The Voice Part 2

How long should the breath be retained before emission? There can be no hard and fast rule. It is a matter of circ.u.mstance entirely, and it certainly is detrimental to postpone the next inspiration to the last moment before the next note has to be intoned or the next phrase started. Every opportune rest should be utilized for inspiration, and, if possible, the breath should be inhaled a second or two before the note or phrase to be sung, and the breath retained until the crucial moment. Then breath and song together should float out in a steady stream. The result will be pure, full, resonant tone. A _pianissimo_ upon a full breath is like the _pianissimo_ of a hundred violins, which is a hundred times finer than that of a single instrument, and so rich in quality that it carries much further. It is the stage-whisper of music.

This pause and the steadiness produced by it probably const.i.tute what the old Italian masters of singing had in mind when they laid down for their pupils the rule "filar il tuono" or "spin the tone," in other words, the practice of emitting the breath just sufficiently to produce a whisper and then convert it into a delicate and exquisite tone--a mere filament of music. Even in rapid pa.s.sages which succeed each other at very brief intervals and such as frequently occur in the Italian arias, it is possible to replenish the breath in such a way that some pause, however brief, can be made between inspiration and expiration. Watch Melba singing the Mad Scene from _Lucia_, Tetrazzini, the Shadow Song from _Dinorah_, or Sembrich, the music of the Queen of the Night in the _Magic Flute_, and you will observe that they replenish the original intake of breath with half-breaths, a practice which enables them at every opportunity to make the required pause before breath-emission.

Moreover, it always allows of a reserve quant.i.ty of air being retained in the lungs. That sense of unwasted resource, the feeling so important to convey to the audience that, much as the singer has accomplished, the limit of his capacity has by no means been reached, and that, like a great commander, he has his forces well in hand, is holding back his reserves and does not expect to launch them into action at all, can be created only by perfect control of the air-column; and that control of breath is gained best by a pause, if only for a fraction of a second, between inspiration and expiration.

Moreover, holding the breath for a little while before expiration is conducive to good health, a condition, needless to say, which creates confidence and buoyancy in the singer and adds greatly to the efficiency of his voice and the effectiveness of his performance. Proper breathing is a cleaning process for the interior of the body. It cleanses the residual air, the air that remains in the lungs after each respiration; and it does much more. Air enters the lungs as oxygen; it comes out as carbonic acid, an impure gas created by the impurities of the body. The process of breathing dispatches the blood on a cleansing process through the whole body, and, while traveling through this, it collects all the poisonous gases and carries them back to the lungs to be emitted with expiration. By holding the breath we prolong this process, make it more thorough, and correspondingly free the body of more impurities. From the cla.s.sic ages down physicians have advocated retaining the breath for a little while after inspiration as an aid to general health, and the taking and holding of a full breath has been compared with opening doors and windows of a house for ventilation.

Sir Morell Mackenzie emphasizes this purifying function of respiration in his book on the "Hygiene of the Vocal Organs." It consists, as he says, essentially in an exchange of gases between the blood and the air, wherein the former yields up some of the waste matters of the system in the form of carbonic acid, receiving in return a fresh supply of oxygen.

It is evident from this how important it is to have a sufficient supply of pure air, air which contains its due proportion of oxygen to renovate the blood. A room in which a number of people are sitting soon becomes close if the windows and doors are kept shut. This indicates that the oxygen in the air is exhausted, its place being taken by carbonic acid exhaled from the lungs of the a.s.sembly, so that the purification of the blood must necessarily become more and more imperfect.

"Besides their princ.i.p.al function of purifying the blood," writes Sir Morell Mackenzie, "the lungs are the bellows of the vocal instrument.

They propel a current of air up the windpipe to the narrow c.h.i.n.k of the larynx, which throws the membranous edges or lips (vocal cords) of that organ into vibration, and thereby produces sound. Through this small c.h.i.n.k, the air escaping from the lungs is forced out gradually in a thin stream, which is compressed, so to speak, between the edges of the cords that form the opening, technically called the glottis, through which it pa.s.ses. The arrangement is typical of the economical workmanship of nature. The widest possible entrance is prepared for the air which is taken into the lungs, as the freest ventilation of their whole mucous surface is necessary. When the air has been fully utilized for that purpose it is, if need be, put to a new use on its way out for the production of voice, and in that case it is carefully husbanded and allowed to escape in severely regulated measure, every particle of it being made to render its exact equivalent in force to work the vocal mill-wheel." Thus again is ill.u.s.trated the close a.n.a.logy between vocal art and physical law, and further evidence given of the value of a physiological method of voice-production as opposed to those methods that are purely empirical. In fact when it is considered that speech is Nature's method of communication and that song is speech vitalized by musical tone, it would seem as if song were Nature's art and, therefore, more than any other based on Nature's laws.

No effort is involved in holding the breath. The pause before emission is accomplished without any internal muscular struggle, and without any constriction of the larynx. Some writers lay down the rule that after inhaling, the singer should retain the breath by closing the vocal cords. The only objection to laying down this rule is that it is apt to make the pupil perform consciously an act that is so nearly voluntary as to be unconscious. It inclines the pupil to make an effort when effort is unnecessary. Retain the breath and you can feel the vocal cords close in consequence, and as if of their own accord, and open again with the act of emission. It is all voluntary, or nearly so. In fact, artistic breathing becomes after a while a fixed habit and is performed unconsciously. In the early days of practice the pupil may be apt consciously to perform each of the successive acts comprised in artistic breathing. Gradually, however, messages begin to travel so swiftly over the nerves which connect the will, mind, or artistic sense with the breathing-muscles that these seem to have become sensitive by antic.i.p.ation to what is required of them and voluntarily to bring themselves into play. The most subtle filament ever spun still is less fine than the line which divides the physiology of voice-production from the psychology of song and, by crossing which, song, the art of Nature, becomes second nature.

The singer having after inspiration retained the air in his lungs for a brief s.p.a.ce of time, also must maintain control of the stream of air when he begins to emit it. It should rise from the lungs through the bronchial tubes, the windpipe and the larynx into the mouth and flow out from between the lips like a river between smooth and even banks and bearing voice upon its current--a stream of melody. The more slowly, within reason, the singer allows his breath to flow out, the better; and this is as true of rapid phrases as of broad _cantabile_. Breath should be emitted as slowly in a long, rapid phrase as in a slow phrase of the same length. It is only when rapid phrases succeed each other so quickly that there is no time between them for a deliberate, full inspiration, that half-breaths have to be taken to replenish the air-supply. But a singer who thinks that rapid singing also involves rapid breathing should rid himself of that mistaken notion as quickly as possible. A choirmaster once told me that he had trained his boys so perfectly in breath-control that they could sustain a note for thirty seconds on one breath. For them to sing on one breath a rapid phrase lasting just as long, would be equally feasible. It is the slow emission of breath that gives to long, rapid phrases a smooth and limpid quality; and it is the taking of breath at inopportune moments, as badly taught singers are obliged to do, that makes such phrases choppy and ineffectual. This fault is never observable in artists trained in the real traditional Italian school of singing--not necessarily by Italians, but in the traditional school of the old Italian masters.

The choppy method of singing is noticeable, not in all, but in many German singers. It is due to incomplete breath-control, for which in turn carelessness in matters of hygiene largely is responsible. The average German is of a naturally strong physique, and for this very reason he is less apt to take care of himself. The singer, in order to keep the keen, artistic edge on his voice, has to sacrifice many things that contribute to the comfort of the average man; and this is especially true of diet. A strict regime is a necessity. You will find that every great singer has to deny himself many things. But the German is apt to sneer at such precaution and to glory in what he calls "living naturally," which means that he thinks it is all right to eat and drink what he wants to and as much as he wants to. In point of fact, however, the great singer does not "live" at all. He _exists_ for his voice, sacrificing everything to it. His diet, his hours, are carefully regulated. He is always in training. The German is apt to neglect such matters. The inevitable result is shortness of breath and lack of control of breath-emission. Voice is breath; lack of breath is lack of voice.

I once attended a German performance of _Die Walkure_ with an Italian master of _bel canto_. "You call that a love-scene!" he exclaimed during the latter part of the first act, between Siegmund and Sieglinde. "They are barking at each other like two dogs!" And so they were.

The natural process of expiration is one of complete relaxation. Just as the intake of air into the lungs inflates and expands them, so, when the intake ceases, the elasticity of the lungs exerts a natural pressure on the air they have taken in and causes its almost effortless exit. This exit, however, is so gentle as to be useless for the production of voice. For this reason the singer must control the breath and r.e.t.a.r.d its exit, and the slower his expiration, the more control he will gain over the tone or phrase. Those familiar with the performances of some of the great opera singers who have been heard here will have observed that, when singing, they do not allow the chest to collapse, but hold it as full and as firm as if the lungs still were inflated. This physical index to a correct method of expiration is more easily noticed in men than in women. The De Reszkes, Caruso, Plancon--these have been some of the most notable exponents of correct voice-production who have appeared on the American operatic stage. Let the reader, when next he hears Caruso or Plancon, note that they never strain after an effect, never labor, never grow red in the face, never employ excessive gesture to help force out a note. With them respiration consists of inspiration and expiration--never of perspiration. There is little danger that Caruso ever will break his collar bone in producing high C, and his delivery of the romance, "Una furtiva lagrima," in _L'Elisir d'Amore_, is a most exquisite example of breath-control and of voice-management in _cantabile_; while Plancon's singing from a chest absolutely immobile, even in long and difficult phrases, is so effortless that his performances are a delight to every lover of the art of song, his voice flowing out in a broad, smooth stream of music. Physically, the reason why an expanded chest r.e.t.a.r.ds the emptying of the lungs is apparent.

The pressure of a relaxing chest would accelerate their return to a condition of repose and the breath would be expended too soon, with the result that some or much of it would be wasted. Moreover, an expanded chest is a splendid resonance-chamber, affords a firm support to the windpipe and adds to the sure and vibrant quality of the tone produced.

The wobble, which at times causes disappointment with voices that had seemed unusually fine, is the result of lack of attention to this detail of vocal method. The windpipe, requiring the support of a firm chest-wall, becomes unsteady, the singer loses his control of the air-column, and the vibrations of the vocal ligaments are uncertain, instead of tense and sure.

To maintain the expanded chest during expiration, which also means during singing, is not difficult. There is nothing forced about it. For if there is the correct pause after inspiration, if the breath is held for a brief s.p.a.ce of time, the pressure naturally exerted outward upon the upper chest is readily felt. Accompanying it is a gradual drawing in of the lower abdominal wall, not forceful enough to be called stringent but simply following the return of the diaphragm to its natural position as the lungs return to theirs. Therefore, when it is stated that if a _crescendo_ is to be produced on a single tone or phrase, this is accomplished by increasing the outward pressure on the chest and the inward and upward pressure of the abdominal muscles; there is no thought of prescribing a sudden and undue strain, but simply of employing more potently and more effectively certain forces of pressure which Nature herself already has brought into play. What is perhaps the most important distinction of this method of breath-control and voice-management is the fact that it relieves the throat of all pressure, the correct tension and vibration of the vocal cords being brought about by the reflex action of muscles and nerves. This lack of strain on the throat does away with all danger of a throaty quality of voice-production, which not only is highly inartistic but also leads to various throat troubles.

Breath-control implies that no breath is wasted, that every particle of breath, as it comes out, is converted into voice. Dissipation of breath results in uncertainty of voice-production, a branch of the subject which will be taken up in the chapter on "attack." An excellent test for economy of breath is to hold a lighted candle before the mouth while singing. If the flame flickers, breath is being wasted, is coming out as empty air instead of as voice. There is the same difference between voice produced on breath that is under the singer's control and that produced on breath which is not properly steadied, as there is between a line drawn straight and sure by a firm hand and a wavering line drawn by a hand that is nervous and trembling. In fact, in singing the waver of the voice that results from poor control of breath is a tremble, a _tremolo_, and is one of the worst faults in a singer.

It also should be pointed out that the singer is not to continue an expiration beyond the point when it ceases to be easy for him to do so.

As soon as the air-column becomes thin the singer's control over it becomes insecure, and, from that point on, the air that remains should be regarded simply as a reserve supply and aid to the next inspiration.

To sum up: Breathing consists of two separate actions, inspiration and expiration, the intake of air and its emission. Of the three kinds of inspiration mentioned in most books on singing and termed clavicular, abdominal or diaphragmatic, and costal, neither completely fills the bill. The correct method of inspiration is a combination of all three.

It is costal--that is indicated by an expansion of the whole framework of the ribs--a.s.sisted by an almost automatic sinking of the diaphragm and a very slight, almost pa.s.sive, rising of the clavicle, the final detail being a slight sinking in of the lower front wall of the abdomen.

In this method, although it is a combination of the three--the clavicular, the diaphragmatic and the costal--the clavicle plays so small a part, that the method may be termed mixed costal and diaphragmatic.

The breath having been taken in, it should be held for a brief s.p.a.ce of time.

In expiration, allow the breath to escape very slowly. Maintain the chest firm and expanded, and add, as occasion requires, to the natural inward and upward pressure of the abdominal muscles. Avoid all throat effect. After expiration the chest and abdominal pressure is relaxed and the next inspiration prepared for.

Take in breath through the nostrils, emit it through the mouth. This latter instruction may seem superfluous, but it is not. In the so-called "backward production" of voice, considerable air escapes through the nasal pa.s.sages and the tone-quality is nasal and disagreeable.

It is of the highest importance to acquire a correct method of breathing, and to acquire it so thoroughly that it becomes second nature. In the beginning it may be necessary to bear each successive step in mind and make sure that it is not omitted. But very soon artistic breathing to sustain song becomes as much a habit as is breathing to sustain life. We breathe, or we cannot live; we breathe artistically, or we cannot sing.

But to breathe artistically really is no great problem. It is a simple matter, yet fraught with great and invaluable results to the singer; and it is a simple matter because it becomes so easily a matter of habit. The nerves of the breathing-muscles send and receive messages to and from the nerve-centre, but after incredibly little practice this interchange of messages over the nervous system becomes so swift that it may be said to take place by antic.i.p.ation, and the person who benefits by it is unaware that it takes place at all. Correct breathing has then become a habit.

This habit, this smooth working, automatic cooperation of nerves with breathing-muscles, may be thrown out of gear by something unusual, such as the excitement attending a debut.

The singer faces an audience or a strange audience for the first time, and the first unfavorable and disconcertive effect travels over the nerves to the respiratory organs. Regular breathing is at such times one of the best ways to allay the undue excitement caused by the unusual surroundings. Before beginning to sing the artist should, and on such occasions with conscious artistry, immediately reestablish control of respiration by taking a few deep breaths. I have said before that the borderline between the physiology of voice-production and the psychology of song is a narrow one--whereof the above cure for stage-fright is but another case in point.

CHAPTER V

THE PHYSIOLOGY AND PSYCHOLOGY OF VOICE-PRODUCTION

Above this chapter I might well have placed the following lines which George Eliot wrote above Chapter x.x.xI. of "Middlemarch."

How will you know the pitch of that great bell, Too large for you to stir? Let but a flute Play 'neath the fine-mixed metal! Listen close Till the right note flows forth, a silvery rill: Then shall the huge bell tremble--then the ma.s.s With myriad waves concurrent shall respond In low, soft unison.

The lines telling of the great bell stirred by the note of a flute played at the proper pitch suggest the moving power that lies in sympathetic vibration. The first time a military body crossed the Brooklyn Bridge, the spectators were surprised to hear the order given for the soldiers to march out of step. They had expected to be thrilled by the sight of a thousand men crossing the great structure in measured tread, with band playing and colors flying. They did not know that the structure, being a suspension bridge, might have been weakened and possibly destroyed by the force of rhythmic oscillation. Yet the acc.u.mulated force in the tramp of a thousand men is no greater than that which lies in the sympathetic vibrations of a musical note. Every metal structure has its note, and it is an old engineering saw that a huge structure like the Brooklyn Bridge eventually could be destroyed by the c.u.mulative force of sympathetic vibration evoked by a musical instrument constantly reiterating the note of the bridge.

Sound has three dimensions: pitch, loudness and timbre.

_Pitch_ depends upon the _frequency_ of vibrations. The more rapid the vibrations, the higher the pitch.

_Loudness_ is determined by the _amplitude_ of the vibrations. As their length or "excursion" increases, so does the sound gain in loudness.

Conversely, the diminution in the size of vibrations causes corresponding decrease of loudness.

Differences in the _shapes_ of vibrations cause differences in quality or _timbre_.

After voice has originated within the restricted limits of the larynx, its power, its carrying quality is much augmented by the sympathetic vibrations within the resonance cavities above the larynx. These include the pharynx, nasal pa.s.sages, mouth, bone cavities of the face--in fact pretty much every hollow s.p.a.ce in the head, every s.p.a.ce that will resound in response to vibration and a.s.sist in multiplying it. Moreover, the cavities of resonance by their differences in shape in different individuals determine the timbre or quality of individual voices. The chest, although situated below the larynx, is a resonance cavity of voice. In fact, in a certain register its vibration is felt so distinctly that we speak of these notes as being sung in the "chest register," which, so far as it implies that the tones are produced in the chest, is a misnomer. The same is true of "head register," in which vibration is felt in the head where, however, it is needless to say, the "head tones" do not originate.

Expiration--breath-emission--is the motor function of the vocal organs; and there are two other physical functions of the organs--vibratory and resonant.

Added to these is the sensory function, to which I attach great importance; and I call it a psychological function because it acts through the nerves upon the physical organs of voice. Without it the three physical functions--motor, vibratory and resonant combined--would remain ineffectual. They could generate voice, but it would be voice lacking those higher qualities that are summed up in the word "artistic." It would be a physical, not an art product, a product generated by the body without the cooperation of the mind or soul. When it is considered that the larynx, in which the vocal cords are situated, is permeated by a network of muscles through which it is capable of some 16,000 adjustments and readjustments of shape, all of them pertinent to voice-production, and that the same thing also is true of the pliable portions of the resonance cavities; that these muscles act in response to an even finer network of nervous filament; and that the constant shaping and reshaping of various parts of the vocal tract during voice-emission is directed by messages from the mind, soul, or art-sense of the singer, messages which travel via nerve to muscle--the only route by which they can travel--it becomes possible to appreciate the importance of the sensory or psychological function which, I hold, should be added to the purely physical ones of motor, vibration and resonance. For by it these functions are enlisted in the service of art and made immediately and exquisitely responsive to the emotional exaltation of music and song. Nor are these vague terms. Psychology of song and psychological action in general may seem indefinite and unintelligible. They become, however, absolutely definite and intelligible when the part played by the nerves as intermediaries between mind and muscular action of a subtle and highly refined order is appreciated. The mind presses the b.u.t.ton, the nerves carry the messages, and muscle acts instantaneously and responsively.

The student need not despair because so many separate acts seem necessary to the production of even a single tone. It is true that air has to be taken into the lungs and emitted from them; that it must be controlled by the singer as it pa.s.ses up the windpipe; that the vocal cords and other parts of the larynx must be given their specific adjustment for each note; and the cavities of resonance shaped in sympathetic coordination with those numerous adjustments, while the lips also have their function to perform. But it is equally true that correct instruction supplemented by a.s.siduous practice merges all these separate acts into one. The singer thinks the note, forms what may be called a sounding vision of it in his mind, and straightway the vocal tract adapts and coordinates all its parts to the artistic emission of that note. It is auto-suggestion become habit through practice.

Because the larynx is so important a factor in generating voice, writers on voice-production have described it with much minuteness, and because of these minute descriptions readers may have obtained an exaggerated idea of the size of this organ. But one of the marvels of voice-production is the smallness of the organ in which voice is generated, the size of the average larynx being about two inches in height by an inch and a half in width. Yet so numerous are the adjustments in shape of which this small organ is capable that the phenomenal soprano, Mara, could make 100 changes in pitch between any two notes in her voice, and as this had a compa.s.s of twenty-one notes, it follows that she could produce no less than 21,000 changes in pitch within a range of twenty-one notes. While in Mara's day this no doubt was attributed to a natural gift of voice, modern study of voice-physiology and of the metaphysics of voice-production readily accounts for it. It needs an ear naturally or by training so delicately attuned to pitch that not only all the fundamental notes of a voice, but all the numerous overtones at infinitesimal intervals are heard in what may be called the singer's mental ear; that the nerves convey each of these sounding mental conceptions to the intricate system of muscles in the larynx and resonant cavities and that the right muscles immediately adjust the larynx and cavities of resonance to the shape they have to a.s.sume to sound the corresponding note.

Every vocal tone is, in fact, a mental concept reproduced as voice by the physical organs of voice-production, so that every vocal tone is, in its origin, a mental phenomenon. That is why an inaccurate ear for pitch results in a vocalist singing off pitch. His mental conception of the note is wrong, the message conveyed from the mind over the nerves to the muscles of the vocal organs is wrong, consequently they shape themselves for a note that is wrong, and, when the note issues from between the singer's lips, it is wrong--wrong from start to finish, from mind to lips. Thus again is ill.u.s.trated the intimate connection between psychology and physiology in voice-production, and the necessity of having every function concerned therein so thoroughly trained that every act from mental concept to sounding voice is correctly performed through a habit so thoroughly acquired that it has become second nature. In common parlance one might say to the student of song, "Get the correct voice-habit and keep it up," for that really is what it amounts to, only it is necessary that great stress should be laid on the word "correct."

It now becomes necessary to describe the larynx, and this I will endeavor to accomplish without puzzling the reader with too many technical terms. The study of the larynx was made possible by the invention of the laryngoscope in 1855 by Manuel Garcia, a celebrated singing-master. It is a simple apparatus--which, however, does not detract from but rather adds to its value as an invention--and has been a boon to the physician in locating and curing affections of the throat.

Its essentials are a small mirror fixed at an obtuse angle to a slender handle. Introduced into the mouth it can be placed in such position that the larynx is reflected in the mirror and thus can be observed by the operator. Those who have had their throats examined with the laryngoscope will recall that the operator wears a reflector over his right eye. Through a central perforation in the reflector he views the image, which is seen the more clearly for the light thrown upon the laryngoscopal mirror by the reflector. It would be possible after comparatively little practice with the apparatus for a singer to examine his own larynx. But it would be most inadvisable for him to do so.

Either he soon would become "hipped" on the subject of innumerable imaginary throat troubles, or his voice-production would become mechanical, which is very different from the spontaneous adjustment of the vocal tract described above.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 2. THE GLOTTIS AND VOCAL CORDS VIEWED FROM BELOW N. B.--Vocal cords approximated]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 3. THE GLOTTIS AND VOCAL CORDS VIEWED FROM ABOVE 1, Glottis. 2, True Cords. 3, False Cords. 4, Epiglottis. 5, Base of Tongue. N. B.--Glottis open for inspiration]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 4. THE GLOTTIS AND VOCAL CORDS VIEWED FROM ABOVE 1, Glottis. 2, True Cords. 3, False Cords. 4, Epiglottis. 5, Base of Tongue. N. B.--Vocal cords approximated]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 5. VERTICAL TRANSVERSE SECTION OF THE LARYNX

1, The Glottis (_i. e._, the opening between the opposed edges of the Vocal Cords). 2, True Vocal Cords. 3, False Vocal Cords. 4, Epiglottis.