Advice to Singers Part 9

There are, of course, no _rules_ to be given to guide the student in the choice of music, except the general ones, to choose good music, pleasing music, and music suited to his voice and powers.

But those general rules touch incidentally on a few points on which it may be well to offer a few remarks.

=Music must suit the Voice.=--Your music must not only be appropriate for your voice in compa.s.s, but it must be such as has been written for a voice of your kind. This is a most important thing to remember. Nothing is more provoking to a person of good taste and musical knowledge than to hear songs composed for a voice of one cla.s.s sung by a voice of a totally different character; and yet this is a vice which even good artists will sometimes weakly succ.u.mb to. The popular song of Gounod's, "_Quand tu chantes bercee_," for instance, has been sung to death by many soprani and contralti, in various keys. One would have thought that the words alone would have shown them the utter absurdity of what they were doing; but no, for the sake of producing an effect (upon an audience who naturally supposed that public singers of high standing knew what they were doing, and why they did it), these good ladies committed what I do not scruple to call a vulgar and inartistic blunder.

The song is a man's song, and no woman should attempt it.

This fault is one which amateurs are very apt to fall into, and a long list might be made of songs which have suffered this unfair treatment.

Soprani sing tenor songs--(I have often, in the early days of the popularity of "_Il Trovatore_," heard a soprano sing "_Ah, che la Morte!_"--tenors, those written for soprano--(_e.g._, I know an amateur tenor whose "crack" song is Iphis' "Farewell" in "_Jephtha_"). Contralti and mezzo-soprani steal ba.s.s and barytone songs, as "But who may abide,"

from the "_Messiah_," and ba.s.ses and barytones return the compliment by appropriating "What tho' I trace," or "O rest in the Lord.")

There is a reason, quite apart from the question of taste, which renders this practice objectionable. A composer of any skill writes his accompaniment as well as his melody with reference to the voice which he wishes to sing it. Now, if that voice be--we will say--a soprano, the accompaniment will be written for a voice of that _pitch_, as well as of that character and compa.s.s; the progressions of harmony will be written with due regard to the actual place of the vocal notes in the scale. But directly the song is sung by a tenor--a voice which pitches every note an octave lower than the soprano--the relation of the vocal notes to the accompaniment is changed; notes that were intended to be fourths above the accompaniment will become fifths below, and progressions which were correct in the composer's intention become wrong in the effect produced by the singer. That is an extreme case, I grant, but it is only a fair instance of the sort of result which follows on such changes, and it is sufficient to show that the rule rests on reason and not caprice.

"=Original Keys.="--Do not bind yourself, as some think it necessary to do, always to sing your songs in the original keys. Remember that opera and oratorio music, and a large number of modern "ballads," were composed for performance in large buildings, theatres, and concert-rooms. The keys, therefore, were chosen with due reference to that fact, and to the (in many cases) exceptional voices of the singers.

The raising of the pitch in later years also affects the question.

Now, if you have to sing in a drawing-room, the pitch, volume of tone, and style of delivery must be appropriate to chamber music, and not to the stage of Covent Garden, and the keys which are necessary for due brilliancy and effect in a concert-room are frequently unsuited to a drawing-room, giving an appearance of strain and noisiness to the singing. A good deal of opera music is as unfit for singing in a drawing-room as would be a grand symphony for performance there; and an artistic singer should bear in mind this principle of fitness in his selection.

At the same time, if it is considered desirable to transpose a song, let it be only for that reason, and let the aim be to produce the same effect, _relatively_, in the drawing-room, as the song in its original key is intended to produce in the concert-room. Do not transpose recklessly, merely to "suit your voice:" if you are a barytone, for instance, do not sing tenor songs a few notes lower; or, if you are a soprano, do not transpose contralto songs to suit your register. For the _character_ of the music (if the music is good) suits the voice for which it was intended, and there is a risk of destroying that character by giving it to a voice of another kind. This has been proved over and over again on the stage in several notable instances.

=Execution.=--Do not be too ambitious in selecting florid songs for performance either in public or private. "Fireworks" in a drawing-room rarely please, while in a concert-room they must be very perfect and first-rate in execution to do so. Of course, if you are a professional artist you must include such work in your studies, and even for the amateur the practice of florid music, under a master, is most desirable as an exercise. But where the choice of a song for a concert rests with yourself, sacrifice ambition to prudence, unless your voice is naturally a very flexible one, and your training in that style of music very complete. I give, on this subject, a quotation from an old and experienced writer on music and singing:

"Execution is certainly one of the most difficult parts of musical science. Young singers are desirous of attaining it without reflecting whether, from the formation of the throat and various physical causes, they may ever be able to accomplish their wishes. Few, indeed, possess the power of execution in a pre-eminent degree. It is in part a gift of nature: those who have ever delighted as well as astonished us by their rapid manner of running through divisions must have been naturally endowed with flexible organs.

"... Some voices may be compared to gems which in their original state are dull, and, to those unacquainted with their worth, of no value....

It frequently happens that singers, from timidity or want of proper knowledge in exercising their voices, remain ignorant of their own qualifications. The hinges of a door which have continued for years undisturbed, will, when the door is re-opened, grate harshly on the ear; but every effort renders the harshness more tolerable, until, from frequent use, they move easily. Thus it is with the voice: on the flexibility of the _uvula_ and the muscles connected with it depend both the perfectibility of the shake and execution. But still it must be acknowledged that acquired execution should never be exercised by the side of nature otherwise than sparingly, even where necessity requires it, for the latter possesses an easy velocity which can playfully sport with its subject at will; but, however gratifying the power of execution may be considered by those who possess it, I recommend them not to be indiscriminately lavish, lest they cloy by too great a profusion, and, as Voltaire remarks, 'shine in trills and divisions, at the expense of poetry and good sense.'"

=Fashion.=--The songs which are "the rage" at any time are always great snares for amateurs. Aspiring young singers hear a ballad charmingly rendered by some great singer, and straightway go home, send for it, and on the first available opportunity treat their friends to their version of it. This is really unfair to themselves, as it throws them into unwise contrast with the public singer who has made the song popular, and whose well-known rendering of it forbids ordinary hearers to judge the rendering of an amateur on its own merits, or by any rule but that of comparison. Moreover, "popular" songs--I mean songs whose popularity is largely due to their having been sung by favourite public singers--are by no means always good in themselves; or, if fairly good, by no means easy; or if good and not difficult, by no means always sufficiently so to make it worth while for an amateur to spend time and study on them. In very many cases the public singer has to sing these songs because he is paid for doing so, and gets a "royalty" on every copy sold; it is simply one development of the hydra-headed art of advertising, and such productions are known by the vulgar name of "pot-boilers," _i.e._, compositions hastily thrown off to bring in a little money "_to keep the pot boiling_." If composers who are capable of better things are reduced to making money in this way, we may be sincerely sorry for them; but speaking from an artistic point of view, the practice is reprehensible, and "pot-boilers" are not the kind of music which a young singer, anxious to improve, should waste time or money upon. I am far from saying that there are no good songs to be found among new music, but I think they seldom lie on the top of the pile.

=Forming a Repertoire.=--In gradually forming your _repertoire_, or collection of properly studied songs for drawing-room or concert singing, do not be in haste to make it a large one. It is better to know only a few songs and do them really well, than to sing a large number indifferently. If you are studying for the profession, there is a considerable number of songs which you will be expected to know as a matter of course, but over and above such, every singer should have a special repertoire of his or her own, and it is of this that I now speak. Your selection of songs, like your singing, should have the stamp of your own individuality upon it. You should have a little stock of songs, with which your singing is in a way identified, and which you must be able to sing in a manner that at once stamps those songs as your property, so that another person might say, "I could not sing that song before you, it is one of your own."

To form such a repertoire, you may have to go a little out of the beaten track of what is best known at the time. If opera music suits you best, look at the operas, never performed now, of Gluck, or the less known of Mozart's, or earlier works of Rossini, Auber, &c.; or else try and get hold of works not yet known in England, such as Macfarren's, Wallace's, Purcell's, and a few other such native dramatic composers. In a word, do not limit your notions of operatic music to what you hear year after year at Covent Garden or Her Majesty's.

So, too, in oratorio: search in the less familiar oratorios of Handel, and such of his operas as you can get access to, and carry the same idea out in examining the works of other composers, ancient and modern. Good work has been done of late years by various publishers in publishing many works of this cla.s.s, and there are plenty of these which are still unfamiliar and unhackneyed.

The same with your songs and ballads: before you rush into the modern fashionable ballad, see if you cannot find a few that you can appropriate among the stores of old English music, or the detached songs of old Italian masters (many of which are magnificent as songs, and utterly unknown at present, except to the few).

PHYSIOLOGICAL SURROUNDINGS.

It is highly expedient that singers themselves, and intending students of the art, should make some acquaintance with the physiological surroundings which are brought into play in the process of voice production. A knowledge of the technical terms for the various organs directly involved is very essential, and the intelligent student will see the necessity not only for distinguishing such names as "larynx" and "diaphragm," but also of possessing some idea of their whereabouts in the human frame. No better course could be adopted for the acquirement of such a knowledge than attendance at the cla.s.ses and lectures at the musical colleges and other inst.i.tutions, which, from time to time, secure the a.s.sistance of qualified specialists to speak upon this very important branch of the singing art. No other mode of teaching is so well calculated to enlighten the uninitiated in the wondrous mechanism of the human voice, and to inspire him or her with an adequate sense of the watchful care and delicate treatment which a voice worthy of systematic training demands, as well as deserves, at the hands of students of both s.e.xes. As a preliminary to a fuller inquiry into the subject, the following few notes may be fixed upon the mind:--

=The Larynx= (??????) const.i.tutes the upper part of the wind-pipe. It is the seat of the voice, and essential parts of it are the "vocal cords" (_chordae vocales_), two membranes in a horizontal position across the larynx. It is popularly called "Adam's apple"

(_pomum Adami_), the protuberance so often recognizable in the throats of ba.s.s singers, but a more correct use of "_pomum Adami_" is when it is applied to a projection in the thyroid cartilage--a part of the laryngeal structure.

=The Thyroid= (from T??e??) is a shield-shaped cartilage, and that part of the larynx which, in the case of both s.e.xes, develops suddenly at the period when they pa.s.s from youth to mature age. Other important cartilages are the cricoid (from ??????), a ring-shaped membrane; the arytenoids (from ???ta??a a pitcher); the epiglottis (?p?-???tta), situated at the back of the mouth; and the cartilages of Santorini, or _cornicula laryngis_.

The trachea, or wind-pipe, is capable of rising or falling, and thus is produced the perceptible movement of the larynx in the throat when speaking or singing. It is by lowering the larynx, and so commanding an expansion of the throat that the best tone is possible in the voice, and it is this open throat production which some teachers are aiming at when they charge their pupils to "sing from the chest." A more sensible request would be to "lower the larynx," since such a lowering of this organ places the throat in the most favourable position for emitting sound; as well as for enabling the lungs, or wind-chests, to act most advantageously upon the true vocal cords. Moreover, this lowered larynx production leads to the best results from the vocal cords themselves.

The natural tendency is to sing as we talk, a process which involves a demand upon the upper fringes of the vocal ligaments only, but no long-sustained singing could be maintained by this means, nor does it requisition any art-knowledge or principle. Directly, however, we begin to utilize the lower edge of the vocal cords, we are verging upon the art of _producing_ the voice; _i.e._, creating a something which will not manifest itself without the first application of some art principles. Here lies the whole secret of singing, _viz._, the utilization of the lower portions of the membranous folds popularly called the "vocal cords," instead of working merely their topmost fringes, as do the innumerable tenors who sing "throaty," and as we all do up to a certain point, in the ordinary process of speaking. The singing voice and the speaking voice are two totally different productions, the former never to be acquired except at the hands of a capable master, who, himself, has been properly taught the principles of voice production.

The lungs, or bellows, or air-chambers lie, as is well known, on each side of the chest, resting upon the diaphragm, and performing a very important function in singing. They supply the air which acts upon the vocal cords, and in true singing are the first organs for consideration by a vocalist, since so much depends upon the way the wind, or breath, is brought to bear upon the vocal cords. For this reason the abdominal method of breathing--the filling of the lungs from their bases--becomes the best method for inspiring the breath in singing. Doubtless, in breathing, the lungs are replenished from above downwards, but it requires something of the sensation of these air-supplying substances being filled from their bases in order to requisition the full help of the diaphragm, a great muscle which separates the lungs from the abdomen, and which may be called the fundamental basis on which all voice production rests.

The Pharynx (f?????) is situated behind the mouth, between the tongue and the arch forming the circ.u.mference of the palate. Its province is to reflect the voice on its issue from the glottis. It is an elastic aperture, and may be well styled the reflecting organ of singing. It can take various forms, and bears a great part in giving character to the sounds originated in the larynx.

_The Voice--a Wind, Reed, or String Instrument?_ Much discussion has spent itself in settling the question of "family" to which the vocal instrument properly belongs. The vocal chords are known to be composed of a yellow elastic fibrous tissue in their anterior parts, the posterior portions consisting of a tougher muscle or cartilage. Many maintain them to belong to the "string" family, since the sounds generated are produced as on a violin--the higher notes by increased tension, the lower tones by a reduction of the strain. In this process, the muscle, popularly known as the epiglottis-cushion--a fat mucous membrane--presses on to the vocal cords, modifying their vibrating length. Thus, in an extreme high note, the cushion presses intensely upon the cords, considerably shortening their one inch length. In reverting to a low note, this tension becomes withdrawn, and the whole length of cord is at play to produce its lowest tones. An unfortunate objection to this theory--that the vocal cords can be styled a stringed instrument, is the fact that no string of the small extent of the vocal cords could be capable of sounding either so many, or such low notes; moreover, the mathematical treatment of their vibrations, as governed by the tension, is not correct, as they are in the case of a violin. It is a useful theory, and method of reasoning, however, for those teachers of singing who maintain that to get high notes, a light and thin style of singing, and the use of the upper fringe of the vocal cords (the production point), is preferable, in contradistinction to those who declare that no really good chest note with any telling power worth considering is possible, unless the vocalist sings deep in his chest and gains the idea, as he goes for his note, of requisitioning with all effort the lowest depth in the cord. Surely this point presents the greatest difficulty for singers with whom compa.s.s, especially at the top of the voice, is an imperative necessity, albeit that people go on talking to the contrary; and it is a matter which needs settling among voice specialists and singing masters. We are told, and it is generally known, that the tension of the epiglottis-cushion produces a higher note just as the shifting of the finger on the violin string affects its tone--a process which may produce falsetto sounds, but which surely is not the basis upon which great Italian singers of the Mongini and Tamberlik type secured the great chest Cs, which, with their resonance and brilliancy, were wont to make our opera houses ring again. Is it not a fact that in voices of this calibre, as well as in those trained on what is known as the broad lines of the true Italian production, the whole surfaces of the vocal cords become more or less requisitioned, and that they vibrate the whole of their length and breadth, not merely the sides, rather than that any upper portion is mainly utilized while the lower parts are resting? The answer to this question would seem to indicate that the human voice is of the nature of a reed instrument.

These membraneous organs, which we term vocal cords, are such that their whole surfaces must vibrate when brought into contact with a current of air from the lungs. The voice reed, in fact, vibrates freely backwards and forwards, and so corresponds with what are known as "free," not "beating" reeds--such as are found in concertinas, and the like.

That the voice is something of an organ pipe (a flue pipe) is an illusion only indulged in by writers and teachers p.r.o.ne to descriptive language, which they do not stay to inquire into, either for their own edification or for the enlightenment of other people. There is absolutely nothing to maintain such an idea.

It is important that the nature of the _materiel_ of the vocal cords should become widely known, since such a knowledge, elementary as it might be, would, at the outset, enable students to get at once upon the right road to singing. To grasp the idea that the initial sound-producing means are these bits of semi-lunar membranes, acted upon by the breath from the lungs, and that they vibrate violently or orderly in proportion to the care with which the breath is brought to bear upon them, is to master the first great difficulty in singing. This once grasped, it is not hard to realize that the sound emitted is moulded and shaped, modified and beautified by other organs of the laryngeal machine and its surroundings, as well as by such variable conditions as the state of the human frame generally, and the particular condition of those organs of the body most directly concerned in supporting the work of the larynx may happen to be in. It will save the student much time if, before he (or she) begins to study singing, some first acquaintance be formed with the physiological surroundings of the human voice, and it is worse than useless to go to a master who teaches singing in blind ignorance of, and doubtless contempt for, these physiological principles. The student who has familiarized himself with the structure of the vocal organs will have made a much more intelligent progress in his art than the one who has not, and will be competent none the less readily to understand the instruction of a qualified master than to detect the shameful pretence and humbug of the quack.

=Board Teachers' Laryngitis--Clergyman's Sore Throat--Throat Exhaustion, etc.=--Among the greatest evils of this compet.i.tive teaching age is the mischief arising from the constant and at the same time injurious use of the voice. All who use the voice constantly must learn how to breathe, and _produce_ the voice. Failing that, serious mischief, which even the specialist of throat hospitals cannot cope with, must inevitably follow.

The only advice that can be given here is, immediately that voice exhaustion sets in, to consult not _a doctor_, but a throat or voice specialist. The best inst.i.tution in the world for throat troubles is the Throat Hospital, Golden Square, London, W.

EXERCISES.

This first exercise is a most useful one in the uniting of notes and in gaining facility. The student should at first practise it very slowly, mastering four bars at a time. Although I have divided it into fifteen examples, it is really but one exercise, with a minim rest between each phrase of four bars; and it is in this example form that I wish the student ultimately to sing it with the metronome, at say 76, taking breath _only_ at the rest-mark, and making the _crescendo_--not, be it observed, by forcing the tone and breath, but by a gradual pressing down of the breath.[2]

[2] The Exercise should be a crescendo from piano to forte.

[Music: Ex. 1.]

[Music: A.]

[Music: B.]

[Music: C.]

[Music: D.]

[Music: E.]

[Music: F.]

[Music: G.]