Voice, the Natural Reporter of the Individual.
Organs that Produce, Reinforce, and Give Resonant Forms to the Voice.
Relation of the Proper Use of the Voice to Health.
Relation of the Proper Use of the Voice to the Nervous System.
Relation of Pitch to Resonance.
Methods for Cultivating the Voice.
Exercises.
Rhythm.
Quality of Voice.
Vocal Technique.
Index.
“_When a man lives with God, his_
_voice shall be as sweet as the murmur of_
_the brook and the rustle of the corn._”
=PSYCHO VOX.=
=_VOICE, THE NATURAL REPORTER OF
THE INDIVIDUAL._=
It is true in nature, in both organic and inorganic matter, that sound
reports the quality of substance, that is, the quality of the sound
indicates the quality of the object which produces it. This is very
apparent in the animal kingdom. The naturalist knows by the tone of the
bird’s voice what kind of bird it is. The hunter knows by the voice of a
wild animal heard in the distance whether it is carniverous or
herbiverous; for in the voice of the former he hears something which is
savage, something which tears, while in the latter he hears the softer
tones of the milder animal.
In this treatise I shall consider the human voice as the natural
reporter of the individual, his character, and his physical and mental
states. I am not considering the individual in any narrow sense, but in
the sense of his entire being—body and mind.
Modern research shows that the mind affects all parts of the body,—the
brain most immediately. I would not be understood, however, to imply
that the brain thinks, or that any part of the body thinks; but that the
soul uses the body in this world as a medium through which to manifest
its thoughts, emotions, and purposes. One of nature’s laws is
expression. What is inmost shall be outermost. What is spoken in secret
“shall be proclaimed upon the housetops.” This law is never supplanted,
never circumscribed, it always was, is, and ever will be constant in its
action.
The mind expresses its degree of development through the vocal
mechanism. As the individual rises in development, more thought is
expressed in his voice. The voice of a baby has little mind in it; it
reports little more than physical sensations. If its physical sensations
are agreeable, the “coo” tells it more clearly than words could. As the
mind continues to develop, one power after another manifests itself in
the voice until we hear thought, affection, and choice speaking in
unmistakable tones.
The voice is educated through inducing right states of mind while using
it. Mont Blanc rises shoulder to shoulder with other mountains; then,
towering above them, its brow pierces the clouds. One speaking while
inspired with a sense of its sublimity need not be told not to speak on
a high pitch, for he will feel no impulse so to do. Education means to
draw out; therefore all true education is from within. If there ever was
an age of the world in which this needed to be said, it is to-day.
Materialism has spread all over the civilized world, influencing men in
religion and in education. I admit that man is influenced by
environment, but it must be remembered that man is not confined to
material environment alone, his immediate environment is Spirit. Man
learns not only from without, but from within; not through sense merely,
but through soul.
Singing is heart speaking to heart; inward life speaking to inward life.
The power of moving the feelings is the power by which the world is
governed. A person may possess reason, but reason must speak in the form
of feeling before it becomes effective in influencing others.
Elementally considered, the singing and the speaking voices are one.
Good teaching for the one is good teaching for the other. The first step
in educating the voice is to teach the pupil to think in sounds. The
voice is capable of expressing every mental activity—intellectual as
well as emotional. The voice rarely fails to reveal the lower order of
feelings, as physical pleasure or pain; it can also reveal the higher
realm of feelings,—benevolence, love of truth for its own sake, love of
good, sympathy with all conscious being, hope, faith, and all spiritual
perceptions.
The mind must be trained to the perception of beautiful vocal sounds; it
must hold these sounds as ideals while practising with the voice. It is
at this point that the chief difficulty in vocal culture arises, viz.,
that of keeping the mind constantly and exclusively concentrated upon
its ideals. If a person holds the right ideal steadily before his mind
while properly practising, repetition will cause this ideal to take
dominating possession of the tones, and thus shape them to itself and
become incarnated in them.
I once heard a most interesting conversation between two gentlemen, one
of whom was a Russian violinist. A young Italian had been entertaining a
company by playing upon a violin. The Russian asked to see the
instrument, and said to a gentleman sitting near, “This is a very old
violin—probably a hundred years old.” The other replied, “I suppose it
must be very valuable, then, for we are told that the longer a violin is
played upon the better it becomes.” “Ah, my friend,” continued the
Russian, “that all depends upon what kind of music has been played upon
it. The tone of this violin indicates to my mind that it has
deteriorated in value in consequence of its having been compelled to
discourse music of an inferior quality.”
What a revelation in nature! The molecules that compose the wood of a
violin can be marshalled into harmony by the music played upon it! If in
the mind of the violinist there is melody and harmony of a high order,
it finds its way through his fingers into the bow that touches the
strings, and all the molecules of the resounding wood waltz into
harmonious forms. What a spectacle for the eye of reason to see all
these molecules begin to form into line and step out to the concord of
sweet sounds born of the mind of the musician!
If this principle is true of the violin, is it not pre-eminently true of
the vocal organism which was designed by its infinite Creator for the
especial purpose of responding to the activities of the mind that
inhabits it? As the mind thinks mystery, grandeur, or solemnity, the
vocalized breath is shaped into corresponding forms of expression. In
the throat is a beautiful instrument, made by Him who made the soul to
require such an organ for its expression.
It is a fatal mistake to consider the voice as something separate from
the man. The true voice is the soul incarnated in tone.
The mission of the voice is to communicate to others what is in the soul
of each. The eyes of no two persons receive the same rays of light. All
men know more than one man, because each person has his own individual
point from which to view life and the world. If we listen not to the
report of others, our lives will contain but little truth. A person with
a grand intellect lies as open to the thoughts of others as the placid
lake to the stars which it nightly reflects. Narrow minds will entertain
only those thoughts which come to them through some channel in favor of
which they maintain a prejudice. The receptive mind will “prove all
things” by entertaining all things, and then “hold fast that which is
good.”
This power to communicate thought through sound is beautiful and
mysterious. A person listening to an orchestral composition often finds
that the thoughts awakened in him correspond to those which inspired the
composer.
I know that Beethoven believed in God’s government on earth, because
once while listening to one of his compositions, which no words
accompanied, visions arose before my mind. I saw the early condition of
this world; I heard a sound as if a thousand wild animals were tearing
each other into fragments with snarls, and yells, and fierce cries. The
blood was flowing, and their eyes were shooting fire. I next saw men
tearing each other as the beasts had done before. I saw the glitter of
arms and the coats of mail; I saw the onset and heard the shock of the
charge. I saw men fall, and then there went up a groan of agony which
finally merged into a cry toward heaven for help. It was a universal
prayer of suffering humanity. Then there came a voice to which all
heaven seemed to contribute, a voice that was helpful, a voice of
forgiveness, a voice that seemed to soothe the cry of agony, and fully
answer the prayer. Old things had passed away, and behold, all things
had become new. There was a new heaven and a new earth wherein dwelt
righteousness. Human beings I saw, not as “trees walking,” but as gods
crowned with love, glory, and immortality.
It was then I was made to realize what the apostle meant when he said he
was caught up into heaven and saw things unlawful to utter,—not against
the laws of man, but above the laws of language. The composition of
Beethoven made me think what words could not tell.
In the poem, “_Aux Italiens_,” Owen Meredith describes the power exerted
upon the minds of others through a composition of Verdi when rendered by
Mario.
Of all the operas that Verdi wrote,
The best, to my taste, is the Trovatore;
And Mario could soothe with a tenor note
The souls in purgatory.
The moon on the tower slept soft as snow,
And who was not thrilled in the strangest way,
As we heard him sing, while the gas burned low,
“_Non ti scordar di me!_”
The Emperor there, in his box of state,
Looked grave, as if he had just then seen
The red flag wave from the city gate,
Where his eagles in bronze had been.
There was something in the voice of the singer which caused the
Emperor’s mind to see the red flag standing where “his eagles in bronze
had been.”
The Empress, too, had a tear in her eye.
You’d have said that her fancy had gone back again
For one moment under the old blue sky
To the old, glad life in Spain.
The tones of Mario caused the Empress to see her early home; and the
chief character in the poem to see his first love, and to even smell the
flower he had seen her wear.
Meanwhile, I was thinking of my first love,
As I had not been thinking of aught for years,
Till over my eyes there began to move
Something that felt like tears.
. . . . . . . . . .
For I thought of her grave below the hill,
Which the sentinel cypress tree stands over,
And I thought,—“Were she only living still,
How I could forgive her and love her!”
And I swear, as I thought of her thus, in that hour,
And of how, after all, old things were best,
That I smelt the smell of that jasmin-flower
Which she used to wear in her breast.
An orator, by his tones as well as by his words, causes definite mental
activities to take possession of his audience, thus influencing them
with the action of their own minds. The language of tone is the language
of the spheres, it is the language of the invisible world, it is the
language of the angels.
The soul knows what tones to employ for the purpose of communicating its
own activities to other souls. The impulse of the soul constructs the
form of the tone which communicates its thought to the audience. There
is no such thing as true voice which soul has not formed. The proper
study of the voice is a study of the manifestations of the soul. Life is
rich and valuable if we live from the interior. Life is disappointing,
life is the blasting of all highest hopes, life is the shatterer and
annihilator of all ideals, if we live not from the soul.
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word
was God.” “All things were made by Him; and without Him was not anything
made that was made.” Think what an estimate the Bible puts upon the
“Word!” The Word, which is the fruition of the soul in manifestation, is
used as a symbol of the relation of Jesus Christ to the Father. The Word
is represented as being the Truth, the Life, the Creative Energy, and
the Being of God Himself. Man’s word, when he lives truly, is but an
expression, a moving out upon the world, and upon the hearts of others,
of the love, the truth, the worship of his soul.
True words, then, are not sounds separate from the spirit; they are the
incarnated soul. I would never teach voice, I would never teach oratory,
if words were not, in their true nature, Divine things, if they were not
forms of the spirit and of the soul!
=_ORGANS THAT PRODUCE, REINFORCE,
AND GIVE RESONANT FORMS TO THE
VOICE._=