailored torture the present-day costume
prescribes, for the corsetless grace of the Altrurian garment; but our
enthusiasm is short-lived, as we realize that we are in modern America
and must make as inconspicuously gracious an appearance as possible
without violating the conventions. So, as I say, do not discard the
corset, which is, for the majority of women, the saving grace of the
present fashion in dress; only see that your corset brings out what is
best in the figure God gave you, instead of disfiguring it, as undue
constriction of any part of your body will inevitably do. Incidentally,
by this precaution, save your voice as well.
But until we can be refitted, or readjust the corsets we already wear,
and the gowns made over them, we must avoid the discouraging effect of
trying to work against the odds of a costume which interferes with our
breathing, by making a practice of taking the breathing exercises
involved in the first step, at night and in the morning. Five minutes of
deep, free breathing from the diaphragm, lying flat on your back in bed
at night and before you rise in the morning, will accomplish the desired
result. The point in lying flat on your back is that in that position
alone you can be sure you are breathing naturally, which is
diaphragmatically. Indeed, you cannot, without great effort, and
sometimes not even then, breathe any other way than naturally. I cannot
tell you why. I can only say, try it and see.
Our first exercise, then, is to lie flat on the back at night and in the
morning, when you are perfectly free, and, with closed eyes, take deep,
long breaths, letting them go slowly, and studying the accompanying
sensation until it is fixed fast and you feel you cannot lose it, but
can reproduce, under any condition, the action which resulted in that
sensation. The incidental effect of this exercise is to make one very
sleepy. Indeed, nothing will so quickly and effectually put to flight
that foe of the society woman and business man of to-day, insomnia, as
the practice of deep, regular natural breathing. Add counting each
respiration, and it is an almost unfailing remedy. The only trouble for
our purpose is that it is sometimes so swiftly soporific that we are
asleep before the sensation is fixed fast and noted in consciousness:
which is one object of the exercise. However, should we find the
prescribed five minutes at night interfered with by coming drowsiness,
we may yield in sleepy content, "sustained and soothed" by the thought
that we shall be in splendid shape for the morning practice, with which
nothing must interfere, "not headache, or sciatica, or leprosy, or
thunder-stroke."
We are ready now for the third exercise. When, for five minutes in the
morning, lying flat on your back, with closed eyes, you have taken deep,
long breaths, letting them go slowly, yielding your whole body to the
act of respiration, noting the effect and fixing fast the sensation, as
a next step you are to stand up and repeat the operation. Still holding
the sensation (not by tightening your muscles, or clenching your fists,
or setting your teeth, but simply by thinking the sensation, letting it
possess you), in this attitude of mind breathe naturally, standing
instead of lying down. That is all. Don't be discouraged if the test
prove unsatisfactory at first. Try an intermediate step. Sit on the side
of your bed, or in a straight-back chair, and, closing your eyes and
relaxing all your muscles except those governing the diaphragm, breathe.
Now stand, well poised. By well poised, of course, you know I mean with
the weight perfectly balanced about the center of gravity, which, in
turn, means that a perpendicular dropped from the highest point of the
lifted chest without encountering any part of your body, and especially
not your abdomen (which should be held always back, so that it is flat,
if not actually concave) will fall unobstructed to the floor, striking a
point just between the balls of your feet. Standing thus, well poised,
place the right hand on your body, just below your ribs at the base of
the lungs, and your left hand on your back, just opposite your right
hand; then breathe, and feel the diaphragm, as it descends, cause the
torso, in turn, to expand from front to back, pressing against either
hand. Let the breath go slowly, controlling its emission by controlling
the diaphragm.
So the three exercises stand progressively thus:
_First._--Breathe naturally, which is diaphragmatically, five minutes at
night. (At first you can be sure of doing this only by lying flat on
your back.)
_Second._--Breathe naturally, which is diaphragmatically, for five
minutes in the morning, and note the sensation.
_Third._--Stand and test your newly acquired power by trying to breathe
diaphragmatically while on your feet.
These three exercises constitute the first step in the first stage of
vocal training, and that step is called _Learning to Support the Tone_.
I know a little girl who, in the beginning of her career, alarmed her
parents by refusing to utter a syllable or the semblance of a syllable
until she was three years old, when she evidently considered herself
ready for her maiden effort at speech. Prepared she proved, for, sitting
at the window in her high-chair one day, watching people pass, she
remarked quietly and with perfect precision, "There goes Mrs. Tibbets."
I find myself secretly wishing it were possible for you to refrain from
speech, not for three years, but for three weeks, while you quietly
prepare for speech by practising these three breathing exercises. It is
quite the customary thing (or ought to be) for the teacher of voice as
an instrument of song to require of the student a period of
silence--that is, a period in which only exercises are allowed, and
songs, even the simplest, are forbidden. However, our only way to secure
this condition would be to go into retreat; but, after all, one of the
most encouraging things about this work is the remarkable effect upon
the speaking voice of simply holding the thought of the right condition
for tone, _thinking_ the three exercises I have given you. It is not so
remarkable, perhaps, in the light of the experiment recently made (I am
told) in one of our great colleges, when three men daily performed a
certain exercise, and three other men simply thought it intensely, and
the resultant effect upon the muscles used in the act was marvelously
similar. I am half afraid to have recalled this, lest you take advantage
of the suggestion and relax your effort, or, out of curiosity, make the
experiment. Please don't. I offer it only as an incentive to you, to
_think_ at least of the desired condition, if you cannot every day
indulge in an active effort to attain it.
Please test at once the immediate effect of this third exercise. Take
the attitude I have defined, and try once more any full-voweled
syllable. I think you will find the tone already improved.
LEARNING TO FREE THE TONE
We have worked, so far, for support of tone. We must now free the
supported tone, by freeing the channel for the emission of the breath as
it is converted into tone and moulded into speech. We shall find that in
learning to support the tone we have gone far toward securing that
freedom; but the habit of years is not easily overcome, and every time
you have spoken without proper support of breath you have _forced_ the
tone _from_ the _throat_, by tightening the muscles and closing the
channel, thus making conditions which must now be reformed by steady,
patient effort. Yet it is not effort I want from you now; it is _lack_
of effort. It is _passivity_; it is _surrender_. I want you to relax
all the muscles which govern the organs concerned in converting the
breath into tone and moulding the tone into speech, all the muscles
controlling the throat and mouth, including the lips and jaw. I want
utter passivity of the parts from the point where the column of breath
strikes the vocal cords to where, as tone, it is moulded into the word
"No." Surrender to the desire to utter that word. Concentrate your
thought on two things: the taking of the breath and the word it is to
become. Now, lying down, or sitting easily, lazily, in a comfortable
chair, or standing leaning against the wall, with closed eyes, surrender
to the thought "No," and, taking a breath, speak. Still hard and
unmusical you find? Yes, but I am sure not so hopelessly hard as before.
What shall we do to relax the tense muscles, to release the throat and
free the channel? At the risk of being written down a propagandist, in
the ranks of the extreme dress-reformers, I shall say, first of all,
take off those high, tight collars. Again, as with the corset, it is a
case of a misfit rather than too tight a fit. If your collar is cut to
fit, it need not be too high nor too tight for comfort, and it will
still be becoming. You want it to cling to the neck and keep the line.
Cut it to fit, and it will keep the line; then put in pieces of
whalebone, if necessary, or resort to some of the many other devices now
in vogue for keeping the soft collar erect, but don't choke yourself,
either by fastening it too tight or cutting it too high. But how simple
it would be if we could relax the tension by doffing our ill-fitting
corsets and collars. Alas! the trouble is deeper seated than that.
It is an indisputable and most unfortunate fact that nervous tension
registers itself more easily in the muscles about the mouth and throat
than anywhere else. So, if we live as do even the children of to-day,
under excitement, and so in a state of nervous tension, the habit of
speaking with the channel only half open is quickly formed, and the
voice becomes shrill and harsh. You have noticed that the more emphatic
one grows in argument the higher and harder the voice becomes, and,
incidentally, the less convincing the argument. This is true of all
excitement; the nervous tension accompanying it constricts the throat,
and the result is a closed channel. To learn instinctively to refer this
tension for registration not to the throat, but to the diaphragm, is a
part of vocal training. This can be easily accomplished with children,
and the habit established of taking a deep breath under the influence of
any emotion. This breath will cause the throat to open instead of shut,
and the tone to grow full, deep, and round, instead of high and harsh.
The full, deep, round tone will carry twice as far as the high, harsh,
breathy one. The one deep breath resulting in the full, deep tone
may--nay, will--often serve the same purpose as Tattycoram's "Count
five-and-twenty," and save the angry retort.
It is useless to regret, on either ethical or aesthetic grounds, that we
were not taught in childhood to take the deep breath and make the deep
tone. But let us look to it that the voices and dispositions of our
children are not allowed to suffer. Meanwhile, in correcting the fault
in the use of our own instruments, we shall go far toward establishing
the proper condition with the next generation, since the child is so
mimetic that, to hear sweet, quiet, low tones about him will have more
effect than much technical training in keeping his voice free and
musical. In the same way, the child who hears good English spoken at
home seems less dependent upon text-books in grammar and rhetoric to
perfect his verbal expression than the child who is not so fortunate in
this respect.
To insure the registration of nervous tension in the muscles controlling
the diaphragm and not the throat--that is, to form the habit of
breathing deeply when speaking under the influence of emotion, is our
problem. The present fault in registration will be found to be different
with each one of us, or, at least, will cause us "to flock together"
according to the place of registration. Each must locate for himself his
own difficulty, or go to a vocal specialist and have it located. The
tension may be altogether in the muscles governing the throat, or it
may be in those about the mouth. There is the resultant, _breathy_ tone,
the _hard_ tone, the _nasal_ tone, the _guttural_ tone, the tone that
issues from a set jaw or an unruly tongue. All mean tension of muscles
somewhere, and must be met by relaxation of these muscles and the
freeing of the channel. How to relax the throat shall be our initial
point of attack. A suggestion made by my first teacher proved most
helpful to me, a suggestion so simple that I did not for the moment take
it seriously. "Think," she said, "how your throat feels just before you
yawn." "Yes," I replied, irrelevantly, "and just after you have eaten a
peppermint--that cool, delicious, open sensation." This impressed her as
significant, but not so effective as her suggestion to me, which I felt
to be true when I began to think of it seriously, and so, of course, to
yawn furiously. Try it.
Think of the yawn. Close your eyes and feel how the deep breath with
which the yawn begins (the need of which, indeed, caused it) opens the
throat, relaxing all the muscles. Now, instead of yawning, speak. The
result will be a good tone, simply because the condition for tone was
right. The moment the yawn actually arrives, the condition is lost, the
throat closes; but in that moment before the break into the yawn, the
muscles about the throat relax and the channel opens, as the muscles
controlling the diaphragm tighten and the deep breath is taken.
These, then, are the first exercises in the second step in vocal
training. This step is called _Freeing the Tone_.
_First._--Yawn, noting the sensation.
_Second._--Just before the throat breaks into the yawn, stop, and,
instead of carrying out the yawn, speak. Repeat this fifty times a day,
or ten times, as often as you will. Only, keep at it. Take always a
single full-voweled monosyllable; _one_, or _four_, or _no_, or _love_,
or _loop_, or _dove_, etc.
We cannot, in a printed consideration, touch more in detail upon
individual cases, but must confine ourselves to these simple exercises,
which will, in general, be swiftly and effectively remedial.
But we must not stop with the throat, which is but part of the channel
involved in the emission of breath as speech. There is the tense jaw to
be reckoned with--the jaw set by nervous tension, the jaw which refuses
to yield itself to the moulding of the tone into the beautiful open
vowel and the clean-cut consonant which make our words so interesting to
utter. It is the set jaw which, forcing the tone to squeeze itself out,
causes it to sound thin and hard. Again, it is surrender and not effort
I want. Just as I should try to secure the relaxation of your arm or
hand by asking you to surrender it to me, drop it a dead weight at your
side for me to lift as I choose, so now I ask you to surrender your
lower jaw to yourself. Let it go.
Drop your head forward, resting your chin on your chest. Then raise your
head, but not your chin. Let your mouth fall open. Assume for the moment
that mark of the feeble-minded, the idiotic, the dropped-open mouth,
just long enough to note the sensation. Place your fingers on either
side of your head where the jaws conjoin, and open your mouth quickly
and with intention. Note the action under your finger-tips. Now let the
mouth fall open, by simply surrendering the lower jaw, and note this
time the lack of action under your fingers, at the juncture of the jaws.
It is this passive surrender which we must learn to make, if we find, on
investigation, that we are speaking through a half-open mouth held fast
by a set jaw. The set jaw resists and distorts the mould, and the beauty
of the form of the word which flows from the mould is lost; the relaxed
jaw yields to the moulding of the perfectly modeled word.
In practising this relaxation there is very little danger of going too
far, since the set jaw is the indication of a tense habit of thought, of
a high-strung temperament, and this habit of thought will never become,
through the practise of an outward mechanical exercise, the slack habit
of thought which is evidenced by the loose dropping of words from a too
relaxed jaw--a habit which must be met by quite the opposite method of
treatment. There are many exercises involved in vocal training which
must be directed very carefully for a time before the student can be
trusted to practise them alone; so I am confining myself in this, as in
every step we take together, to the simple, fundamental, and at the same
time perfectly safe ones.
To review those for relaxation of the lower jaw:
_First._--Drop the head until the chin rests upon the breast. Raise the
head, but not the lower jaw.
_Second._--With eyes devoid of intelligence and the mouth dropped open,
shake the head until you feel the weight of the lower jaw--until the
lower jaw seems to hang loosely from the upper jaw and to be shaken by
it, as your hand, when you shake it from the wrist, seems to be
commanded by the arm, and to have no volition of its own.
_Third._--Test your ability to surrender the jaw by placing your fingers
on either side your head in front of the ears at the conjunction of the
jaws, and first open your mouth with intention, noting the action; then
think the word No, and surrender the jaw to the forming of the word,
noting the action or absence of action again.
So much for the set jaw. Ten or fifteen minutes a day--yes, even five
minutes a day of actual practice with the constant thought of surrender,
will reward you. Try it.
And still the channel is not open. There remains that most unruly
member, the tongue. Dora Duty Jones refers all faults of technique in
speech to failure in the management of the tongue. Miss Jones bases her
entire system upon the three words, "On the tongue," in Hamlet's
injunction to the players: speak the speech ... trippingly _on the
tongue_. That this organ plays a vital part in the presentation of
speech is not to be questioned; that it is the chief actor may be
disputed. But whether the tongue is to play a main or a minor part the
training to which Miss Jones would subject it is most interesting, and
_The Technique of Speech_[14] should belong to the library of every
student of expression. The only danger of this training lies in that of
making the tongue a self-conscious actor. What we require of the tongue
is that it shall act as a free agent in modeling the perfect word. Many
of the exercises given by Miss Jones can be safely attempted only after
the preparatory freeing of the organ has been accomplished, but all of
them will eventually repay investigation.
[14] _The Technique of Speech_, by Dora Duty Jones, published by Harper
& Brothers.
Meanwhile the following drill for freeing the tongue ought to develop
the agility we desire:
_First._--Combine _l_ (which may be called the tongue's pet consonant)
with _ae_ and repeat the syllable _la_ with constantly increasing speed
to form the following groups: _lae'_ ... _lae lae lae'_ ... _lae lae lae'_ ...
_lae'_ ... _lae'_.
_Second._--Change the accent over the vowel and repeat the exercise
until all the sounds of _a_ are exhausted in combination with the _l_.
_Third._--Change the vowel and repeat the exercise until all the vowels
have been used in combination with _l_.
_Fourth._--Change the consonant to _d_, then to _t_, then _n_, and
repeat the exercise.
_Fifth._--Follow these exercises on groups of syllables with work on
groups of words of one syllable beginning with _l_, such as: _late_,
_lade_, _lane_, _lame_; _last_, _lack_, _lank_, _lapse_, _laugh_;
_lean_, _least_, _leak_, _leap_, _lead_, etc.
Remember, we are considering primarily speech-_tone_ and not speech
form, and that our aim in the exercise of the tongue is to keep it from
interrupting the tone.
And now a word must be said as to the part the lips take in speech. It
must be only a word, because here more than at any other point the work
needs the careful supervision of a trained ear and trained eyes. Madame
Ricardo yields to the lips control of the tongue, as she gives to the
diaphragm control of the breath. I think she would make _easily on the
lips_ rather than "trippingly on the tongue" the controlling principle
in tone and speech. I shall give you but one exercise:
Combine the speech process _m_ with the vowel _[=e]_ and let the tone
explode easily on the lips in the repeated syllable, _m[=e]_, _m[=e]_,
_m[=e]_.
LEARNING TO REINFORCE THE TONE
And now we turn from the second step in the training to the third and
last step--the _reinforcing_ of the supported and freed tone. It is
again a freeing process. This time we are to free the cavities now
closed against the tone; we are to use the walls of these cavities as
sounding-boards for tone, as they were designed to be, so reinforcing
the tone and letting it issue a resonant, bell-like note with the
carrying power resonance alone can give, instead of the thin, dull,
colorless sound which conveys no life to the word into which it is
moulded by the organs of speech. How shall we free these cavities? I
find myself now impatient of the medium of communication we are using. I
want to make the tone for you. I want, for instance, to shut off the
nasal cavity and let you hear the resultant nasal note, thin, high,
unresonant, which hardly reaches the first member of my audience; then I
want you to hear the tone flood into the nasal cavity, and, reinforced
there by the vibration from the walls of the cavity, grow a resonant,
ringing, bell-like note, which will carry to the farthest corner of the
room without the least increase in loudness. But we must be content with
the conditions imposed by print.
First, you must realize that so-called "talking through the nose" is not
talking _through_ the nose at all, but rather failure to do so--that is,
instead of letting the tone flood into the nasal cavity, to be
reinforced there by striking against the walls of the cavity, which act
as sounding-boards for the tone confined within that cavity, we shut off
the cavity, and refuse the tone its natural reinforcement. It takes on,
as a result, a thin, unresonant quality which we call nasal, although it
is thin and unpleasing because it lacks _true nasal resonance_. The only
remedy lies in ceasing to shut off the cavity. Think the sound [=oo].
Let the tone on which it is to be borne grow slowly in thought, filling,
filling, and, as it grows, flooding the whole face. Let it press
against your lips (in thought only as yet), feel your nostrils expand,
your face grow alive between the eyes and the upper lip, that area so
often inanimate, lifeless, even in a mobile, animated countenance. Now
let the sound come, but let it follow the thought, flood the face, let
the nostrils expand, feel the nasal cavity fill with sound; let it go on
up into the head and strike the forehead and the eye-sockets and the
walls of all the cavities so unused to the impact of sound, which should
never have been shut out. Now begin, with lips closed, a humming note,
_m-m-m_. Let it come flooding into the face, until it presses against
the lips, demanding the open mouth. Now let it open the mouth into the
_e_. Repeat this over and over--_m-[=e]_, _m-[=e]_, _m-[=e]_. Don't let
the tone drop back as the mouth opens. Keep it forward behind the upper
lip, which it has made full, and which, playing against, it tickles
until we _must_ let the tone escape. Just as much of the day as
possible, think the tone in a flood into the face, and as often as
possible hum and let it escape, noting its increasing resonance. It
will increase in resonance, I promise you. It will lose its thin,
high-pitched nasal quality, and grow mellow and rich and ringing.
And so, with chest lifted, diaphragm at work, throat open, tongue free,
jaws relaxed, and all the cavities concerned in vocalization open to the
tone, as you breathe and yawn and hum, let it issue a full, round,
resonant, singing note to add itself to the music of the world.
A LAST WORD TO THE PUPIL
Mr. William James tells us that we learn to swim in winter and to skate
in summer. The principle underlying this statement is of immense comfort
in approaching a class in vocal expression. The hope of satisfying
results is fostered by the knowledge that a mere statement of the
fundamental facts of right tone production will do much toward inducing
a right condition for tone. But I know, too, that immediate results
depend upon immediate and faithful putting into practice of the
principles set forth. A little practice every day will work swift
wonders with the voice. And so, in leaving with you Madame Ricardo's
watchwords, I also commend you to Ellen Terry's "infinite pains." When
it means, as it does in pursuing this ideal, that we must be _on guard_
every waking instant--_for a time_; when it means a watch set (for a
time) upon every organ involved in expression--lips, teeth, tongue, jaw,
mouth, throat, chest, diaphragm, and all the muscles governing these
organs; when it means a watch set (for a time) upon one's every thought
and emotion lest it make false demands upon the sensitive instruments of
their expression--then it becomes a daring device, indeed, to wear upon
one's crest. Let us not hesitate to carve it there, when we realize that
to follow it means culture, true culture, the culture which can only
come through control and command of one's self.
TO THE TEACHER
When I consider how much depends in the training of a voice upon
listening to the made tone, how little depends upon knowing how it was
made, I realize that it is _your ear_, not my book, which must become
the real guide in this _Study of Vocal Expression_.