The Head Voice and Other Problems Part 9

Next, study the poem until it creates the mood. Read it, not once, but many times. Imbibe not only its intellectual but its emotional content.

It is the office of poetry to stimulate the imagination. It is under the influence of this stimulus that songs are written, and under its influence they must be sung. Hugo Wolf said that he always studied the poem until it composed the music. This means that he studied the poem until he was so filled with its mood that the proper music came of itself. Fix in mind the princ.i.p.al points in the poem and the order in which they occur. There usually is development of some kind in a poem.

Learn what it is. Notice which part of the poem contains the great or central idea. Read it aloud. Determine its natural accent. The singing phrase grows out of the spoken phrase. Singing is elongated, or sustained, speech, but it should be none the less intelligent by reason of this.

Now adapt the words to the music. If the music has grown out of the words as it should, it will follow the development of the poem and give it additional strength.

By this time one should be in the mood of the song, and he should not emerge from it until the song is finished. If one is filled with the spirit of the song, is sincere and earnest, and is filled with a desire to express what is beautiful and good he will not sing badly even if his voice be ordinary.

The composer may do much toward creating the mood for both singer and listener by means of his introduction. The introduction to a song is not merely to give the singer the pitch. It is for the purpose of creating the mood. It may be reminiscent of the princ.i.p.al theme of the song, it may consist of some fragment of the accompaniment, or any other materials which will tend to create the desired mood.

In the introduction to _Rhein-gold_ where Wagner wishes to portray a certain elemental condition he uses 136 measures of the chord of E flat major.

In _Feldeinsamkeit_ (The Quiet of the Fields) where the mood is such as would come to one lying in the deep gra.s.s in the field watching "the fair white clouds ride slowly overhead," in a state of complete inaction, Brahms establishes the mood by this treatment of the major chord.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Figure K]

In _Der Wanderer_ (The Wanderer) Schubert uses this musical figure to indicate the ceaseless motion of one condemned to endless wandering.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Figure L]

In _The Maid of the Mill_ cycle where the young miller discovers the brook Schubert uses this figure, which gives a clear picture of a chattering brooklet. This figure continues throughout the song.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Figure M]

In the song _On the Journey Home_, which describes the feelings of one who, after a long absence returns to view the "vales and mountains" of his youth, Grieg, with two measures of introduction grips us with a mood from which we cannot escape.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Figure N]

But one of the most striking examples of the operation of genius is Schubert's introduction to _Am Meer_ (By the Sea). Here with two chords he tells us the story of the lonely seash.o.r.e, the deserted hut, the tears, the dull sound of breakers dying on a distant sh.o.r.e, and all around the unfathomable mystery of the mighty deep.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Figure O]

Cla.s.sic song literature is full of interesting examples of this kind. If we learn how to study the works of these great ones of the earth we shall see how unerring is the touch of genius, and some day we shall awaken to see that these kings and prophets are our friends, and that they possess the supreme virtue of constancy.

IX

SCIENTIFIC VOICE PRODUCTION

The immediate effect of the laryngoscope was to throw the whole subject into almost hopeless confusion by the introduction of all sorts of errors of observation, each claiming to be founded on ocular proof, and believed in with corresponding obstinacy.

Sir Morell Mackenzie. _Hygiene of the Vocal Organs_.

He who studies the voice in a physics laboratory naturally considers himself a scientific man, and those teachers who make his discoveries the basis of their teaching believe they are teaching the science of voice production. The scientist says: "Have I not studied the voice in action? I have seen, therefore I know." But the element of uncertainty in what he has seen makes his knowledge little more than speculative.

But suppose he is sure of what he has seen. Of what importance is it? He has seen a vocal organ in the act of producing tone under trying conditions, for one under the conditions necessary to the use of the laryngoscope is not at all likely to reach his own standard of tone production.

Scientists would have us believe that the action of the vocal mechanism is the same in all voices. This claim must necessarily be made or there would be no such thing as scientific production. But of all the vocal vagaries advanced this has the least foundation in fact.

Scientifically and artistically speaking there is no such thing at present as perfect voice, and there will be no such thing until man manifests a perfect mind. The best examples of voice production are not altogether perfect, and most of them are still a considerable distance from perfection. It is with these imperfect models that the scientific man in dealing and on which he bases his deductions.

Be it right or wrong singers do not all use the vocal mechanism in the same way. I have in mind two well known contraltos one of whom carried her chest register up to A, and even to B flat occasionally. The other carried her middle register down to the bottom of the voice. Can the tenor who carries his chest voice up to [Ill.u.s.tration: Figure P] be said to use his voice in the same way as one who begins his head voice at [Ill.u.s.tration: Figure Q]?

In the examination of a hundred voices selected at random all manner of different things would be observed. Perhaps this is responsible for the great diversity of opinion among scientists, for it must be said that so far there is little upon which they agree. Before absolute laws governing any organ or instrument can be formulated the nature of the instrument must be known. The scientists have never come anywhere near an agreement as to what kind of an instrument man has in his throat.

They have not decided whether it is a stringed instrument, a bra.s.s, a single or double reed, and these things are vital in establishing a scientific basis of procedure. Not knowing what the instrument is, it is not strange that we are not of one mind as to how it should be played upon.

If we are to know the science of voice production we must first know the mechanism and action of the vocal organ. This instrument, perhaps an inch and a half in length, produces tones covering a compa.s.s, in rare instances, of three octaves. How does it do it? According to the books, in a variety of ways.

A majority of those voice teachers who believe in registers recognize three adjustments, chest middle, and upper, or chest medium, and head, but Dr. MacKenzie claims that in four hundred female voices which he examined he found in most cases the chest mechanism was used throughout.

Mancini (1774) says there are instances in which there is but one register used throughout.

Garcia says there are three mechanisms--chest, falsetto, and head, and makes them common to both s.e.xes.

Behnke divides the voice into five registers--lower and upper thick, lower and upper thin, and small.

Dr. Guilmette says that to hold that all of the tones of the voice depend on one mechanism or register is an acknowledgment of ignorance of vocal anatomy. He further declares that the vocal cords have nothing to do with tone--that it is produced by vibration of the mucous membrane of the trachea, larynx, pharynx, mouth; in fact, all of the mucous membrane of the upper half of the body.

When it comes to the falsetto voice, that scarehead to so many people who have no idea what it is, but are morally sure it is wicked and unG.o.dly, the scientists give their imaginations carte blanche. Dr.

Mackenzie, who says there are but two mechanisms, the long and short reed, says the falsetto is produced by the short reed.

Lehfeldt and Muller hold that falsetto is produced by the vibrations of the inner edges or mucous covering of the vocal cords, the body of the cords being relaxed.

Mr. Lunn feels sure that the true vocal cords are not involved in falsetto, that voice being produced by the false vocal cords.

Mantels says that in the falsetto voice the vocal cords do not produce pitch, that the quality and mechanism are both that of the flute, that the cords set the air in vibration and the different tones are made by alterations in the length of the tube.

Davidson Palmer says that the falsetto is the remnant of the boy's voice which has deteriorated through lack of use, but which is the correct mechanism to be used throughout the tenor voice.

Mr. Chater argues along the same lines as Mr. Mantels except that he makes the instrument belong to the clarinet or oboe cla.s.s. Others believe the vocal cords act as the lips do in playing a bra.s.s instrument.

But the action of the vocal cords is but the first part of the unscientific controversy. What takes place above the vocal cords is equally mystifying. The offices of the pharynx, the mouth, the nasal cavities, the entire structure of the head in fact, are rich in uncertainties.

Some think the cavities of the pharynx and head are involved acoustically and in some way enlarge, refine and purify the tone, but one famous man says the head has nothing whatever to do with it. Another gentleman of international reputation says the nose is the most important factor in singing. If your nasal cavities are right you can sing, otherwise you cannot.

And so this verbal rambling continues; so the search for mind in matter goes on, with a seriousness scarcely equalled in any other line of strife. There is nothing more certain to permanently bewilder a vocal student than to deluge him with pseudo-scientific twaddle about the voice. And this for the simple reason that he comes to learn to sing, not for a course in anatomy.

What is scientific voice production? Books without number have been written with the openly expressed intention to give a clear exposition of the subject, but the seeker for a scientific method soon finds himself in a maze of conflicting human opinions from which he cannot extricate himself.

We are told with much unction and warmth that science means to know.

That it is a knowledge of principles or causes, ascertained truths or facts. A scientific voice teacher then must know something. What must he know? Books on scientific voice production usually begin with a picture of the larynx, each part of which is labeled with a Greek word sometimes longer than the thing itself. It then proceeds to tell the unction of each muscle and cartilage and the part it plays in tone production. Now if this is scientific, and if science is exact knowledge, and this exact knowledge is the basis of scientific voice teaching, then every one who has a perfect knowledge of these facts about the voice, must in the eternal and invariable nature of facts be a perfect voice teacher, and every one of these perfect voice teachers must teach in exactly the same way and produce exactly the same results. Does history support this argument? Quite the reverse.

There is a science of acoustics, and in this science one may learn all about tones, vibrating bodies, vibrating strings, vibrating cavities, simple, compound and complex vibrations. Will this knowledge make him a scientific voice teacher? When he has learned all of this he has not yet begun to prepare for voice teaching. There is no record of a great voice teacher having been trained in a physics laboratory.

It is possible to a.n.a.lyze a tone and learn how fundamental and upper partials are combined and how these combinations affect quality. Does this const.i.tute scientific voice production? This knowledge may all be gained from the various hand books on acoustics. Has any one the hardihood to a.s.sert that such knowledge prepares one for the responsible work of training voices? One may know all of this and still be as ignorant of voice training as a Hottentot is of Calvinism.

Further, who shall decide which particular combination of fundamental and upper partials const.i.tutes the perfect singing tone? If a tone is produced and we say, there is the perfect tone, all it proves is that it corresponds to our mental concept of tone. It satisfies our ear, which is another term for our taste.