The Head Voice and Other Problems

Everything in the universe that has come under the scrutiny of mortal man has been subjected to a perpetual reformation. Nothing is too great or too small to engage the attention of the reformer. Religion, politics, medicine and race suicide are objects of his special solicitude, but nothing else has been forgotten. No phase of human activity has been allowed to remain at rest. So far as we know nothing but the multiplication table has escaped the reformer. There is a general feeling that nothing is exactly right. This may be the operation of the law of progress, doubtless it is, but it occasions a mighty unrest, and keeps the world wondering what will happen next. This law of progress is but another name for idealism to which the world owes everything. Idealism is that which sees a better condition than the one which now obtains. The process of realizing this better condition is in itself reformation.

As far back as we have any knowledge of the art of singing the reformers have been at work, and down through the centuries their energies have been unflagging. We owe to them whatever advance has been made toward a perfect system of voice training, but they are also responsible for many things pernicious in their nature which have been incorporated in present day methods of teaching, for it must be admitted that there are false prophets among singing teachers no less than among the members of other professions. There is one interesting thing connected with the work of these vocal reformers. From the beginning they have insisted that the art of bel canto is lost. Tosi (1647-1727), Porpora (1686-1766), Mancini (1716-1800), three of the greatest teachers of the old Italian school, all lamented the decadence of the art of singing. Others before and since have done the same thing. It seems that in all times any one who could get the public ear has filled it with this sort of pessimistic wail. From this we draw some interesting conclusions: First, that the real art of singing was lost immediately after it was found. Second, that the only time it was perfect was when it began. Third, that ever since it began we have been searching for it without success. If any of this is true it means that all of the great singers of the past two hundred years have been fakers, because they never really learned how to sing. It is surprising that we did not see through these musical Jeremiahs long ago. In all ages there have been good teachers and bad ones, and it would not be surprising if the bad ones outnumbered the good ones; but the weak link in the chain of argument is in estimating the profession by its failures. This is a cheap and much overworked device and discloses the egotism of the one using it. There are teachers today who thoroughly understand the art of bel canto. They have not lost it, and the others never had it. This condition has obtained for centuries and will continue indefinitely. An art should be measured by its best exponents, not by its worst. To measure it by its failures is illogical and dishonest.

In recent years the process of reformation has been applied to all branches of music teaching with the hope of reducing these failures to a minimum. The profession has suddenly awakened to the fact that it must give a better reason for its existence than any heretofore offered. It has become clear to the professional mind that in order to retain and enlarge its self-respect music must be recognized as a part of the great human uplift. To this end it has been knocking at the doors of the institutions of learning asking to be admitted and recognized as a part of public education. The reply has been that music teaching must first develop coherence, system and standards. This has caused music teachers to look about and realize as never before that the profession as a whole has no organization and no fixed educational standards. Every teacher fixes his own standard and is a law unto himself. The standard is individual, and if the individual conscience is sufficiently elastic the standard gives him no serious concern. But as a result of this awakening there is a concerted action throughout the country to standardize, to define the general scope of learning necessary to become a music teacher. The trend of this is in the right direction, and good may be expected from it, although at best it can be but a very imperfect method of determining one’s fitness to teach. The determining factors in teaching are things which cannot be discovered in any ten questions. In fact an examination must necessarily confine itself to general information, but in teaching, the real man reveals himself. His high sense of order, logic, patience, his love and appreciation of the beautiful, his personality, his moral sense, the mental atmosphere of his studio, these all enter into his teaching and they are things difficult to discover in an examination. Unconsciously the teacher gives out himself along with the music lesson, and it is equally important with his knowledge of music. Therefore it is as difficult to establish definite standards of teaching as it is of piano or violin making.

In attempting to establish standards of voice teaching the problem becomes positively bewildering. The voice is so completely and persistently individual, and in the very nature of things must always remain so, that an attempt to standardize it or those who train it is dangerous. Yet notwithstanding this, voice teachers are the most industrious of all in their efforts to organize and standardize. The insistence with which this aim is prosecuted is worthy of something better than is likely to be achieved.

That there is no standard among voice teachers save that of the individual will be admitted without argument; and until there is such a thing as a fixed standard of musical taste this condition will remain, for the musical taste of the teacher is by far the most potent factor in the teaching of tone production.

Of late there have been vigorous efforts to establish a standard tone for singers. This, according to the apostles of “Harmony in the ranks,” is the one way of unifying the profession. As an argument this is nothing short of picturesque, and can be traced to those unique and professedly scientific mentalities that solve all vocal problems by a mathematical formula. As an example of the chimerical, impossible and altogether undesirable, it commands admiration. If it is impossible to establish a standard tone for pianos where the problem is mechanical, what may we expect to do with voice where the problem is psychological?

When we have succeeded in making all people look alike, act alike, think alike; when we have eliminated all racial characteristics and those resulting from environment; when people are all of the same size, weight, proportion, structure; when skulls are all of the same size, thickness and density; when all vocal organs and vocal cavities are of the same form and size; when we have succeeded in equalizing all temperaments; when there is but one climate, one language, one government, one religion; when there is no longer such a thing as individuality—then perhaps a standard tone may be considered. Until that time nothing could be more certain of failure. The great charm of voices is their individuality, which is the result not alone of training, but of ages of varied experience, for man is the sum of all that has preceded him. It is, to say the least, an extraordinary mentality that would destroy this most vital element in singing for the sake of working out a scientific theory.

But there is no immediate danger. Nature, whose chief joy is in variety and contrast, is not likely to sacrifice it suddenly to a mere whim.

When we speak of a standard tone we enter the domain of acoustics and must proceed according to the laws of physics. In this standard tone there must be a fundamental combined with certain overtones. But who shall say which overtones, and why the particular combination? The answer must be “because it sounds best.” A tone being something to hear, this is a logical and legitimate answer. But if the listener knows when it sounds right he knows it entirely separate and apart from any knowledge he may have of its scientific construction; hence such knowledge is of no value whatever in determining what is good and what is bad in tone quality. A tone is not a thing to see and the teacher cannot use a camera and a manometric flame in teaching tone production. Any knowledge he may have gained from the use of such instruments in the laboratory is valueless in teaching.

If it were possible to adopt as a standard tone a certain combination of fundamental and overtones (which it is not), and if it were possible to make all singers use this particular tone (which, thank heaven it is not), then all voices would sound alike and individuality would at once disappear.

The advocates of this kind of standard tone cannot disengage themselves from the belief that all vocal organs are alike. The exact opposite is the truth. Vocal organs are no more alike than are eyes, noses, hands and dispositions. Each of these conforms only to a general type. The variation is infinite.

The mentality of the individual forms the organ through which it can express itself, and this mentality is the accumulation of all of the experience which has preceded it. Further, muscles and cartilages are not all of the same texture. Thyroid cartilages vary in size and shape. The vocal cavities, pharynx, mouth and nasal cavities are never exactly the same in any two people. The contours of the upper and lower jaw and teeth, and of the palatal arch are never found to be exactly alike. All of these variations are a part of the vocal instrument and determine its quality. Every vocal organ when properly directed will produce the best quality of which that particular instrument is capable. An attempt to make it produce something else must necessarily be a failure. The structure of the instrument determines whether the voice is bass, tenor, alto or soprano with all of the variations of these four classes. The individuality of the voice is fixed by nature no less definitely.

The effort to standardize tone quality discloses a misapprehension of what it means to train a voice. Its advocates look upon man as so much matter, and the voice as something which must be made to operate according to fixed mathematical rules and ignore completely its psychology.

But the rich humor of it all appears when the propagandists of standard tone meet to establish the standard. It is soon observed that there are as many standards as there are members present and the only result is a mental fermentation.

In recent years many attempts have been made by vocal teachers to “get together.” As nearly as can be ascertained this getting together means that all shall teach in the same way, that all shall agree on the disputed points in voice training, or that certain articles of faith to which all can subscribe, shall be formulated; but when it comes to deciding whose way it shall be or whose faith shall be thus exalted, each one is a Gibraltar and the only perceptible result is an enlargement of the individual ego. And so it endeth.

Voice teachers are divided into two general classes—those who make a knowledge of vocal physiology the basis of teaching and those who do not. The members of the first class follow the teachings of some one of the scientific investigators. Each one will follow the scientist or physiologist whose ideas most nearly coincide with his own, or which seem most reasonable to him. In as much as the scientists have not yet approached anything resembling an agreement, it follows that their disciples are far from being of one mind.

The members of the second class hold that a knowledge of vocal anatomy and physiology beyond the elements has no value in teaching, and that the less the student thinks about mechanism the better. The scientific voice teachers usually believe in direct control of the vocal organs. The members of the opposite class believe in indirect control. This establishes a permanent disagreement between the two general classes, but the disagreement between those who believe in indirect control is scarcely less marked. Here it is not so much a matter of how the tone is produced, but rather the tone itself. This is due entirely to the difference in taste among teachers. The diversity of taste regarding tone quality is even greater than that regarding meat and drink. This fact seems to be very generally overlooked. It is this that so mystifies students. After studying with a teacher for one or more years they go to another to find that he at once tries to get a different tone quality from that of the first. When they go to the third teacher he tries for still another quality. If they go to a half dozen teachers each one will try to make them produce a tone differing in some degree from all of the others. The student doubtless thinks this is due to the difference in understanding of the voice among teachers, but this is not so. It is due entirely to their differing tastes in tone quality. The marvelous thing is that the voice will respond in a degree to all of these different demands made upon it; but it forces the student to the conclusion that voice training is an indefinite something without order, system, or principle.

So, in studying the conditions which obtain in voice teaching at the present time it must be admitted that the evidence of unity is slight; and the probability of increasing it by organization or legislative enactment is not such as to make one enthusiastic. What one believes is very real to himself. In fact it is the only thing that seems right to him, therefore he sees no valid reason why he should change his belief or why others should not believe as he does. This positive element in the human ego is advantageous at times, but it is also responsible for all conflicts from mild disagreements to war among nations.

But arguments and battles rarely ever result in anything more than an armed truce. Difference of opinion will continue indefinitely, but of this we may be sure, that the solution of the vocal problem will never come through a study of vocal mechanism however conscientious and thorough it may be, but through a purer musical thought, a deeper musical feeling, a clearer vision of what is cause and what is effect, a firmer conviction of the sanctity of music, an unerring knowledge of the relationship existing between the singer and his instrument.

In view of the generally understood nature of involuntary action and the extent to which it obtains in all good singing it is difficult to understand why any teacher should work from the basis of direct control. It is a fact, however, that teachers who have not the psychological vision find it difficult to work with a thing they cannot see. To such, direct control seems to be the normal and scientific method of procedure.

Let me illustrate: A student comes for his first lesson. I “try his voice.” His tone is harsh, white, throaty and unsympathetic. It is not the singing tone and I tell him it is “all wrong.” He does not contradict me but places himself on the defensive and awaits developments. I question him to find out what he thinks of his own voice, how it impresses him, etc. I find it makes no impression on him because he has no standard. He says he doesn’t know whether he ought to like his voice or not, but rather supposes he should not. As I watch him I discover many things that are wrong and I make a mental note of them. Suppose I say to him as a very celebrated European teacher once said to me: “Take a breath, and concentrate your mind on the nine little muscles in the throat that control the tone.” This is asking a good deal when he does not know the name or the exact location of a single one of them, but he seems impressed, although a little perplexed, and to make it easier for him I say as another famous teacher once said to me: “Open your mouth, put two fingers and a thumb between your teeth, yawn, now sing ah.” He makes a convulsive effort and the tone is a trifle worse than it was before. I say to him, “Your larynx is too high, and it jumps up at the beginning of each tone. You must keep it down. It is impossible to produce good tone with a high larynx. When the larynx rises, the throat closes and you must always have your throat open. Don’t forget, your throat must be open and you can get it open only by keeping the larynx low.” He tries again with the same result and awaits further instructions. I take another tack and say to him, “Your tongue rises every time you sing and impairs the form of the vocal cavity. Keep it down below the level of the teeth, otherwise your vowels will be imperfect. You should practice a half hour each day grooving your tongue.” I say these things impressively and take the opportunity to tell him some interesting scientific facts about fundamental and upper partials, and how different combinations produce different vowels, also how these combinations are affected by different forms of the vocal cavities, leading up to the great scientific truth that he must hold the tongue down and the throat open in order that these great laws of acoustics may become operative. He seems very humble in the presence of such profound erudition and makes several unsuccessful attempts to do what I tell him, but his tone is no better. I tell him so, for I do not wish to mislead him. He is beginning to look helpless and discouraged but waits to see what I will do next. He vexes me not a little, because I feel that anything so simple and yet so scientific as the exercises I am giving him ought to be grasped and put into practice at once; but I still have resources, and I say to him, “Bring the tone forward, direct it against the hard palate just above the upper teeth, send it up through the head with a vigorous impulse of the diaphragm. You must always feels the tone in the nasal cavities. That is the way you can tell whether your tone is right or not.” He tries to do these things, but of necessity fails.

This sort of thing goes on with mechanical instructions for raising the soft palate, making the diaphragm rigid, grooving the tongue, etc., etc., and at the end of the lesson I tell him to go home and practice an hour a day on what I have given him. If he obeys my instructions he will return in worse condition, for he will be strengthening the bad habits he already has and forming others equally pernicious.

This is a sample of teaching by direct control. It is not overdrawn. It is a chapter from real life, and I was the victim.

You will have observed that this lesson was devoted to teaching the student how to do certain things with the vocal mechanism. The real thing, the tone, the result at which all teaching should aim was placed in the background. It was equivalent to trying to teach him to do something but not letting him know what. It was training the body, not the mind, and the result was what invariably happens when this plan is followed.

In the lesson given above no attempt was made to give the student a correct mental picture of a tone, and yet this is the most important thing for him to learn, for he never will sing a pure tone until he has a definite mental picture of it. A tone is something to hear and the singer himself must hear it before he can sing it.

Not one of the suggestions made to this student could be of any possible benefit to him at the time. Not even the sensation of feeling the tone in the head can be relied upon, for physical sensations are altogether uncertain and unreliable. As I have observed in numberless instances, there may be a sensation in the head when there are disagreeable elements in the tone. If the ear of the teacher does not tell him when the tone is good and when it is bad he is hopeless. If his ear is reliable, why resort to a physical sensation as a means of deciding? In the properly produced voice there is a feeling of vibration in the head cavities, especially in the upper part of the voice, but that alone is not a guaranty of good tone.

This teaching from the standpoint of sensation and direct control will never produce a great singer so long as man inhabits a body. It is working from the wrong end of the proposition. Control of the mechanism is a very simple matter when the mental concept is formed. It is then only a question of learning how to relax, how to free the mechanism of tension, and the response becomes automatic.

Is there no way out of this maze of mechanical uncertainties? There is. Is voice culture a sort of catch-as-catch-can with the probabilities a hundred to one against success? It is not. Is singing a lost art? It is not. Let us get away from fad, fancy and formula and see the thing as it is. The problem is psychologic rather than physiologic. The fact that one may learn all that can be known about physiology and still know nothing whatever about voice training should awaken us to its uselessness.

Man is a mental entity. When I speak to a student it is his mind that hears, not his body. It is his mind that acts. It is his mind that originates and controls action. Therefore it is his mind that must be trained.

Action is not in the body. In fact, the body as matter has no sensation. Remove mind from the body and it does not feel. It is the mind that feels. If you believe that the body feels you must be prepared to explain where in the process of digestion and assimilation the beefsteak and potato you ate for dinner become conscious, because to feel they must be conscious. We know that the fluids and solids composing the body have no sensation when they are taken into the body, nor do they ever become sentient. Therefore the body of itself has no initiative, no action, no control. All of these are the functions of mind, hence the incongruity of attempting to solve a problem which is altogether psychological, which demands qualities of mind, habits of mind, mental concepts of a particular kind and quality, by a process of manipulation of the organ through which mind expresses itself, making the training of the mind a secondary matter; and then absurdly calling it scientific.

In every form of activity two things are involved: first, the idea: second, its expression. It must be apparent then, that the quality of the thing expressed will be governed by the quality of the idea. Or, to put it in another way: In the activity of art two things are involved—subject-matter and technic. The subject-matter, the substance of art, is mental. Technic is gaining such control of the medium that the subject-matter, or idea, may be fully and perfectly expressed. Ideas are the only substantial things in the universe, and that there is a difference in the quality of ideas need not be argued. Two men of the same avoirdupois may be walking side by side on the street, but one of them may be a genius and the other a hod carrier.

I have dwelt at some length on this because I wish to show where the training of a singer must begin, and that when we understand the real nature of the problem its solution becomes simple.

What is meant by indirect control? It means, in short, the automatic response of the mechanism to the idea. By way of illustration. If I should ask my pupil to make her vocal cords vibrate at the rate of 435 times per second she could not do it because she would have no mental concept of how it should sound: but if I strike the A above middle C and ask her to sing it her vocal cords respond automatically at that rate of vibration. It is the concept of pitch which forms the vocal instrument, gives it the exact amount of tension necessary to vibrate at the rate of the pitch desired, but the action is automatic, not the result of direct effort.

It may be said that in artistic singing everything is working automatically. There can be no such thing as artistic singing until everything involved is responding automatically to the mental demands of the singer.

Mention has been made of the automatic response of the vocal cords to the thought of pitch. That part of the mechanism which is so largely responsible for tone quality, the pharynx and mouth, must respond in the same way. This it will do unerringly if it is free from tension. But if the throat is full of rigidity, as is so often the condition, it cannot respond; consequently the quality is imperfect and the tone is throaty. The vocal cavity must vibrate in sympathy with the pitch in order to create pure resonance. It can do this only when it is free and is responding automatically to the concept of tone quality. To form the mouth and throat by direct effort and expect a good tone to result thereby, is an action not only certain of failure but exceedingly stupid.

There is a belief amounting to a solid conviction in the public mind that the training of the voice is so difficult that the probabilities of success are about one in ten. What is responsible for this? Doubtless the large number of failures. But this calls for another interrogation. What is the cause of these failures? Here is one. All students have done more or less singing before they go to a teacher. During that time they have, with scarcely an exception, formed bad habits. Now bad habits of voice production are almost invariably some form of throat interference, referred to as tension, rigidity, resistance, etc. Instances without number could be cited where students have been told to keep right on singing and eventually they would outgrow these habits. Such a thing never happened since time began. One may as well tell a drunkard to keep on drinking and eventually he will outgrow the habit. No. Something definite and specific must be done. The antidote for tension is relaxation. A muscle cannot respond while it is rigid, therefore the student must be taught how to get rid of tension.

There is nothing in voice training that is necessarily mysterious and inscrutable. On the contrary, if one will acquaint himself with its fundamental principles he will find that the truth about voice training, like all truth, is simple and easily understood, and when understood the element of uncertainty is eliminated. These principles are few in number, in fact they may all be brought under two general heads. The first is KNOW WHAT YOU WANT. The second is HAVE THE CONDITIONS RIGHT. The meaning of these statements can never be learned from a study of vocal physiology; nevertheless they contain all of the law and the prophets on this subject. Any musician may be a successful teacher of singing if he will master them. I use the word musician advisedly, because musical sense is of such vital importance that no amount of mechanical knowledge can take its place. To undertake the training of voices with only a mechanical knowledge of the subject is a handicap which no one can overcome.

It is universally true that the less one knows of the art of singing the more he concerns himself with the mechanism; and it is also true that the more one is filled with the spirit of song the less he concerns himself with the construction of the vocal instrument. People with little or no musicianship have been known to wrangle ceaselessly on whether or not the thyroid cartilage should tip forward on high tones. It is such crude mechanics masquerading under the name of science that has brought voice training into general disrepute. The voice teacher is primarily concerned with learning to play upon the vocal instrument rather than upon its mechanical construction, two things which some find difficulty in separating.

This means much. In voice production it means the perfect tone concept. It means far more than knowing what one likes. What one likes and what he ought to like are usually quite different things. What one likes is the measure of his taste at that particular time and may or may not be an argument in its favor. I have never seen a beginner whose taste was perfectly formed, but the great majority of them know what they like, and because they like a certain kind of tone, or a certain way of singing, they take it for granted that it is right until they are shown something better. This error is by no means confined to beginners.

If your pupil does not produce good tone one of two things is responsible for it. Either he does not know a good tone or else the conditions are not right. In the beginning it is usually both. Your pupil must create his tone mentally before he sings it. He must create its quality no less than its pitch. In other words he must hear his tone before he sings it and then sing what he hears. Until he can do this his voice will have no character. His voice will be as indefinite as his tone concept, and it will not improve until his concept, which is his taste, improves. Inasmuch as everything exists first as idea, it follows that everything which is included in the rightly produced voice and in interpretation are first matters of concept. The singer uses a certain tone quality because he mentally conceives that quality to be right. He delivers a word or phrase in a certain way because that is his concept of it.

A word at this point on imitation. One faculty of a musical mind is that of recording mentally what it hears and of producing it mentally whenever desired. Most people possess this in some degree, and some people in a marked degree. Almost any one can hear mentally the tone of a cornet, violin, or any instrument with which he is acquainted. In the same way the vocal student must hear mentally the pure singing tone before he can sing it. It is the business of the teacher to assist him in forming a perfect tone concept, and if he can do this by example, as well as by precept, he has a distinct advantage over the one who cannot.

Arguments against imitation are not uncommon, and yet the teachers who offer them will advise their students to hear the great singers as often as possible. Such incongruities do not inspire confidence.

On this human plane most things are learned by imitation. What language would the child speak if it were never allowed to hear spoken language? It would never be anything but

There are but few original thinkers on earth at any one time. The rest are imitators and none too perfect at that. We are imitators in everything from religion to breakfast foods. Few of us ever have an original idea. We trail along from fifty to a hundred years behind those we are trying to imitate.

When there is little else but imitation going on in the world why deny it to vocal students? The argument against imitation can come from but two classes of people—those who cannot produce a good tone and those who are more interested in how the tone is made than in the tone itself.

The following are the qualities the teacher undertakes to develop in the student in preparing him for artistic singing. They are fundamental and must be a part of the singer’s equipment no matter what method is employed. They are what all musicians expect to hear in the trained singer. They all exist first as concepts.

An even scale from top to bottom of the voice.

Every tone full of strength and character.

A sympathetic quality.

Ample power.

A clear, telling resonance in every tone.

A pure legato and sostenuto.

Perfect freedom in production throughout the compass.

A perfect swell, that is, the ability to go from pianissimo to full voice and return, on any tone in the compass, without a break, and without sacrificing the tone quality.

The ability to pronounce distinctly and with ease to the top of the compass.

Equal freedom in the delivery of vowels and consonants.

Sufficient flexibility to meet all technical demands.

An ear sensitive to the finest shades of intonation.

An artistic concept or interpretive sense of the highest possible order.

The process of acquiring these things is not accretion but unfoldment. It is the unfoldment of ideas or concepts. The growth of ideas is similar to that of plants and flowers. The growth of expression follows the growth of the idea, it never precedes it. From the formation of the first vowel to the perfect interpretation of a song the teacher is dealing with mental concepts.

At the Gobelin Tapestry works near Paris I was told that the weavers of those wonderful tapestries use twenty-four shades of each color, and that their color sense becomes so acute that they readily recognize all of the different shades. Now there are about as many shades of each vowel, and the mental picture of the vowel must be so definite, the mental ear so sensitive, that it will detect the slightest variation from the perfect form. Direct control could never accomplish this. Only the automatic response of the mechanism to the perfect vowel concept can result in a perfect vowel.

All of those qualities and elements mentioned above as constituting the artist come under the heading KNOW WHAT YOU WANT.

The second step HAVE THE CONDITIONS RIGHT means, in short, to free the mechanism of all interference and properly manage the breath. This getting rid of interference could be talked about indefinitely without wasting time. It is far more important than most people suspect. Few voices are entirely free from it, and when it is present in a marked degree it is an effectual bar to progress. So long as it is present in the slightest degree it affects the tone quality. Most students think they are through with it long before they are.

This interference, which is referred to as tension, rigidity, throatiness, etc., is in the nature of resistance to the free emission of tone. It is not always confined to the vocal cords, but usually extends to the walls of the pharynx and the body of the tongue. The vocal cavities, the pharynx and mouth, exert such a marked influence on tone quality that the least degree of rigidity produces an effect that is instantly noticeable to the trained ear. These parts of the vocal mechanism which are so largely responsible not only for perfect vowels, but for perfect tone quality as well, must at all times be so free from tension that they can respond instantly to the tone concept. If they fail to respond the tone will be imperfect, and these imperfections are all classed under the general head “throaty.” Throaty tone means that there is resistance somewhere, and the conditions will never be right until the last vestige of it is destroyed. The difficulty in voice placing which so many have, lies in trying to produce the upper tones without first getting rid of resistance. This condition is responsible for a number of shop-worn statements, such as “bring the tone forward,” “place the tone in the head,” “direct the tone into the head,” etc. I recall a writer who says that the column of breath must be directed against the hard palate toward the front of the mouth in order to get a resonant tone. Consider this a moment. When the breath is properly vocalized its power is completely destroyed. Any one may test this by vocalizing in an atmosphere cold enough to condense the moisture in his breath. If he is vocalizing perfectly, he will observe that the breath moves lazily out of the mouth and curls upward not more than an inch from the face. The idea that this breath, which has not a particle of force after leaving the vocal cords, can be directed against the hard palate with an impact sufficient to affect tone quality is the limit of absurdity. If the writer had spoken of directing the sound waves to the front of the mouth there would have been an element of reasonableness in it, for sound waves can be reflected as well as light waves; but breath and sound are quite different things.

What does the teacher mean when he tells the pupil to place the tone in the head? He doubtless means that the student shall call into use the upper resonator. If one holds a vibrating tuning-fork before a resonating tube, does he direct the vibrations into that resonating cavity? No. Neither is it necessary to try to drive the voice into the cavities of the head. Such instructions are of doubtful value. They are almost sure to result in a hard unsympathetic tone. They increase rather than diminish the resistance. The only possible way to place the tone in the head is to let it go there. This will always occur when the resistance is destroyed and the channel is free.

In numerous instances the resistance in the vocal cords is so great that it is impossible to sing softly, or with half voice. It requires so much breath pressure to start the vibration, that is, to overcome the resistance, that when it does start it is with full voice. In a majority of male voices the upper tone must be taken either with full chest voice or with falsetto. There is no mezza voce. This condition is abnormal and is responsible for the “red in the face” brand of voice production so often heard.

Of this we may be sure, that no one can sing a good full tone unless he can sing a good mezza voce. When the mechanism is sufficiently free from resistance that a good pianissimo can be sung then the conditions are right to begin to build toward a forte.

Further, when the mechanism is entirely free from resistance there is no conscious effort required to produce tone. The singer has the feeling of letting himself sing rather than of making himself sing.

The engineer of a great pumping station once told me that his mammoth Corliss engine was so perfectly balanced that he could run it with ten pounds of steam. When the voice is free, and resting on the breath as it were, it seems to sing itself.

An illustration of the opposite condition, of extreme resistance was once told me by the president of a great street railway system that was operated by a cable. He said it required eighty-five per cent of the power generated to start the machinery, that is, to overcome the resistance, leaving but fifteen per cent for operating cars. It is not at all uncommon to hear singers who are so filled with resistance that it requires all of their available energy to make the vocal instrument produce tone. Such singers soon find themselves exhausted and the voice tired and husky. It is this type of voice production rather than climatic conditions, that causes so much chronic laryngitis among singers. I have seen the truth of this statement verified in the complete and permanent disappearance of many cases of laryngitis through learning to produce the voice correctly.

The second step in securing right conditions is the proper management of the breath.

An extremist always lacks the sense of proportion. He allows a single idea to fill his mental horizon. He is fanciful, and when an idea comes to him he turns his high power imagination upon it, and it immediately becomes overwhelming in magnitude and importance. Thereafter all things in his universe revolve around it.

The field of voice teaching is well stocked with extremists. Everything involved in voice production and many things that are not, have been taken up one at a time and made the basis of a method.

One builds his reputation on a peculiar way of getting the tone into the frontal sinuses by way of the infundibulum canal, and makes all other things secondary.

Another has discovered a startling effect which a certain action of the arytenoid cartilages has on registers, and sees a perfect voice as the result.

Another has discovered that a particular movement of the thyroid cartilage is the only proper way to tense the vocal cords and when every one learns to do this all bad voices will disappear.

Another has discovered something in breath control so revolutionary in its nature that it alone will solve all vocal problems.

Perhaps if all of these discoveries could be combined they might produce something of value; but who will undertake it? Not the extremists themselves, for they are barren of the synthetic idea, and their sense of proportion is rudimentary. They would be scientists were it not for their abnormal imaginations. The scientist takes the voice apart and examines it in detail, but the voice teacher must put all parts of it together and mold it into a perfect whole. The process is synthetic rather than analytic, and undue emphasis on any one element destroys the necessary balance.

The immediate danger of laying undue emphasis on any one idea in voice training lies in its tendency toward the mechanical and away from the spontaneous, automatic response so vitally necessary. Here the extremists commit a fatal error. To make breath management the all-in-all of singing invariably leads to direct control, and soon the student has become so conscious of the mechanism of breathing that his mind is never off of it while singing; he finds himself becoming rigid trying to prevent his breath from escaping, and the more rigid he becomes the less control he has. A large number of examples of this kind of breath management have come under my observation. They all show the evil results of over working an idea.

But the followers of “the-breath-is-the-whole-thing” idea say “You can’t sing without breath control.” Solomon never said a truer thing, but the plan just mentioned is the worst possible way to secure it.

Every one should know that not a single one of the processes of voice production is right until it is working automatically, and automatic action is the result of indirect, never of direct control.

The profession has become pretty thoroughly imbued with the idea that deep breathing, known as abdominal, or diaphragmatic is the best for purposes of singing. But how deep? The answer is, the deeper the better. Here again it is easy to overstep the bounds. I have in mind numerous instances where the singer, under the impression that he was practicing deep breathing tried to control the breath with the lower abdominal muscles, but no matter how great the effort made there was little tonal response, for the reason that the pressure exerted was not against the lungs but against the contents of the abdomen. The diaphragm is the point of control. The lungs lie above it, not below it. To concentrate the thought on the lower abdominal muscles means to lose control of the diaphragm, the most important thing involved in breath management.

The process of breathing is simple. The lungs are enclosed in an air tight box of which the diaphragm is the bottom. It rests under the lungs like an inverted saucer. In the act of contracting it flattens toward a plane and in so doing it moves downward and forward, away from the lungs. The ribs move outward, forward and upward. The lungs which occupy this box like a half compressed sponge follow the receding walls, and a vacuum is created which air rushes in to fill. In exhalation the action is reversed. The ribs press against the lungs and the diaphragm slowly returns to its original position and the breath is forced out like squeezing water out of a sponge.

The one important thing in breath management is the diaphragm. If the student has the right action of the diaphragm he will have no further trouble with breath control. In my Systematic Voice Training will be found a list of exercises which thoroughly cover the subject of breath control and if properly used will correct all errors. Let this be understood, that there is nothing in correct breathing that should make one tired. On the contrary the practice of breathing should leave one refreshed. Above all, the student should never make himself rigid when trying to control the flow of breath. This is not only of no advantage, but will effectually defeat the end for which he is striving.

In securing right conditions the teacher is often confronted with the problem of registers. The literature on this subject is voluminous and varied. Opinions are offered without stint and the number of registers which have been discovered in the human voice ranges from none to an indefinite number. How one scientist can see two, and another one five registers in the same voice might be difficult to explain were it not a well known fact that some people are better at “seeing things” than others.

But here again the teacher soon learns that laboratory work is of little value. His view point is so different from that of the physicist that they can hardly be said to be working at the same problem. The physicist tries to discover the action of the mechanism, in other words, how the tone is made. The voice teacher is concerned primarily with how it sounds. One is looking at the voice, the other is listening to it, which things, be it known, are essentially and fundamentally different; so different that their relationship is scarcely traceable. The ability to train the voice comes through working with voices where the musical sense, rather than the scientific sense, is the guide. It is a specific knowledge which can be gained in no other way. It begins when one takes an untrained voice and attempts to make it produce a musical tone.

The problem of registers is, in short, how to make an even scale out of an uneven one. It must be solved in the studio. Anatomical knowledge is of no avail. The teacher who has learned how to produce an even scale possesses knowledge which is of more value to the student than all of the books ever written on vocal mechanism.

The depressions in the voice known as “changes of register” result from tension. With one adjustment of the vocal cords the singer can, by adding tension, make a series of four or five tones, then by a change of adjustment he can produce another similar series, and so on to the top of his compass. These changes occur when there is such an accumulation of tension that no more can be added to that adjustment without discomfort. The solution of this problem lies in gaining such freedom from tension in the vocal instrument that it automatically readjusts itself for each tone. The tension is then evenly distributed throughout the scale and the sudden changes disappear. This is precisely what happens when the singer has learned to produce an even scale throughout his compass; his voice production is not right until he can do this.

The statement is frequently made in public print that there are no registers in the trained voice. This order of wisdom is equally scintillating with that profound intellectual effort which avers that a bald headed man has no hair on the top of his head, or that hot weather is due to a rise in the temperature. These statements may be heavy-laden with truth, but to the voice teacher they are irrelevant. His work is at least seven-eighths with untrained voices. By the time he has worked out an even scale with all of the other problems that go hand in hand with it, for a great deal of the art of singing will naturally accompany it, a large majority of his pupils are ready to move on. Only a small per cent prepare for a musical career. Most of his work is with voices that still need to be perfected. It is for voices of this kind that the teacher lives. It is for such voices that vocal methods are evolved and books written.

A lighthearted, easy going assurance is not sufficient alone to compass the problems that present themselves in the studio. If the teacher is conscientious there will be times when he will feel deeply the need of something more than human wisdom. The work in the studio has more to do with the future than with the immediate present. The singing lesson is a small part of what the student carries with him. The atmosphere of the studio, which is the real personality of the teacher, his ideals, aims, the depth of his sincerity, in short, his concept of the meaning of life, goes with the student and will be remembered when the lesson is forgotten.

I fancy there is nothing more intangible to most people than the term “phrasing.” I have asked a great many students to give me the principles of phrasing, but as yet I have seen none who could do it, and yet all singers, from the youngest to the oldest must make some use of these principles every time they sing. Now a thing in such general use should be, and is, subject to analysis.

All of the rules of phrasing, like the rules of composition, grow out of what sounds well. Beauty and ugliness are matters of mental correspondence. In music a thing to be beautiful must satisfy a mental demand, and this demand is one’s taste. The sense of fitness must obtain. When the singer interprets a song the demand of the listener is that he shall do well what he undertakes to do: that he shall portray whatever phase of life the song contains, accurately, definitely, that he shall have a definite intent and purpose, that he shall be in the mood of the song. The singer must not portray one mood with his face, another with his voice, while the poem suggests still a third. He must avoid incongruity. All things must work together. There must be therefore, the evidence of intelligent design in every word and phrase.

The song is a unit and each phrase contains a definite idea, therefore it must not be detached or fragmentary, but must have the element of continuity and each and every part must be made to contribute to the central idea.

The element of insecurity must not be allowed to enter. If it does, the listener feels that the singer is not sure of himself, that he cannot do what he set out to do: therefore he is a failure.

Another demand is that the singer shall be intelligent. A poem does not lose its meaning or its strength by being associated with music, and to this end the singer must deliver the text with the same understanding and appreciation of its meaning as would a public reader.

Now from the above we infer certain principles. The demand for continuity means that the singer must have a pure legato. That is, he must be able to connect words smoothly, to pass from one word to another without interrupting the tone, that the tone may be continuous throughout each phrase.

The feeling of security lies in what is known as sostenuto, the ability to sustain the tone throughout the phrase with no sense of diminishing power. It means in short the organ time.

From the demand for design in each word and phrase comes contrast. This may be made in the power of the tone by means of cres. dim. sfz. It may be made in the tempo by means of the retard, accelerando, the hold, etc. It may also be made in the quality of the tone by using the various shades from bright to somber.

The basis of phrasing then, may be found in legato, sostenuto and contrast. All of the other things involved in interpretation cannot make a good performance if these fundamental principles be lacking. A more complete outline of interpretation follows:

Most of the things mentioned in this outline of interpretation have been discussed elsewhere, but the subject of diction requires further explanation.

The mechanism of speech might be discussed at any length, but to reduce it to its simplest form it consists of the sound producing instrument,—the vocal cords, the organs of enunciation—lips, tongue, teeth and soft palate, and the channel leading to the outer air. When the vocal cords are producing pitch and the channel is free the result is a vowel. If an obstruction is thrown into the channel the result is a consonant. Vowels and consonants, then, constitute the elements of speech. The vowels are the emotional elements and the consonants are the intellectual elements. By means of vowel sounds alone emotions may be awakened, but when definite ideas are expressed, words which are a combination of vowels and consonants must be used. It is nothing short of amazing that with this simple mechanism, by using the various combinations of open and obstructed channel in connection with pitch, the entire English language or any other language for that matter can be produced.

Vowels are produced with an open channel from the vocal cords to the outer air. Consonants are produced by partial or complete closing of the channel by interference of the lips, tongue, teeth and soft palate.

If language consisted entirely of vowels learning to sing would be much simpler than it is. It is the consonants that cause trouble. It is not uncommon to find students who can vocalize with comparative ease, but the moment they attempt to sing words the mechanism becomes rigid. The tendency toward rigidity is much greater in enunciating consonants than it is in enunciating vowels, and yet they should be equally easy. Here is where the student finds his greatest difficulty in mastering English diction.

The most frequent criticism of American singers is their deficiency in diction. Whether it please us or no, it must be admitted that on the whole the criticism is not without foundation.

The importance of effective speech is much underestimated by students of singing, and yet it requires but a moment’s consideration to see that the impression created by speech is the result of forceful diction no less than of subject matter. Words mean the same thing whether spoken or sung, and the singer no less than the speaker should deliver them with a full understanding of their meaning.

The proposition confronting the singer is a difficult one. When he attempts the dramatic he finds that it destroys his legato. He loses the sustained quality of the organ tone, which is the true singing tone, and bel canto is out of the question.

This is what is urged against the operas of Wagner and practically everything of the German school since his day. The dramatic element is so intense and the demand so strenuous that singers find it almost, if not quite impossible, to keep the singing tone and reach the dramatic heights required. They soon find themselves shouting in a way that not only destroys the singing tone but also the organ that produces it. The truth of this cannot be gainsaid. There is a considerable amount of vocal wreckage strewn along the way, the result of wrestling with Wagnerian recitative. Wagnerian singers are, as a rule, vocally shorter lived than those that confine themselves to French and Italian opera.

But it will be argued by some that these people have not learned how to sing, that if they had a perfect vocal method they could sing Wagner as easily as Massenet. That they have not learned to sing Wagner is evident, and this brings us to the question—Shall the singer adjust himself to the composer or the composer to the singer? A discussion of this would probably lead nowhere, but I submit the observation, that many modern composers show a disregard for the possibilities and limitations of the human voice that amounts to stupidity. Because a composer can write great symphonies the public is inclined to think that everything he writes is great. Let it be understood once for all that bad voice writing is bad whether it is done by a symphonic writer or a popular songwriter. In the present stage of human development there are certain things the voice can do and other things it cannot do, and these things can be known only by those who understand the voice, and are accustomed to working with it. To ignore them completely when writing for voices is no evidence of genius. Composers seem to forget that the singer must create the pitch of his instrument as well as its quality at the moment he uses it. They also forget that his most important aid in this is the feeling of tonality. When this is destroyed and the singer is forced to measure intervals abstractedly he is called upon to do something immeasurably more difficult than anything that is asked of the instrumentalist. Many modern composers have lost their heads and run amuck on the modern idiom, and their writing for voices is so complex that it would require a greater musician to sing their music than it did to write it.

But to return, I do not say that it is impossible to apply the principles of bel canto to Wagner’s dramatic style of utterance. On the contrary I believe it is possible to gain such a mastery of voice production and enunciation that the Wagnerian roles may be sung, not shouted, and still not be lacking in dramatic intensity, but it requires a more careful study of diction and its relation to voice production than most singers are willing to make.

A majority of singers never succeed in establishing the right relation between the vocal organ and the organs of enunciation. Years of experience have verified this beyond peradventure.

It is a very common thing for singers to vocalize for an indefinite period with no ill effect, but become hoarse with ten minutes of singing. The reason is apparent. They have learned how to produce vowels with a free throat but not consonants. The moment they attempt to form a consonant, tension appears, not only in those parts of the mechanism which form the consonant, but in the vocal organ as well. Under such treatment the voice soon begins to show wear, and this is exactly what happens to those singers who find it difficult to sing the Wagner operas.

The solution of this problem lies in the proper study of diction. The intellectual elements of speech consonants are formed almost entirely in the front of the mouth with various combinations of lips, tongue and teeth. Three things are necessary to their complete mastery.

First,—consonants must be produced without tension. It will be well to remember in this connection that consonants are not to be sung. They are points of interference and must be distinct but short. The principle of freedom applies to consonants no less than to vowels.

Second,—consonants must not be allowed to interrupt the continuity of the pitch produced by the vocal cords. This is necessary to preserve legato. Some consonants close the channel completely, others only partially. It is a great achievement to be able to sing all consonant combinations and still preserve a legato.

Third,—consonants must in no way interfere with the freedom of the vocal organ. If the student attempts to sing the consonants, that is, to prolong them he is sure to make his throat rigid and the pure singing tone at once disappears. He must therefore learn dramatic utterance without throwing the weight of it on the throat. To do this he must begin with a consonant which offers the least resistance and practice it until the three points mentioned have been mastered. The one which will give the least trouble is l. At the pitch G sing ah-lah-lah-lah-lah, until it can be done with relaxed tongue, with perfect continuity of tone, and with perfect freedom in the vocal instrument. In the same way practice n, d, v, th, m, and the sub vocals, b, d, g. Always begin with a vowel.

If the singer has the patience to work the problem out in this way he can apply the principles of bel canto to dramatic singing. The road to this achievement is long, longer than most people suspect, but if one is industrious and persevering it may be accomplished.

But there remains yet to be mentioned the most important element of artistic singing. To the pure tone and perfect diction must be added the imagination. The imagination is the image making power of the mind, the power to create or reproduce ideally that which has been previously perceived: the power to call up mental images. By means of the imagination we take the materials of experience and mold them into idealized forms. The aim of creative art is to idealize, that is, to portray nature and experience in perfect forms not with the imperfections of visible nature. “In this” says Hegel, “art is superior to nature.”

The activity of the imagination is directly responsible for that most essential thing—emotional tone. Taking intelligence for granted, the imagination is the most important factor involved in interpretation. If the imagination be quick and responsive it will carry the singer away from himself and temporarily he will live the song.

Every song has an atmosphere, a metaphysical something which differentiates it from every other song. The singer must discover it and find the mood which will perfectly express it. If his imagination constructs the image, creates the picture, recalls the feeling, the emotion, the result will be artistic singing. The song is that which comes from the soul of the singer. It is not on the printed page. If I study a Schubert song until I have mastered it, I have done nothing to Schubert. It is I who have grown. Through the activity of the imagination, guided by the intelligence, I have built up in my consciousness as nearly as possible what I conceive to have been Schubert’s feeling when he wrote the song, but the work has all been done on myself.

A chapter might be written on the artistic personality. It reveals itself in light, shade, nuance, inflection, accent, color, always with a perfect sense of proportion, harmony and unity, and free from all that is earthy. It is the expression of individuality. It cannot be imitated. If you ask me for its source I repeat again Whistler’s immortal saying: “Art is an expression of eternal, absolute truth, and starting from the Infinite it cannot progress, IT IS.”

I have mentioned the principles of song construction, but there are other things which have to do with making a song effective. One of the most important of these is association. Let us remember that the effect and consequent value of music depends upon the class of emotions it awakens rather than upon the technical skill of the composer, and that these emotions are dependent to a considerable extent upon association. We all remember the time honored expedient of tying a string around a finger when a certain thing is to be remembered. The perception of the digital decoration recalls the reason for it and thus the incident is carried to a successful conclusion. In like manner feelings become associated with ideas. Church bells arouse feelings of reverence and devotion. To many of us a brass band awakens pleasant memories of circus day. Scots Wha Hae fills the Scotchman with love for his native heather. The odor of certain flowers is offensive because we associate it with a sad occasion. The beauty of a waltz is due not only to its composition but also to our having danced to it under particularly pleasant circumstances.

At the opera there are many things that combine to make it a pleasant occasion—the distant tuning of the orchestra, the low hum of voices, the faint odor of violets, and the recollection of having been there before with that miracle of a girl,—all combine to fill us with pleasurable anticipation. In this way we give as much to the performance as it gives to us. According to some Aestheticians the indefinable emotions we sometimes feel when listening to music are the reverberations of feelings experienced countless ages ago. This may have some foundation in fact, but it is somewhat like seeing in a museum a mummy of ourselves in a previous incarnation.

Songs which have the strongest hold upon us are those which have been in some way associated with our experience. The intensity with which such songs as Annie Laurie, Dixie, The Vacant Chair, Tramp, Tramp, Tramp grip us is due almost entirely to association.

Therefore the value of a song consists not alone in what it awakens in the present, but in what it recalls from the past. Man is the sum of his experience; and to make past experience contribute to the joy of the present is to add abundance to riches.