In my first talk I said a few words, but not half enough, on the subject
of breath control.
My second talk was the physiological aspect of the throat, head and
tongue, for it is necessary to become thoroughly acquainted with the
mechanism with which you are to work before you can really sing. Today
I'm going to take up the subject of tone emission and the attack.
A great many singers suffer from the defect called "throatiness" of the
emission--that is to say, they attack or start the note in the throat.
Sooner or later this attack will ruin the most beautiful voice. As I
have said before, the attack of the note must come from the apoggio, or
breath prop. But to have the attack pure and perfectly in tune you must
have the throat entirely open, for it is useless to try to sing if the
throat is not sufficiently open to let the sound pass freely. Throaty
tones or pinched tones are tones which are trying to force themselves
through a half-closed throat blocked either by insufficient opening of
the larynx or by stoppage of the throat passage, due to the root of the
tongue being forced down and back too hard or possibly to a low, soft
palate.
In order to have the throat perfectly open it is necessary to have the
jaw absolutely relaxed.
I have found in studying different nationalities that it is fairly easy
for the French and Spanish people to learn this relaxation of jaw and
the opening of the throat, but the English-speaking people generally
talk with the throat half shut and even talk through half-shut teeth.
Sometime, when you are talking rapidly, suddenly put your hand up to
your jaw. You will find that it is stiff; that the muscles beneath it
(tongue muscles) are tight and hard; that the jaw seldom goes down very
far in pronouncing any of the English words, whereas in singing the jaw
should be absolutely relaxed, going down and back just as far as it can
with ease.
The jaw is attached to the skull right beneath the temples in front of
the ears. By placing your two fingers there and dropping the jaw you
will find that a space between the skull and jaw grows as the jaw drops.
In singing this space must be as wide as is possible, for that indicates
that the jaw is dropped down, giving its aid to the opening at the back
of the throat. It will help the beginner sometimes to do simple relaxing
exercises, feeling the jaw drop with the fingers. It must drop down, and
it is not necessary to open the mouth wide, because the jaw is relaxed
to its utmost.
However, for a beginner it is as well to practice opening the mouth
wide, being sure to lower the jaw at the back. Do this many times a day
without emitting any sound merely to get the feeling of what an open
throat is really like. You will presently begin to yawn after you have
done the exercise a couple of times. In yawning or in starting to drink
a sip of water the throat is widely open, and the sensation is a correct
one which the singer must study to reproduce.
I have noticed a great many actors and actresses in America who speak
with jaws tightly closed, or at least closed to such an extent that only
the smallest emission of breath is possible. Such a voice production
will never allow the actor to express any varying degree of emotion and
will also completely eradicate any natural beauty of tone which the
voice may have. However, this is a fault which can easily be overcome by
practicing this daily relaxation of the jaw and always when singing
breathing as if the jaw hung perfectly loose, or, better still, as if
you had none at all. When you can see a vocalist pushing on the jaw you
can be perfectly certain that the tone she is emitting at that moment is
a forced note and that the whole vocal apparatus is being tortured to
create what is probably not a pleasant noise.
Any kind of mental distress will cause the jaw to stiffen and will have
an immediate effect upon the voice. This is one of the reasons why a
singer must learn to control her emotions and must not subject herself
to any harrowing experiences, even such as watching a sensational
spectacle, before she is going to sing. Fear, worry, fright--stage as
well as other kinds--set the jaw. So does too great a determination to
succeed. A singer's mind must control all of her feelings if it is going
to control her voice. She must be able even to surmount a feeling of
illness or stage fright and to control her vocal apparatus, as well as
her breath, no matter what happens.
The singer should feel as if her jaw were detached and falling away from
her face. As one great singer expresses it: "You should have the jaw of
an imbecile when emitting a tone. In fact, you shouldn't know that you
have one." Let us take the following passage from "The Marriage of
Figaro," by Mozart:
[Illustration: Voi-che sa-pe-te-]
This would make an excellent exercise for the jaw. Sing only the vowels,
dropping the jaw as each one is attacked--"o, eh, ah." The o, of course,
is pronounced like the English o and the i in voi like e. The e in che
is pronounced like the English a. Sapete is pronounced sahpata. You now
have the vowels, o, ee, a, ah, a. Open the throat wide, drop the jaw and
pronounce the tones on a note in the easiest part of your voice.
Do not attack a note at the same time that you are inhaling. That is too
soon. Take the breath through the nose, of course, and give it an
instant to settle before attacking the sound. In this way you will avoid
the stroke of the glottis which is caused by the sudden and uncontrolled
emission of the accumulated breath. In attacking a note the breath must
be directed to the focusing point on the palate which lies just at the
critical spot, different for every tone. In attacking a note, however,
there must be no pressure on this place, because if there is the
overtones will be unable to soar and sound with the tone.
From the moment the note is attacked the breath must flow out with it.
It is a good idea to feel at first as if one were puffing out the
breath. This is particularly good for the high notes on which a special
stress must be laid always to attack with the breath and not to press or
push with the throat. As long as the tone lasts the gentle but
uninterrupted outpouring of the breath must continue behind it. This
breath pressure insures the strength and, while holding the note to the
focusing point on the palate, insures its pitch. In a general way it can
be said that the medium tones of the voice have their focusing point in
the middle part of the palate, the lower tones coming nearer to the
teeth to be centralized and the high notes giving the sensation of
finding their focusing point in the high arch at the back of the mouth
and going out, as it were, through the crown of the head.
The resonance in the head cavities is soon perceived by those who are
beginning to sing. Sometimes in producing their first high notes young
people become nervous and irritated when singing high tones at the
curious buzzing in the head and ears. After a short time, however, this
sensation is no longer an irritation, and the singer can gauge in a way
where his tones are placed by getting a mental idea of where the
resonance to each particular tone should be.
High notes with plenty of head vibration can only be obtained when the
head is clear and the nasal cavities unobstructed by mucous membrane or
by any of the depression which comes from physical or mental cause. The
best way to lose such depression is to practice. Practicing the long
scale, being careful to use the different registers, as described later,
will almost invariably even out the voice and clear out the head if
continued long enough, and will enable the singer to overcome nervous or
mental depression as well.
The different sensations in producing the tone vary according to the
comparative height and depth. Beginning from the medium tones, the
singer will feel as if each tone of the descending scale were being sung
farther outside of the mouth, the vibration hitting the upper teeth as
it goes out, whereas with the ascending scale the vibrations pass
through the nasal cavities, through the cavity in the forehead and up
back into the head, until one feels as if the tone were being formed
high over the head at the back.
I want to say right here that whenever a young singer feels
uncomfortable when singing he or she is singing incorrectly.
In attacking the note on the breath, particularly in the high notes, it
is quite possible that at first the voice will not respond. For a long
time merely an emission or breath or perhaps a little squeak on the high
note is all that can be hoped for. If, however, this is continued,
eventually the head voice will be joined to the breath, and a faint note
will find utterance which with practice will develop until it becomes an
easy and brilliant tone.
The reason that the tone has not been able to come forth is because the
vocal apparatus cannot adjust itself to the needs of the vocal chords or
because they themselves have not accustomed themselves to respond to the
will of the singer and are too stiff to perform their duty.
The scale is the greatest test of voice production. No opera singer, no
concert singer, who cannot sing a perfect scale can be said to be a
technician or to have achieved results in her art. Whether the voice be
soprano, mezzo or contralto, each note should be perfect of its kind,
and the note of each register should partake sufficiently of the quality
of the next register above or below it in order not to make the
transition noticeable when the voice ascends or descends the scale. This
blending of the registers is obtained by the intelligence of the singer
in mixing the different tone qualities of the registers, using as aids
the various formations of the lips, mouth and throat and the ever
present apoggio without which no perfect scale can be sung.