The Psychology of Singing Part 6

MECHANICAL VOCAL MANAGEMENT AS THE BASIS OF VOICE CULTURE

Notwithstanding the wide diversity of opinion on most topics connected with vocal training, there is one point on which all authorities agree.

This is, that the voice must be consciously controlled. In all the conflict of methods, this basic mechanical idea has never been attacked.

On the contrary, it is everywhere accepted without question as the foundation of all instruction in singing.

The idea of mechanical vocal control is also the starting-point of all a.n.a.lysis of the vocal action. Every investigator of the voice approaches the subject in the belief that an exact determination of the muscular operations of correct singing would lead to an absolutely infallible method of training voices. The problem of tone-production is identical, in the common belief, with the problem of the vocal action. Three sciences, anatomy, mechanics, and acoustics, are believed to hold somewhere among them the secret of the voice. All investigation has therefore been carried on along the lines of these three sciences. It is on this account that modern methods are called scientific, and not because they are in conformity with general scientific principles.

Before taking up the question whether the idea of mechanical vocal control is well grounded in fact and reason, let us consider further the influence of this idea on modern methods of instruction.

All instruction in singing is intended to teach the student to "do something," in order that the vocal organs may be directly caused to act properly. No matter how vague and indefinite the directions given, their aim is always to inform the student what to do, how to guide the vocal action. Even when used in a purely empirical way the directions for open throat, etc., are always given in this spirit. That these directions are utterly meaningless in the mechanical sense does not alter the fact; n.o.body has ever found any other connection in which they would take on a definite meaning.

In this regard the empirical directions are no more unsatisfactory than the mechanical doctrines of the accepted Vocal Science. It was pointed out that no means has ever been discovered for applying several of these doctrines in practical instruction. The rules contained in the theoretical works on Voice Culture for managing the registers and vocal-cord action, for forward emission of tone, and for control of the resonance cavities, are of no value whatever to the student of singing.

It will be asked, how does the conscientious teacher get over this difficulty? How are the deficiencies of the scientific doctrines supplied in instruction? In many cases the deficiency is absolutely ignored. The student is simply told to "make the vocal cords act properly," to "direct the tone against the roof of the mouth," to "bring in the nasal resonance," etc., and no further help is given. That this works severe hardship on the earnest student need hardly be mentioned.

Other teachers, as has been explained, rely on a description of the singer's sensations, and on the use of several vowel and consonant combinations, for imparting control of resonance and forward emission.

These means are purely empirical makeshifts, and as a rule they are not sanctioned by the consistent advocates of scientific instruction. But for acquiring control of the correct vocal-cord action, absolutely no means has ever been found, scientific or empirical. On this, the surpa.s.singly important feature of the vocal action, Vocal Science has thrown no light whatever.

It was also remarked that the strictly scientific idea of Voice Culture is very seldom carried out, to its logical conclusion, in actual instruction. One important reason for this is that a student seldom remains long enough with a teacher to cover the entire ground of mechanical instruction. Students move about from teacher to teacher. In the cla.s.s of any one master the proportion of pupils who have never had any previous instruction does not average one in ten. To carry the idea of averages further, the length of time a student takes lessons of one instructor may be set down as seldom more than two years.

How long it would take to apply the complete system of mechanical vocal training has never been precisely stated. Cases are on record of pupils being kept on mechanical drills and elementary exercises for four years, without being allowed to attempt a simple song. But these instances are extremely rare. It seldom happens that a teacher can hold a pupil long enough to carry out the complete course of mechanical study.

There are however many teachers who try conscientiously to have their pupils pay attention to all the mechanical features of the vocal action.

What it would mean to sing in this way can only be imagined. Before starting a tone, the singer would prepare by taking a breath in some prescribed way, and retaining this breath an instant by holding the chest walls out. Meanwhile the lips, tongue, soft palate, and larynx would each be placed in the correct position. The jaw would be held relaxed, and the throat loose and open. The expected tone would be felt, in imagination, high up in the head, to a.s.sure the proper influence of nasal resonance. The vocal cords would be held in readiness to respond instantly to the mental command, so as to a.s.sure the exact state of tension necessary. Preparation would be made to direct the "column of vocalized breath," through the pharynx and mouth, to the proper point on the hard palate. Then, at the same precise instant, the breath would be started, and the vocal cords would be brought together, but without touching.

So the tone would be begun. And all this would have to be done, with due attention to each operation, in the fraction of a second preceding the starting of the tone! The downright absurdity of this idea of singing must be apparent to any one who has ever listened to a great singer.

Under the influence of the idea of mechanical vocal management there is little room for choice between voice culture along empirical lines, and the accepted type of scientific instruction. Modern empirical voice training has little practical value. Describing to the student the sensations which ought to be felt, does not help in the least. Even if the sensations felt by the singer, in producing tone correctly, are entirely different from those accompanying any incorrect use of the voice, nothing can be learned thereby. The sensations of correct singing cannot be felt until the voice is correctly used. An effect cannot produce its cause. Correct tone-production must be there to cause the sensations, or the sensations are not awakened at all. Nothing else can bring about the sensations of correct singing, but correct singing itself.

Further, these sensations cannot be known until they are actually experienced. No description is adequate to enable the student to feel them in imagination. And, finally, even if the sensations could be described with all vividness, imagining them would not influence the vocal organs in any way. This is true, whether the description is given empirically, or whether it is cited to explain a mechanical feature of the vocal action. Instruction based on the singer's sensations is absolutely valueless.

It would seem that modern methods contain very little of real worth. The investigation of the mechanical operations of the voice can hardly be said to have brought forth anything of definite value to the vocal teacher. But this is not the worst that can be said about the mechanical doctrines of tone-production. When critically examined, and submitted to a rigid scientific a.n.a.lysis, several of these doctrines are found to be erroneous in conception. These are the theories of breath-control, chest resonance, nasal resonance, and emission of tone. It will be observed that these doctrines comprise more than half of the materials of the accepted Vocal Science. Yet notwithstanding the fact that they are accepted without question by the great majority of vocal theorists as important elements of instruction in singing, each of these doctrines involves a distinct misconception of scientific principles. An examination of these doctrines is therefore the next subject to be undertaken.

CHAPTER II

THE FALLACY OF THE DOCTRINE OF BREATH-CONTROL

When Dr. Mandl advanced the statement that the laryngeal muscles are too weak to withstand the pressure of a powerful expiratory blast, the theory of the vocal action therein embodied met with immediate acceptance. This idea is so plausible that it appeals to the thoughtful investigator as self-evident, and seems to call for no proof. The doctrine of breath-control was at once adopted, by the most influential vocal scientists, as the basic principle of tone-production.

Curiously, neither Dr. Mandl, nor any other advocate of breath-control, seems to have read an article by Sir Charles Bell dealing with this same action, the closing of the glottis against a powerful exhalation. This paper, "On the Organs of the Human Voice," was read before a meeting of the London Philosophical Society on February 2, 1832.

Dr. Bell dispels all the mystery concerning the closure of the glottis, and the holding of the breath against a powerful contraction of the expiratory muscles. He points out that this action occurs in accordance with the law of the distribution of pressure in a fluid body, commonly known as Pascal's law of fluid pressures.

Pascal's law is stated as follows:--"Pressure exerted anywhere upon a ma.s.s of fluid is transmitted undiminished in all directions, and acts with equal force on all equal surfaces, and in a direction at right angles to those surfaces." (Atkinson's _Ganot's Physics_, 4th ed., New York, 1869.)

The hydraulic press furnishes the familiar ill.u.s.tration of this law. Two vertical cylinders, one many times larger than the other, are connected by a pipe. The cylinders are fitted with pistons. Both the cylinders, and the pipe connecting them, are filled with water, oil, air, or any other fluid; the fluid can pa.s.s freely from one cylinder to the other, through the connecting pipe. Suppose a horizontal section of the smaller cylinder to measure one square inch, that of the larger to be one hundred square inches. A weight of one pound on the smaller piston will balance a weight of one hundred pounds on the larger. If a downward pressure of one pound be exerted on the smaller piston, the larger piston will exert an upward pressure of one hundred pounds. Conversely, a downward pressure of one hundred pounds, exerted on the larger piston, will effect an upward pressure of only one pound on the smaller piston.

A type of the hydraulic press is presented by the chest cavity and the larynx, considered as one apparatus. This fact is ill.u.s.trated in the following quotation: "If a bladder full of water be connected with a narrow upright gla.s.s tube, heavy weights placed on the bladder will be able to uphold only a very small quant.i.ty of liquid in the tube, this arrangement being in fact a hydraulic press worked backwards. If the tube be shortened down so as to form simply the neck of the bladder, the total expulsive pressure exerted by the bladder upon the contents of the neck may seem to be very small when compared with the total pressure exerted over the walls of the bladder upon the whole contents." (_A Text Book of the Principles of Physics_, Alfred Daniell, London, 1884.)

That the glottis-closing muscles are too weak to withstand a powerful expiratory pressure is therefore an entirely erroneous statement. Owing to the small area of the under surfaces of the vocal cords, the air pressure against them is very small, in comparison with the total pressure exerted on the contents of the thorax by the expiratory contraction. The glottis-closing muscles are fully capable of withstanding this comparatively slight pressure. The doctrine of breath-control is therefore scientifically untenable. This doctrine has no place in Vocal Science.

As the basic doctrine of breath-control is unsound, the singer does not need any direct means for controlling the breath. The attempt to check the flow of the breath in any mechanical way is entirely uncalled for.

This being the case, it is hardly to be expected that the systems devised to meet this fancied need would stand the test of scientific examination. Each of these systems of breath-control, opposed muscular action and ventricular, is in fact found on a.n.a.lysis to embody a misconception of scientific principles.

_Opposed-Action Breath-Control_

A curious misapprehension of mechanical processes is contained in the doctrine of breath-control by opposed muscular action. This can best be pointed out by a consideration of the forces brought to bear on a single rib in the acts of inspiration and expiration. One set of muscles contract to raise this rib in inspiration, an opposed set, by their contraction, lower the rib for the act of expiration. In the opposed-action system of breath-control, the action of the rib-raising muscles is continued throughout the expiration, as a check upon the pull in the opposite direction of the rib-lowering muscles. Theoretically, the downward pull is "controlled" by the upward pull. To express this idea in figures, let the expiratory or downward pull on the rib be said to involve the expenditure of five units of strength. According to the theory of opposed-action breath-control, this downward pull would have to be opposed by a slightly less upward pull, say four units of strength.

Thus graphically presented, the fallacy of the "opposed-muscular" theory is clearly exposed. The rib is lowered with a degree of strength equal to the excess of the downward over the upward pull. If the downward pull equals five units of strength, and the upward pull four units, the rib is lowered with a pull equivalent to one unit of strength. Exactly the same effect would be obtained if the downward and upward pulls were equal respectively to twenty and nineteen units, or to two and one units. Further, the result would be the same if the downward pull involved the exertion of one unit of strength, and there was no upward pull whatever. In every case, the actual result is equivalent to the excess of the downward over the upward pull.

In the case of the expiratory pressure of five units of strength being "controlled" by an inspiratory contraction of four units, nine units of strength are exerted, and the same result could be obtained by the exertion of one unit. There is a clear waste of eight units of strength.

The power of the expiratory blast is just what it would be if one unit of strength were exerted in an "uncontrolled" expiration. The singer exerts just nine times as much strength as is necessary to effect the same result. This is why the practice of breath-control exercises is so extremely fatiguing.

So far as the effect of the expiratory blast on the vocal cords is concerned, "controlling" the breath has no influence whatever. The vocal cords respond to the effective air pressure; they are not affected in any way by the opposed contractions of the breath muscles.

"Opposed-muscular" breath-control is a sheer waste of time and effort.

Probably no particular harm has ever resulted to any singer's throat from the practice of breath-control exercises. But the attempt to hold back the breath has a very bad effect on the singer's delivery. The "breath-control" type of singer is never found in the ranks of the great artists. There is something utterly unnatural about this holding back of the breath, repugnant to every singer endowed with the right idea of forceful and dramatic delivery. The vast majority of the successful pupils of "breath-control" teachers abandon, very early in their careers, the tiresome attempt to hold back the breath. These singers yield, probably unconsciously, to the instinctive impulse to sing freely and without constraint.

But in the ranks of the minor concert and church singers are many who try conscientiously to obey the instructions of the "breath-control"

teachers. Singers of this type can always be recognized by a curious impression of hesitancy, or even timidity, conveyed by their tones. They seem afraid to deliver their phrases with vigor and energy; they do not "let their voices out." Frequently their voices are of excellent quality, and their singing is polished and refined. But these singers never give to the listener that sense of satisfaction which is felt on hearing a fine voice freely and generously delivered.

As for the particular fallacy contained in the theory of ventricular breath-control, that must be reserved for a later chapter. Suffice it to say here that this theory disregards the two basic mechanical principles of tone-production,--Pascal's law, and the law of the conservation of energy. The application of this latter physical law to the operations of the vocal organs is considered in Chapter VI of Part III.

CHAPTER III

THE FALLACIES OF FORWARD EMISSION, CHEST RESONANCE, AND NASAL RESONANCE

Sir Morell Mackenzie's a.n.a.lysis of the acoustic principle supposedly involved in "forward emission" has already been quoted. That this a.n.a.lysis involves a complete misunderstanding of the laws of acoustics need hardly be said. When stated in precise terms, the fallacy of the "forward emission" theory is evident:

"On issuing from the vocal cords the tone is directed in a curved path, around the back of the tongue. There the tone is straightened out, and made to impinge on the roof of the mouth at a precisely defined point.

From this point the tone is reflected, not directly back, as it should be, since the angles of incidence and reflection must be equal. Instead of this, the tone is reflected forward, out of the mouth, necessarily again taking a curved path, to avoid striking the front teeth."

Naturally, no muscular action has ever been defined for causing the tone to perform this remarkable feat.

The "forward emission" theory a.s.sumes the existence of a current of air, issuing from the vocal cords as a tone. In other words, the tone is supposed to consist of a stream of air, which can be voluntarily directed in the mouth, and aimed at some precise point on the roof of the mouth. This is an utter mistake.

There is no "column of vibrating air," or "stream of vocalized breath,"

in the mouth during tone-production. In the acoustic sense, the air in the mouth-pharynx is still air, not air in a current. The only motion which takes place in the air in this cavity is the oscillatory swing of the air particles. To imagine the directing of air vibrations in the mouth, as we direct a stream of water out of a hose, is absurd.

What then is the "forward tone"? There must be some reason for this well-known effect of a perfectly produced voice,--the impression made on the hearer that the tones are formed in the front of the mouth. There ought also to be some way for the singer to learn to produce tones of this character. A consideration of this feature of the vocal action is reserved for Chapter IV of part III.

_Chest Resonance_