THROAT STIFFNESS
What is the most frequent obstacle to good singing, the difficulty
with which pupil and teacher most contend? Throat stiffness. What more
than anything else mars the singing of those we hear in drawing-rooms,
churches, and the concert room? Throat stiffness.
This is the vice that prevents true intonation, robs the voice of its
expressiveness, limits its range, lessens its flexibility, diminishes
its volume, and makes true resonance impossible.
This great interferer not only lessens the beauty of any voice, but
directly affects the organ itself. The muscles of the larynx are small
and delicate, and the adjustments they make in singing are exceedingly
fine. When, however, the voice user stiffens his throat, these
delicate muscles in their spontaneous effort to make the proper
adjustments are compelled to contract with more than their normal
strength. Every increase in throat stiffness demands a corresponding
increase in muscle effort, an overexertion that persisted in must
result in injury to the organ itself. Such misuse of the voice is
bound to show injurious results. Every throat specialist knows this,
and an untold multitude of those who, beginning with promise, have had
to give up singing as a career, learn it too late.
Singers are so accustomed to the sound of their own voices as to be
usually quite unconscious of their own throat stiffness, though they
may recognize it in their neighbor.
Unfortunately throat stiffness by its very nature tends to aggravate
itself, to constantly increase while the voice becomes less and less
responsive to the singer's demands.
There are a number of contributing causes to throat stiffness, but the
principal cause is _throat consciousness_ and misplaced effort, due
largely to current misconceptions regarding the voice. A common notion
is that we sing with the throat, whereas we sing _through_ it. Akin to
this error is the notion, as common as it is fallacious, that force of
tone, carrying power, originates in the larynx, whereas the initial
tone due to the vibration of the vocal cords is in itself
comparatively feeble. As shown at length in Chapters VI and VII,
volume of tone, its color and carrying power, is acoustically and
vocally a matter of _resonance_.
Many there are who sing by dint of sheer force and ignorance, but
their careers are necessarily short. The too common vulgar striving
for power rather than for beauty or purity of tone induces unnatural
effort and strain that both directly and sympathetically affect the
throat with stiffness.
Unnatural effort in breathing, over-effort in breath control, as well
as singing without adequate breath, all induce tension that is
reflected at once in the sensitive throat.
Impatience of results, American hurry, beget unnatural effort and
tension. "Unclasp the fingers of a rigid civilization from off your
throat." The student of the violin or the piano soon learns that only
by a long and patient preparation can he fit himself to entertain even
his admiring friends. The embryo singer, on the contrary, expects with
far less expenditure of time and effort to appear in public.
The human voice is a direct expression of the man himself; it
registers spontaneously his mental and emotional states, even when he
would wish them hidden. Mental conditions tinged with impatience, with
fear, or with anything that begets tension of any sort are reflected
instantly in the voice, robbing it of its better qualities and
inducing stiffness in the throat.
Reduced to its lowest terms voice culture to-day is a struggle with
throat stiffness.
The causes indicate the remedy. Foremost, then, is dropping all throat
consciousness, all thought of the throat, all drawing of attention to
it. The larynx must be left uncramped, unhindered to do its work in
free unconsciousness, which it will do if not disturbed by tension in
its neighborhood, or by misdirected thought.
The stream of consciousness must in singing be directed to the
breathing which is below the throat, and to resonance and
pronunciation which are above it. These functions are more or less
consciously controlled until at last mastery makes their action
automatic.
I would once more emphasize the fact that the free use of all the
resonance chambers, and the recognition of the great function of
resonance, will do more than anything else to set the voice free and
emancipate the singer from all interfering rigidity.