ALERE FLAMMAN.
"_His tongue was framed to music,
And his hand was armed to skill;
His face was the mould of beauty,
And his heart the throne of will._"
=Emerson.=
"_Slow, indeed, at times, is the will of the gods, but in
the end not weak._"
=Euripedes.=
III.
ALERE FLAMMAM.
Everyone Can Sing.
The culture of the voice has come to be looked upon as a great and
serious undertaking, and of such magnitude that but few have time for
it, and those only should attempt it who have exceptionally fine voices.
This is a mistake. Nearly everyone can sing, and if all would attempt to
improve the voices they have by observing a few common-sense rules, it
would soon be apparent that there are many more good singers among the
masses than it is supposed exist, and these singers will learn how much
can be done to add to their own comfort, by a little outlay of thought.
Culture of the voice has been made a mystery by charlatan teachers and
for a purpose. Think out how the conversational voice works and then
consider what difference there should be between that and the singing
voice. Nature planned the speaking voice and in doing it, gave us the
line of development to follow in bringing into use the singing voice.
The change from speaking to singing voice is where the quack enters with
his mystery. There is no mystery. Use the voice as in speaking but pitch
it at higher and lower points than are used in speaking. This is the
foundation of the singing voice. Only one caution is needed. Never
strain the throat. If, after a little practice, fatigue is felt or the
tone is husky, stop practice. Do not try to do it all at once. A little
each day added, will, in a few months, do all that is wanted. Do not
expect, however, that any amount of study by one's self will make an
artist. One can sing, by self-study, so as to get much pleasure, and so
as to give pleasure to friends; but something more serious and extended
is needed to make the artist.
Sustain Perfectly.
Sustaining perfectly the reservoir of air is the greatest _desideratum_
in using the voice. Acquiring ability to do so is a puzzle often to
students. The reason is in the fact that no muscles which are directly
under the control of the will can be caused to act upon the air column.
The chief organ of respiration is the diaphragm, and as years of
teaching bring experience which is definite in results, we find that the
diaphragm is the only muscle which holds the air column in check. That
muscle situated within the body cannot be held by any visible power. The
_thought_ of holding it still will make us hold our breath. Trying to
assist such holding by muscles of the chest, abdomen or throat, only
defeats our purpose and makes the diaphragm give way. That large muscle
will do the whole work if we will let it. The thought, as said above, is
what will make it remain quiet. That thought may take various forms.
What assists one does not appeal to another. But here is an assisting
thought which does much good to the majority of students. Of course when
the breath is taken the diaphragm is down and the waist is spread. Then
the chest, bronchial tubes, windpipe and mouth are full of air. Now
allow that air to be as still as the air of the room. Practise
sustaining tone with any vowel, preceding each effort by taking position
suggested above, and with the thought of keeping the air in the body
just the same as, and a part of, the outer air. Then allow tone to float
in the air, permitting no force whatever.
Care of the Body.
Singers seem to think but little of the tools with which they carry on
their life work. That is the rule. Now and then a singer takes the
opposite course and becomes unreasonably careful of his tools. In that
case he is worse off than the careless. The "happy medium" is in all
things the desirable state.
Our tools as singers are enclosed within the body and are the body. To
have the body ready to respond to the musical demands it must be well
and strong. To keep it well should be our first care. Happily we are so
made that by following a few simple rules of living the body goes on
through a long term of years without getting seriously out of order.
Some persons can boast that they are never ill while many report but one
sickness during a decade. The needed attention to the bodily wants, has,
in these cases, been properly given. If all were as careful to do the
same and not overdo the matter, perfect health would be the rule and not
the exception.
The body needs nourishing food, clothing to preserve nearly uniform
temperature, sufficient sleep, generous exercise, and thorough
cleansing. Nothing more. Neglect of these, or as is more often the case,
overdoing some of the first, is cause of disorder and disease. A singer
cannot afford to have the tools of his employment other than in
first-rate condition. If he does he enters his work, unnecessarily
handicapped.
General advice regarding the eating and drinking is often given. Making
it more specific, we would say, eat only such food as is easily
digested and insist that it shall be thoroughly cooked. Supply the body
with enough such for its maintenance only. The singer, again, cannot
afford to eat what is not needed, be that of kind or amount. Most
persons in running a furnace will feed fuel twice a day, at night and
morning. In specially cold weather giving the fire a little extra fuel
at noon. This is a good rule for feeding the body. Avoid over-feeding.
The object of eating is to nourish the body and not to gratify appetite.
It makes little difference whether the palate is pleased or not. The
body could be nourished on food which does not taste so good as some
other. Eating, to most people, is more palate gratification than
anything else. In doing so, the body is overfed and clogged. Singers
cannot afford that.
Sleep. To recover the waste of body at each days' work, quiet restful
sleep is needed. Eight hours, or better nine, out of each twenty-four.
In a cool room where possible and with plenty of fresh air. People who
eat rationally need not fear taking cold by sleeping in a room with a
draught of air through it. Fresh air, fresh, good food and cleanliness
are necessary to the best results in singing study.
No rule can be given about bathing. Some students can stand a thorough
bath every day. Others, only once in ten days. A sponge bath, if no
other, should be had daily, that the pores of the body may be kept open
and clear.
Clothing should be sufficient to keep the temperature of the body even.
No need of wrapping the throat even when going into the open air, if the
temperature of the body generally is even. We do pamper our bodies and
think we are uncomfortable. In one sweeping sentence, be vigorous and
good-natured and the body will the better serve us. A long walk each day
in the fresh air adds to that vigor, and also to our good-nature.
Friends Can Help.
Advice of friends is a source of value or injury to the singing student.
Advice has its influence. Every word spoken about one's voice and
singing helps or injures. If placed in a circle which condemns every
effort we make we are held back by that very influence from doing our
best. Every judicious word of praise helps us upward. A pupil who is
struggling by himself, without a word of cheer in his own home circle
has a hard fight of it. For that reason it is very necessary that pupils
whose desires are similar, and whose aims are toward the highest, should
be gathered together. They help by their words, and often by their
looks, the anxious student. "Forsake not the assembling of yourselves
together," applies. After a pupil's recital, a judicious teacher will
tell his pupils the kind things which the others have said. If unkind
things should be said (but a teacher who is himself kind will not hear
unkind things) he will keep those to himself, guiding himself, however,
by those comments in the future treatment of that criticized pupil. In
this connection, a word to the members of the family of the student. A
mother, who steps into the practice-room occasionally when she hears
good singing and says, "That was good. I see you are improving," aids
the student as much as a half-dozen lessons will aid. A brother who
banters his sister about her singing when he really enjoys it, knows
not, oftentimes, that his banter hurts and harms. To be sure, the
partiality of the home circle may foster false hopes, but since nearly
every one can learn to sing well if rightly trained, that will do less
harm than cold indifference and cruel banter.
Renew Thought.
The teacher who does not live in high thought, and who does not attempt
to attain a high ideal, does poorer work than he thinks he does. It is
an easy matter to settle into a rut and to follow certain lines. These
wear themselves out. New ways of imparting time-honored teaching,
although they may not change the principles of teaching, must be
constantly sought. They will only come to mind by keeping the thought in
the highest realm of intellectual possibility to that teacher. One who
contemplates with restful care, in that higher realm, the beautiful in
music, the way of influencing mind, and the most direct way of causing
students to attain that which they need, will ever renew his method of
teaching. Such renewal will contain something better than he had before.
Unless constant renewal, or at least frequent renewal, takes place, the
rut will be entered upon. The longer one follows it, the deeper he
becomes settled in it, and the harder is it to get out from it.
Speaking and Singing.
The basis of good singing is good speaking. The speaking voice in common
use during conversation covers a range of five or six notes. Frequently
lower and higher notes are called into use, but the high and low notes
of the singing voice are seldom used in conversation. The organs which
produce voice, from their constant use respond involuntarily to the
will. They also do correct work. It is seldom that a person, unless he
has deformity, has trouble to pronounce any word or syllable, while
talking. Would this were true of singers. The student would greatly
lessen the amount of his labor and also reduce the cost of his musical
education if he were able to speak the words as correctly and as easily
while singing as while speaking. It is toward this imitation of the
speaking voice that one must constantly strive if he would make rapid
progress in voice development. When he has reached the point where he
can sing every vowel and consonant perfectly, and with as little effort
as when speaking, on every tone of his singing voice, and then have that
voice loud enough to be well heard in any hall, the voice is completely
and well cultivated.
Associates.
Singers cannot afford to miss the chance to be among great men. As a
class, musicians are narrow and that arises from the necessity of giving
so much time to technical study. When the chance to meet and associate
with men of broad minds comes, take advantage of it. Even if the contact
be not close some of the light shining from the great mind will illumine
us, and will make us brighter. The great mind is drawing from inspired
source, maybe, and the light which comes from that mind drives out
darkness from whatever it covers. Light and darkness cannot remain
together. Let the mind be thrown open to receptivity when one is in the
presence of the acknowledged leader and good clear light, it may be from
heaven, will flood the mind and illumine it.
Purity of Method.
Purity of vocal method must not be departed from by teachers. The
introduction of new ideas is at best a hazardous undertaking. In the
routine of teaching week after week and month after month the teacher
finds himself casting about for a new idea. He finds something which
pleases him and tries it on his pupils. Most teachers can look back at
experiments which have failed. Better decide on a few basic principles
and cling to them. The desire to try something new is very liable to be
the result of fatigue from overwork. Better take a holiday; go away from
the classroom and rest. Come back to first principles again and go to
work. The result at the end of the year will be better. Every teacher as
he grows older resolves his ways of cultivating the voice into something
very simple but which, as it condenses, becomes more powerful. There is
only one right way and deep thinkers settle on that alike in time.
Mental Recovery.
A teacher cannot do better for himself and his work than to occasionally
close the office door and sit quietly by himself for a half-hour. At
such time crowd out the thought of all work, all planning, all worries,
and all demands. Bring the mind as nearly as can be into inactivity. One
will find in the hour when work is resumed that more of value will flood
into the mind, he knows not from whence, than he can catch and apply in
a great many hours. How many of us have times of refreshing. It is work,
work, hour after hour and the wonder is that we do so much and yet do so
little. Leave out some of the work and call activity of mind to our aid
and we will do more work with much less effort.
Profession or Trade.
An item recently seen reads, "we would rather be a music teacher in an
obscure town than be a prosperous tradesman in a large city." That has
the sound of enthusiasm, and is the feeling of one who has the good of
his fellowmen at heart. Every man who enters a profession gives up his
life to do good. But few men in any professional life ever make more
than a good living. Some can, indeed, save enough to make occasional
investments, and these (if judgment has been good) secure a moderate
fortune. But no man ever became wealthy from his profession alone. A
professional man, however, gratifies his better nature and satisfies
cultivated tastes. A man in trade becomes so engrossed in business that
his better nature (his refined taste) is dwarfed. That comfort of mind
which the professional man has is more to him than the bags of gold of
the merchant would be. Probably the writer who made the remark quoted,
had in mind the opportunity which the music teacher has to do good. It
is a grand field of work, and one who has been engaged in it for several
years wants no other. To lead the public by teaching and by public
performance into the knowledge of the highest art, is a privilege which
should be prized. The music teacher, (even if not so placed by common
opinion) stands with the minister and the physician in the good which he
does the community.
Heart and Intellect.
Let not the heart be the ruling power all the time. If it is, art sinks
into sentimentality. Allow the head to rule alternately with the heart.
Intellect must be applied if any satisfying musical result is to be
obtained. Emotion is good, but it needs curbing, shaping and
restraining. Emotion, long sustained and unbridled, becomes nauseating.
Emotion in itself is beautiful, but like fire and water, if it once
becomes the master, wastes and destroys. Emotion, aroused by imagination
and directed by intelligence, serves to give taste to all musical
rendition. One without heart is non-satisfying as a singer. Be he ever
so intellectual, his singing is cold. Intellect alone, unaided by heart,
is like polished steel--cold, brilliant and dazzling. Intellect and
heart combined are like the same surface engraved and enamelled in
artistic design--chaste, delicate and finished.
Time Ends Not.
We may say with Emerson that "Time has his own work to do and we have
ours," and with Wood, "Labor is normal; idleness, abnormal," but in
music there must be times of cessation from labor. Call it change of
work, if you choose rather than admit that labor has ceased, but
experience shows that no musician can safely follow his calling year in
and year out, with no regular period of rest, and save his mind and
body. Sooner or later comes a collapse. The human machine breaks down.
Then we shall think of Emerson and Wood as unsafe leaders. Time has his
work, but he works in such deliberation and in such ever-changing form
that were he one who could feel fatigue, he need not feel it. Time is
from eternity to eternity. Time does not occupy a human machine. The
music teacher does. Many a teacher has toiled beyond his strength this
year. Many will next year. Who will take thought for himself and break
loose, if but for a few weeks, and postpone the time of breaking down?
One might say, that with Time, the human soul is from eternity to
eternity and there is no breakdown. True, but the residence of that soul
while it is in this period of existence, demands much of its attention.
That cannot properly be given when the exacting duties of the class-room
drag on week after week, till they number fifty-two, and then begin at
once another weary round. Admit that there are limitations, and, in
cordial co-operation with existing laws, select and use the days of
idleness, even if one has said that idleness is abnormal.
Power of Thought.
The power of thought to exert influence is only in our day being
understood. How to utilize it is not yet in such degree of comprehension
that it can be told so that all are able to use the force which they
contain. Thought is a tangible essence passing from the human mind and
lodging upon the object toward which it is sent. Definite thought is
more powerful than is illy defined thought. Speech enables us to
crystalize thought and to empower it with added force. The time given to
framing sentences enables us to put thought into definite form. A step
beyond speech is obtained in singing. When learning our songs we revolve
the thought to be expressed in mind. The measure of the music gives time
to concentrate the thought contained into its most powerful form. The
rhythm and vibration which accompany music and singing, enhance the
power of thought. Whenever we sing in the true spirit of the sentiment
uttered we send out shafts, so to speak, of pure thought. Not one of
those is lost. It lodges somewhere, and as all good can never do harm,
our good thought, sent in song, must do good to those who come within
our influence to receive our good shafts. A singer who uses music for
vain display loses the opportunity for good. There is no good thought in
such singing. If there is any thought at all it is of the lower order.
It lodges also, but it appeals to that which is vain and low in our
hearers. What wonder is it, then, that ofttimes our hearers make unkind
remarks about us and our singing! It is our fault that we have stirred
up in them the spirit of vanity and criticism. Our thought has often
challenged such spirit in them. Let our thought be changed, and only the
good which is contained in poetic art sent out to them and their
attitude toward us will change. There is no unpleasant thing which comes
to us but that we stimulated it and created it. We can make our musical
surroundings by sending out powerful shafts of pure thought.
Nature Seldom Jumps.
Nature seldom moves by jumps, and a student who reaches the best use of
his voice learns that he must do that through natural laws. In other
words, that he must acquire all things through naturalness. What wrongs
have been done to students under the shield of so-called naturalness!
Many teachers who claim that they are cultivating the voice by natural
laws, know nothing of what it means to be natural. Naturalness means the
expression of our own nature. If a teacher uses the natural method he
but points out to his pupils their true natures and holds them to that
correct use of such that they return to their normal condition. The
necessities of our modern living have made most of us feel that we must
put a side of ourselves outward which shows off well. In singing we
develop abnormally something which we fancy will please our hearers and
bring us applause. We try to hide our defects and admit that we do.
Aside from the question of honesty, is it policy to do so. Most firmly,
should be the answer, No! It destroys the naturalness of the singer and
substitutes artifice. Any spurious issue will be detected sooner or
later. Besides, is it not much more comfortable to have the real than
the counterfeit? Be natural, then. Many students are impulsive. It was
to these that the remark that "Nature seldom jumps," was made. In
natural action everything is deliberate and restful; controlled and
sure. Nature makes but few angles, but moves in graceful curves. Good
quality of tone on one note and poor quality on the next, is not
natural. Nature does not jump from one voice into another. Nature
demands symmetric cultivation of the whole voice, and not the display of
a favored part.
Be Perfect.
Do not be content to merely make progress. (If one feels that he is at a
standstill, or worse, going backward, he should stop all study till he
can go forward). Merely making progress means that to reach great
result, a long time must elapse. To make a great artist requires years
of musical and intellectual training; to be able to sing as perfectly
as the body is capable of acting, requires but a few weeks, or at most,
a few months. Why will students take lessons year after year and not
sing any better than they did soon after they began? It is not necessary
if the student is willing to go rapidly. "Be ye perfect," applies to
singing as well as to anything else in life. If the injunction to be
perfect has any meaning at all, and no one has any right to doubt but
that it meant, when it was spoken, just what the words contain, that
applies very thoroughly to singing. The very essence of life itself is
more fully operative in singing than it is in anything else. If so, to
be perfect in singing is to be perfect also in the essence of life. The
injunction was not to become perfect by a long course of training. The
present tense was used and it meant just what was said. "Be ye perfect,"
_now_. By proper mental conception of the true principle which underlies
voice culture and by demonstration with concentrated thought, the
possibility of any individual body can be at once brought out. On this
account, the long years of wasteful practice which people use in
cultivating the voice is not only unnecessary, but foolish and wicked.