Seed Thoughts for Singers Part 5

PREPARATION FOR TEACHING.

There are many who become teachers of singing without knowing what they are doing. No one who wishes to enter the profession should be kept out of it. There is room in it for many times the number engaged. It is to be earnestly recommended, however, that he who intends to become a teacher should decide beforehand what kind of work he intends to do, and after he has begun, he should bend his energy to make that branch successful. There are, at least, three distinct specialties of the singing teacher. First, rudimental music; second, voice culture; third, artistic singing. He who thinks he can excel in all has very great confidence in his own ability. Perhaps most of those who become teachers have no adequate knowledge of what the profession is, but enter into it for the purpose of making a living. After becoming a teacher he discovers that something is wrong, and the last person whom he thinks wrong is himself. Probably he has never decided on a specialty and properly prepared himself for that. Thus we see men who know something about music, teaching singing. They know nothing of practical voice culture, but attempt to teach singing. They ruin voices and wreck their own happiness. The first duty of a singing teacher is to study enough of anatomy and physiology to enable him to know exactly what parts of the body enter into voice culture, where they are and how they work. The dentist makes his specialty, filling teeth. But he would not be given his diploma if he did not know anatomy. His course in the medical college is the same as that of the physician. It differs in degree, but not in kind. Such should be the education, to a certain extent, of the vocal teacher. This education cannot be had from any books now published. Plain anatomy can be given in books, but the student should also see the parts described in the subject. He should then examine, so far as may be, the action of these parts in the living body. He must then make his own deductions. It may seem strange that that is necessary, but such is the subtlety of voice culture, that hardly two theorists agree in their deductions. Until some recognized body of men decides on definite things in voice culture, reducing one's theoretical study to practical uses must stand.

As important as such study, too, is the preparation of the artist mind.

One can teach voice culture mechanically and obtain good result, but be very deficient in the art of music. It is often said that "Artists are born, not made." That is a mistake. No man was ever an artist by birth.

Some men may be more appreciative of beauty than others but all men have enough within them to serve as the basis of artistic education. That education should be carried to a considerable distance before teaching is commenced. Almost as soon as the voice is capable of making any tone, music must be put into study. Appreciation of music itself as an art, must be a part of the good teacher's preparation. Knowledge of greater and better music comes from that appreciation with the years of experience in teaching. If the artist mind has not begun to a.s.sert itself before business is attempted, business will be likely to absorb the teacher, and he stands the chance of never being an artist. One who combines scientific knowledge of voice culture and an understanding of the art of music is well equipped for entering the profession of teaching vocal music. Only such should enter it. With that as foundation, the experience of each year will make him a better teacher.

Without that as foundation he will probably remain, vocally and musically, about where he was when he began. Financial success may come, but musical success never can.

EXPERIENCE.

A very good reason, but one which individuals can attend to, why we have so few artists among singers, is that so few take time to gain experience. There must be many appearances before audiences before the _amateurishness_ is worn off. Singers often think, when they hear a noted singer, that they could do just as well as that and perhaps better, and yet they cannot get professional engagements. It may all be true, that they can do just as well as the artist, but in appearance and self-command they may be deficient. Experience cannot come in a day or a season. If it could what a crowd of singers would become noted. It takes much time--years of time. One cannot safely feel that he has had experience enough to place himself among the professional singers until he has appeared at least fifty times. How many of our readers have done that? Many visit the large cities and seek engagements who have great talent and have the probability of complete success in them, but who have had so little proper experience that their first appearance in the large city, would be a failure. Managers of experience perceive this state of affairs and refuse to give engagements on that account. Gain that appearance necessary to the artist by singing before public audiences everywhere, at church festivals, benefit concerts, parlor receptions, college recitals, anywhere where an audience can be entertained. Study your influence over your audience and learn how to so express your art in your voice and singing that your audiences are your subjects. Concert after concert must pa.s.s before you know your own power in song. Year after year will go bye, before it is safe to approach the critical audiences of large cities.

BEFORE AN AUDIENCE.

When singing before an audience in a hall, do not look on the music. A glance at it may be made from time to time but keep the eyes off. A singer appears very ridiculous if he looks on the page. A song is a story told by the singer in the singing voice. It is not a lesson read from a book. The story cannot be well told if the singer has only half learned it. If he is confined to his notes he attracts attention to himself and that spoils art and the artist. It is best to learn by rote the music to be sung, and when it can be done, to leave the music in some place out of the hands. If it must be carried, have it as much out of the way as possible. A singer of much fame, spoiled his evening's work recently by fixing his eyes on his music all the time while singing. This may have been an exceptional evening, but if he does that all the time, he is no artist, in spite of his repute, and ought not to receive engagements even if he has a fine ba.s.s voice.

COME UP HIGHER.

The man makes the musician as does the musician make the man. The rules of life which make men better make the musician better. There is a constant call in life to "Come up higher!" He who has lost the sound of that call is at a standstill, or rather, since there can be no stopping, he is sinking from the place once gained. Get within the sound of that call and heed it. There are no heights so great, but that they form the base to heights beyond. Music is so rich and full that no man can understand it all and no man has reached the highest place in it. The call ever sounds "Come up higher!" Music fills all which contains life, and uses all materials for its transmittance. The air, a subtle ether, is filled with a still finer ether, on which sound travels. That ether is filled with vibration. It is ever present. The connection with it can be made at any moment and the musical thought can be sent off into unlimited s.p.a.ce, to influence all within that s.p.a.ce. To be able to use this at its best the thought which is musical must be raised to divine thought. The possibilities in that are boundless.

Musicians cannot stop. The year may roll around and one may feel himself doing a great and good work, doing a work which seems to be well rounded; a work which leaves the musician, as the end of a season rolls around, exhausted from labor, and ready to say that the end of his work is reached, that he has gone to his greatest height. Not so, however.

Next year is a height to be ascended, and that of the present moment is but the base of that greater height. Music calls "Come up higher."

CRUDE VOICES EXPRESS NO EMOTION.

An untrained voice can never have correct emotion expressed in it. The voice responds as truly to the thought which pa.s.ses in the mind as does the leaf bend before the breeze. The singing voice is an extension of the speaking voice, and since nature planned only for speaking purposes, in order to have the organs which produce voice in proper condition for singing, there must be that degree of physical drill which makes the vocal apparatus able to convey in proper pitch and quality, the thought of the mind. The untrained voice will not do this. The throat becomes rigid, the pharynx strained and in-elastic. Emotion cannot be expressed when the vocal apparatus is thus held. One may have a beautiful natural voice and he may arouse the enthusiasm of certain of his hearers, but he cannot, without careful training do a t.i.the of what he is able to do.

That is sufficient reason for teachers to urge all who sing at all to place themselves under the best of tuition. All who talk pleasantly have the power to sing. The exceptions to the rule are so few that they amount to but a very small percentage. But all who do sing, if they would rightly use their gift should train themselves to do whatever they do, well.

CHAPTER VII.

AMBITION.

"Character is the internal life of a piece, engendered by the composer; sentiment is the external expression, given to the work by the interpreter. Character is an intrinsic positive part of a composition; sentiment an extrinsic, personal matter only."

=Christiani.=

VII.

AMBITION.

The very first question to ask of an applicant for vocal lessons is "what is your ambition?" By that, I mean, the teacher should know at the very start what purpose the pupil has in study, or if he has any purpose. The intention of the pupil should make a difference in the consideration given to the pupil in the matter of voice trial. If an applicant says he wishes to sing in Opera and the teacher sees that he lacks all capacity for such high position, he should frankly say so; if the applicant says that he wishes to learn to sing well that he may have pleasure in his own singing and give pleasure to his friends, that should be taken into account. Such person, provided he has any voice and musical instinct, can reach the height of his ambition and his study should be encouraged.

The first visit of an applicant to a teacher is a most important event in the life of the pupil. The importance of it is not appreciated. To very many persons it marks a change--a veritable conversion--in their lives. A mistake made by the teacher with regard to the future of the pupil is a serious matter. That visit gives the teacher his chance to plan his treatment and is akin to the diagnosis of the physician. The pupil places himself in the hands of the teacher as thoroughly as does the patient give himself over to the physician. The case a.s.sumes importance from this fact. Responsibility by the teacher is a.s.sumed. The musical future of the pupil is in his hands. It may be for the good of the pupil that he found his particular teacher and it may not be.

"What is your ambition regarding your music?" is the safeguard of the teacher. Knowing that, he can have a basis for examination and a ground for promises to the student. In the large cities, teachers are troubled with that which would be very amusing were it not for the sad part of it. Students of music come from the smaller cities and from the country and begin a series of visits to the different studios for the purpose of selecting a teacher. Everyone seems to recommend a new teacher and the student calls upon all. The result is surely disastrous to the pupil. He or she is left in doubt as to whom to go for study. The different promises made, the compliments paid, the hopes of ambition raised, are all enough to unbalance the judgment of older heads than those who usually seek the music studio. When a teacher is finally selected, it takes a long time to settle down into confidence in him so that the best result can be obtained. I said it would be amusing to the teacher were it not sad. I have known persons to boast that they had had "as good as a lesson" from the different teachers visited. I even know men who are teaching voice culture and singing in this city who claim to teach certain methods, and all they know of those methods is what they picked up in the interviews which they pretended were to see about arranging for study. As if any man of experience would give (or could give) his instruction in a talk of ten or fifteen minutes! The men who have ways of teaching which are so good that they bring valuable renown are too shrewd to be caught in any such way as that. What shall be done about such persons? Nothing. Let them alone. They die out after a time. Were there any way to prevent other people from following their example it would be a most excellent thing. But as society is made up, as long as the flash of a piece of gla.s.s pa.s.ses for the sparkle of a diamond just so long will the cheater spring up, flourish and disappear.

A question more to the point is "How can the racing from studio to studio be stopped?" I frankly say that I do not know. Generally I avoid bringing up a subject which has not in my own mind reached solution. I can suggest remedies if not cures.

By writing about it some little help may be given the student. The remedy--nearly all city teachers have some special branch, a branch in which they obtain satisfactory results. One succeeds in Italian Opera, another in Voice Culture; one in Rudimental Study, another in Oratorio; one has many pupils in church choirs, another forms delightful cla.s.ses of society pupils. "What is your ambition?" Find that teacher whose general reputation is in that which you want to do and be, and commence study with him. A very few lessons with that teacher--say ten lessons--will tell the student whether he is the right teacher or not.

Probably the teacher will prove satisfactory. If not, by that time--acquaintance with the teachers of the city will permit more certain selection, the second time. "But," say you, "those ten lessons have cost something." True, but they have not cost half as much as it costs to settle an unbalanced mind.

To return to the first question, what is your ambition? Has it ever occurred to you to wonder what becomes of all the music students--how many are there? Who can tell? One teacher boasts of having given four hundred vocal lessons last month; another caps that by claiming five hundred. Allow for all exaggeration, and say that these teachers (and thirty or forty others had as many students at work) had all they could do. They had from thirty to fifty pupils under study. What is to become of them, and how many ever amount to anything? The teacher has responsibility. He who receives every person who applies, especially if he tells him what a good voice he has and how well he can sing after a term or two, borders very nearly upon the scoundrel, or else the fool.

If he thinks he can make a singer out of every person who comes to him he is the fool; if he flatters a person whom he knows can never become a singer, he is a scoundrel. He who is wise will find out the desire of the applicant and tell him frankly whether or not he can reach the desired goal. If he thinks it cannot be done there is no objection to his pointing out some other channel of musical usefulness and advising him to enter that. If the applicant has no apt.i.tude for the desired study the only honest course is to tell him not to waste time and money on his voice. Any conscientious teacher feels a shudder sometimes over the responsibility of his position when the thought comes up "what becomes of all the music students?" We can ask "what becomes of the pins?" and have the question answered. The material of which they are made can be supplied anew. "So," say you, "will new pupils come." But those who are now studying must be made something of. The day they begin study a new world opens to them. Is it for good or ill? That remains for the teacher to solve. Every true teacher improves every pupil who studies with him. Some of them will become good singers and fine musicians. These are the ones most talked about and the teacher finds pleasure in the added reputation which they bring, but the others have the right to demand that they shall be raised to a higher plain of life because of their music lessons.

What becomes of all the ambitious youths and maidens who study singing?

Only one or two now and then amount to very much in professional life.

Thousands attempt to be "Patties," but who has reached her height? Some one is at fault that this is so. Whatever belongs to the singing teacher, let him a.s.sume, but let him keep in mind that there is something to guard in the future. Over in Milan, ten years or more ago, while a student there, I met a great many Americans who like myself were there for study. I was told that at least two thousand American young ladies were there. Probably more than half of them expected to become successful singers in grand opera. How many successful singers in grand opera have appeared during the last ten years? A very few surely. What has become of the "ninety and nine?" Of that, say nothing. I saw the wretched lives they were leading at Milan--most of them--and advised, nay, begged, that they would go home to America and do anything for a living if they must work, rather than to stay there. Taking in washing would be much more enn.o.bling than what some of them were doing. Whose fault was it that so many were there, and that so many are there all the time? Teachers of singing here at home must sooner or later realize that they did it. How, when, or for what purpose? Well, much might be said which will not be. Had an honest expression of the belief regarding the possibility of gratifying the original ambition been given, very much of the wrong done could have been avoided.

One of the reasons why many people try to learn to sing is because some one has urged them to do so. The person who arouses the interest in another does a necessary act, and yet there should be a good degree of caution used in the matter. This article will be read by thousands who are now students, and as the aim of the magazine is to educate, let us see what word can be formed in the idea of this paragraph, which will make students better able to use judgment in inducing others to study.

Do not cease in the efforts to bring others into musical work, but let your effort be tempered with discretion. When you hear a person sing who evidently enjoys it, whose face beams with pleasure, and whose voice pleases her hearers; when, in a word, you hear one who has a voice, and has intelligence enough to understand himself and his music, then learn if he has given serious study to music. If not, urge him to see a master at once. Do not, however, when you hear a person labor through a song, with act painful to himself and everybody else, urge him to go a teacher, "and learn how."

Well, reader, "What is _your_ ambition?" Have you any? If not, get one pretty soon. I would say that before another sun sets, you should have a settled purpose in your vocal study and follow that purpose to a definite end. That matter settled you will do more than ever before. It is a matter which _you_ must settle. Others may suggest and advise, but you must decide it, yourself. I would not continue study without a fixed purpose. A poor purpose is better than none. Shall I tell you of some of the ambitions which students have, and say a word about them? Perhaps you will get a useful idea from that. The best use of lessons in music is that you may know music and how to use it for pleasure wherever you may be placed. This means that the study should be for education itself and not for the financial return which the study may bring. Study for the culture of a beautiful art--for the improvement of the mind, for the refinement which comes with a.s.sociating with that which is pure. When one tells a teacher that this is his ambition, he will in many cases find that the teacher wishes him to work for something besides. A church choir is something of that sort. There is no reason why one should not have other ambitions, but the highest ambition which one can have is to make himself a musician of the highest and best kind. The whole journey toward becoming such is pleasant. Whoever goes but one mile along the road has his reward, and each additional mile brings its additional reward. Anyone can have this ambition in his study, and he who is most faithful and has the most intelligence will make the most progress and do the best in a given time. People who have little or none of that which is called musical genius can so develop that talent which they possess that they will be accounted musical. Those who have more can do almost anything. The cla.s.s of persons who study with this ambition is larger, proportionately, in small cities than it is in the large ones.

It is a fact that people are, in many small cities, better educated in music in which they can partic.i.p.ate individually, than are the people of large cities. The students enter for long periods of study and follow those studies which do them the most good. With them the ambition to be musical and to have a good musical education is upper-most in mind. It is the best ambition to have. Even if no other use is made of the study, that education well repays one for all the time and money devoted to it. The choicest moments of life are while directly partic.i.p.ating in music, or while engaged in that of which music is the accompaniment. Our a.s.sociation with friends in their homes and in our own is sweetened by music; our tired brains are rested at the concert, the opera, and the theatre; our seasons of deepest devotion and greatest spiritual delight, when we are at the house of worship are made more holy because the sacred words are beautified by music. Every act which can be looked back upon even to the child days, when the little songs of the school children were ours, has its embellishment of music. Whatever we do to increase our appreciation of music, to make us better able to make music, and to add to the charm of life of our own circle, is profitable.

The good of it comes to us every day, and in addition it prepares us the better for that higher life to which we are all hastening, because it makes more beautiful the soul. The ambition to study for music itself is, then, the best ambition to have.

The majority of those who present themselves to the city teacher wish to sing in church choirs. The reason is plain. There is some chance for financial return. There is also on the part of many a certain sense of duty to the church which they wish to fulfil by partic.i.p.ating in its services. There are many things to be said on this whole subject and when such things are spoken it should be with no uncertain tone. The ambition to become a church singer should be held within certain bounds.

The path to become such and the gratification which comes from the work accomplished are not such as most persons think they are. Of course the study to become able to sing in a church choir is altogether delightful.

To prepare the voice so that it can be used as a means of interpreting the best church music is the best part of voice culture. Tones of good power, pure quality, evenness, and fair range, are absolutely necessary.

No greater pleasure comes into voice culture than the training to be able to do just such work. Then the music of the church is satisfying.

There is more to it than the light music of the parlor or light opera, more that appeals to deep feeling, more with which we can arouse our hearers.

With regard to the wish to serve the church by our vocal powers, it may be said that while that is laudable, it is one that disappears very soon after one has the chance to put it into practical use. The wish is a bit of sentiment, and there is nothing like the practical to dispel sentiment. This brings us to a consideration of the choir and whether the ambition to become a choir singer is worth anything or not.

In small places the choir singer is at once a person of some note. That note which the position gives has a value. The country choir becomes a sociable club (although composed of only four persons) and the friendship which each has for the other is a thing to be prized. Country choirs generally practise enough to have the voices blend and to have the singing good. There is some pleasure in singing in such a choir. But does it pay, financially? In some places it does, and he who is in a paying position in a country choir has the best place of any one in choir work. How many, though, of those who go to the teacher with the ambition to study for the choir would feel contented to take such a place as that? No, they want a place in the city choir, and at large salary. Have they ability enough to fill such position, and could they hold the position if they obtained it? The compet.i.tion for choir positions in a city like New York is very great indeed. Let it be known that a vacancy is to occur in any church choir and hundreds if not thousands of applications are made. Only one person can have the place.

The work of selecting one person out of the many applicants begins. It is at this point that the student feels the sentiment regarding singing in church begin to disappear. She feels that she is not being given a fair chance. She supposes that that which would give her the position is good voice, good singing and a good character. As sad as it may seem, she is decidedly wrong.

That which is wanted in most city churches is "style" in body and dress, a comely face and vivacious manner. If the applicant lacks these she may as well not try, no matter what her musical acquirements may be. In fact, there are many singers in church choirs of New York and Brooklyn who haven't the least claim to be singers at all. Then regarding pay for choir singers in these cities. There is very little money in it.

Salaries have been reduced and there are always those content to take the places at the lower figure. The majority of singers in these cities get less than $300 a year. Deduct from that the cost of car-fares, extra clothing, and the little incidentals which count up, and not one half of that amount remains as income. That does not pay to work for. The time and labor used in earning it could be better used in something else. A better money return could be had from that time in a dozen different things by any person who has ability enough to become a singer in a city church on salary. Nor is the possibility of obtaining a greater salary in later years to be taken into account. If an increased salary does come increased expenses come with it. Even if, after years of waiting, the student makes herself a fine singer and is competent to take a high place, she finds herself set one side for a fresh face and a new voice.

That is a picture which is not pleasant; but which is true to life.

One may ask if there is no work in choir or church for which one can prepare himself and which will be pleasant and desirable. Yes, in two directions;--first, when one is so trained that she is very desirable as a solo singer--one who can sing sacred songs well--she can find a position in which she has this and no other work to do. She then avoids compet.i.tion, because her fame attracts the church to her. She has no long and trying rehearsals and she can be an artist as well as a church singer. But how many years of study this takes! Is your ambition equal to it? The second line of pleasureable work is, that of the choir-leader. Unhappily for singers, in most of the city churches the organist is made choir-leader; even in the vested choirs of the Episcopal church. This is not well for the choir or the church, but we must take things as we find them. When one is competent to superintend the music of the church and can find a choir to take charge of he is a happy singer. These two positions--of professional choir soloist and of choir-director--are the only satisfactory ones in the large cities.

In connection with this it may be said that if one wishes to take a prominent position as concert singer it is almost necessary that he should hold a church choir position. At least he needs that until his fame as a concert singer is great. Managers of concerts in various sections of the country ask the very first thing, "Where does he sing?"

If he is connected with a city choir he is placed. The choir gives him position.