What Every Singer Should Know Part 3

When one begins to discuss nervousness, suggestion takes it up and it spreads like wildfire. A young singer who had appeared several times in the same solo and done excellent work was stepping on the stage to sing when one of her friends thoughtlessly remarked: "Aren't you nervous about that high 'C?'" The suggestion immediately lodged in her brain and she could think of nothing but that high "C." Her fear increased and she sang it with an almost heroic physical effort, a tone that had never given her the least trouble before.

It is the confident friend who helps you to win your audience by the encouraging remark, "I know you will be a success," while the one who asks,

"Aren't you afraid you are going to break down?" in reality will a.s.sist you in doing so. Always try and have the confident friends around you, especially in the earlier stage of your career.

There is an erroneous idea about not eating before singing. If you are nervous there is nothing so dangerous as trying to sing on an empty stomach. I know of singers who eat nothing on the day they are going to sing, the result being increased nervousness caused from weakness.

I would not advise a big meal before singing, but I would advise taking something, depending entirely on the individual. A cup of black coffee, a gla.s.s of water, a gla.s.s of claret, an orange, a raw egg, or anything that agrees with you. Give the stomach some work to do and that "giddy feeling" will entirely disappear. I always take a raw egg before singing.

One of our noted tenors, before walking out on the stage, lights a cigarette, takes three puffs and throws it away. Three puffs could be of very little value, but he imagines he sings better. Judging from his age and voice, and its endurance, it has evidently not injured him, though I would not advise singers to use tobacco.

Those suffering from phlegm in the throat will find almost instant relief in eating a dry prune. I acquired this habit in Italy, where it is very popular with the singers. Dried prunes are beneficial for the general health as well as the throat. Find what agrees with you, for what might be agreeable to one may be disagreeable to another.

When you step out on the stage take time to fully relax, get your mind on the introduction your accompanist is playing. This prepares you for your song. Look =beyond= your audience, not =at= them.

By this time you will have fairly good control of yourself. Think of =what you are going to sing=, and not of how you are feeling. Sing to your audience as if you were telling them a story. Speak distinctly and make them understand and feel what you are saying. Don't wear anything that binds you, such as tight shoes, tight corsets or tight collars, as they all tend to contract instead of relax. It is through nervousness that singers have "wobbled" off the stage after their solo, before the accompanist has finished. Remember in the interval between the end of your solo and the last note of the accompaniment you should stand perfectly still. Say to your audience (mentally), "Don't move until the accompaniment is finished." You will be surprised to see how well you can hold them. All these little thoughts will help make you forget yourself.

I once read an article on stage fright. The author advised the singer to look at his audience as though they were so many cabbage heads. I cannot agree with him. You, no doubt, have heard people sing as though they were inspired. I have felt that way many times when singing, and I am sure my audience inspired me. It would have been impossible to sing like that to empty chairs or a field of cabbage heads.

a.n.a.lyze yourself and your work as much as you please at home, but when you go before an audience, forget yourself and let your aim be to win them.

THE ACCOMPANIST.

I find that only about one in every hundred, who study voice culture, are able to accompany themselves on the piano. Nearly all know the keyboard and can get along after a fashion, therefore it is necessary that the student of voice culture should secure a first-cla.s.s accompanist.

Your voice teacher here, or abroad, is always in a position to furnish you with one. You must arrange for his services at least twice a week.

You can have no idea of the progress this will mean in your work. If you are asked to sing at an entertainment, do not take anyone's word that "there will be a good accompanist on hand," but see to it yourself. If it is not possible for you to have your own accompanist, be sure that you have ample time for rehearsal, and if the accompanist present is not a good one, =do not sing=.

A poor accompanist has been the cause of the failure of many young singers who are anxious to get before the public.

The young and inexperienced singer cannot be too particular on this point, and I would suggest that amateurs during their first few appearances before the public sing only with an accompanist with whom they have become accustomed to sing. All young singers are more or less nervous; in fact, I know very few old ones who are not, and this is where your own accompanist proves of the greatest value.

One of my pupils who made her debut said, "I had a sensation as of a lump in my throat, and felt that at the end of the pause I =must= swallow or choke. My accompanist had played for me before and seemed to antic.i.p.ate my predicament, so gave me a little more time on that 'pause'

and I was saved. With a strange accompanist, I would have gone to pieces."

Because a singer is an amateur, their parents and friends seem to think that anyone can play their accompaniments. The truth of the matter is, the less experienced the singer, the better the accompanist must be.

Good accompanists are born, not made.

To be sure, practice makes perfect, but I know of many fine pianists who read well, have time, rhythm, technique, execution, and yet who will never make good accompanists. It takes all of these and more.

Nothing makes failure more certain than the blundering of an inexperienced and unskilled accompanist.

SELECTING A TEACHER.

It is not always that the best read man on voice culture makes the best teacher; in fact, we find that teachers, who have not been singers themselves, but who have devoted years to the study of the physical and technical side of the question have turned out very few good singers.

In order to make a good teacher, one must first have command of his own voice in order to make perfect demonstrations which are essential to the beginner. Further, a teacher in order to be successful must have practical experience with the world and singers. No two voices can be treated in the same manner. Therefore, the teacher with the practical experience is naturally far better equipped to teach than the one who has merely studied the mechanism of the throat.

It is positively harmful for a teacher to make any attempt to explain the technical side of the voice to a =beginner=. Better develop the ear and memory. A teacher must have patience and tact in order to be able to deal with the different natures, dispositions and moods that are encountered in the studio. One word of kindness and encouragement will invariably do more toward putting a pupil at his ease and secure the best results from his work than any number of severe sermons and sarcastic criticisms.

The pupils are paying for their lessons and are ent.i.tled to courteous treatment. Avoid the nervous, irritable teacher. The teacher who becomes impatient or ruffled because a pupil cannot instantly grasp his meaning, walking up and down the floor with clenched fists chastising the air, and in every way displaying his own nerves and lack of self-control, is not a =teacher=, but a =fool=. Such a person has either forgotten his own earlier struggles or had never studied.

Avoid the teacher with a hobby. There is nothing so barren in the world as one idea, spring from one idea, nourished by one idea and aiming at one idea. This includes the teacher who believes in keeping the pupil on one tone for six months. While your tone needs more than six months to become perfect, dwelling on that one tone alone for that length of time would be decidedly wrong.

We frequently accept students who have acquired numerous bad habits in breathing or singing. They often know their trouble and ask how long it will take to undo this work and get back into the right way. They seem to think it is a matter of a certain time working back to the beginning and then starting over again. This is not true. It is a matter of beginning =now= and beginning right. The thoughts of a pupil should be =advance=, not =retreat=. You must not think of what you =have done=, but what you =must do=.

Avoid the teacher who advances theories and mechanical contrivances. A laryngoscope in the hands of a physician might save many lives, but in the hands of a singing teacher may ruin many voices. The perfect teacher uses the simplest demonstrations, realizing that technical terms go entirely over the heads of the beginner. The following suggestions are entirely useless:

Sing the tone forward.

Sing the tone on the teeth.

Sing over your larynx.

Sing that tone with the epiglottis lowered, the palate raised, and on the end of the breath.

I have personally heard these instructions given to pupils, and I a.s.sure you the pupil did not gain anything by it.

It is positively absurd to insist on a beginner knowing the structures of the vocal chords, neither will the patting, pinching or ma.s.saging of the neck and facial muscles, that some teachers advocate, make you sing any better. It is undoubtedly of some benefit to "wrinkles," but not to the voice.

Garcia, admitted to be one of the greatest singing masters of his time, said, regarding the position of larynx being higher or lower or the more or less raising of the palate, that the singer need only follow natural effects, and larynx, palate and the rest will take care of themselves.

Do not complicate it with theories.

A new pupil went into the studio of a well-known teacher for a hearing.

She took with her a popular song--the only song which she knew. The teacher cried "Trash," and would not even talk the matter over. This was foolish, selfish and unreasonable.

Every voice which comes under our care includes the personality behind the voice, and is of distinct and special interest. This pupil's =environment= had undoubtedly been such that she was not further developed and could hardly be expected to love and understand the music, which the teacher was accustomed to perform or teach. However, many a singer, who first brought the popular song, has developed into a successful church and concert singer. This was not brought about by reprimands and unkind criticisms of their short-comings, but by patient consideration and gradual development. Give the pupil a chance to learn to perform good music before you demand that they should appreciate it. A good teacher will encourage questions. If there are any questions pertaining to the study of voice culture that he cannot answer it is time he should know.

Unless a teacher is a perfect accompanist, so that he can keep his eyes away from the keyboard, he should employ an accompanist, for the teacher should =see= as well as =hear= the pupil sing the finished numbers.

And last, but not least, select a teacher who tries to understand you, who makes you feel at ease, and who shows as much interest in your voice as in your pocketbook.

ART FOR ART'S SAKE.

How many musicians live up to this much-abused term? In my travels here and abroad I have found just two whose lives were entirely devoted to "art for art's sake". They both reminded me of the last act of Beau Brummell, and certainly did not suggest happiness. To fully live up to "art for art's sake," one must necessarily have means, and you would be surprised to know how few of those who are in position to live up to it, do so. Singers, in whom you would expect to find a demonstration,--real musicians, to whom the whole world has bent its knee,--will stand up before an audience and sing a little popular waltz song, a la "After the Ball,"--a song we would consider too inferior to allow one of our pupils to sing. Is this "art for art's sake?" Where then should we look for a demonstration, if not in the finished singer or artist?

Do not these singers know better? Certainly, but they study their audience, give the few their best, and the ma.s.ses what they want. In search for "art for art's sake," we turn to the "artist," and we find him trying to please the audience.