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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Head Voice and Other Problems, by D. A.
+Clippinger
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: The Head Voice and Other Problems
+       Practical Talks on Singing
+
+
+Author: D. A. Clippinger
+
+
+
+Release Date: October 7, 2006  [eBook #19493]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HEAD VOICE AND OTHER
+PROBLEMS***
+
+
+E-text prepared by David Newman, Chuck Greif, Barbara Tozier, and the
+Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team
+(https://www.pgdp.net/)
+
+
+
+Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file
+      which includes the original illustrations.
+      See 19493-h.htm or 19493-h.zip:
+      (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/9/4/9/19493/19493-h/19493-h.htm)
+      or
+      (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/9/4/9/19493/19493-h.zip)
+
+      The musical illustrations also have been transcribed and
+      collected in two pdf files, links to which can be found at
+      the beginning and the end of the html version. The Exercises
+      follow the Exercises as numbered in the book in chapter II
+      (The Head Voice). The remainder of the musical fragments,
+      which are unlabeled in the book, are noted as Figures A
+      through Q (in the order in which they appear), and can be
+      found in the Figures pdf.
+
+
+
+
+
+THE HEAD VOICE AND OTHER PROBLEMS
+
+Practical Talks on Singing
+
+by
+
+D. A. CLIPPINGER
+
+Author of
+Systematic Voice Training
+The Elements of Voice Culture
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+1.00
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+Boston
+Oliver Ditson Company
+New York                     Chicago
+Chas. H. Ditson & Co.            Lyon & Healy
+
+Copyright MCMXVII
+By Oliver Ditson Company
+International Copyright Secured
+
+
+
+
+                               _To_
+                            MY STUDENTS
+                     _Past, Present and Future_
+
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+
+The following chapters are the outgrowth of an enthusiasm for the work
+of voice training, together with a deep personal interest in a large
+number of conscientious young men and women who have gone out of my
+studio into the world to engage in the responsible work of voice
+teaching.
+
+The desire to be of service to them has prompted me to put in permanent
+form the principles on which I labored, more or less patiently, to
+ground them during a course of three, four, or five years. The fact that
+after having stood the "grind" for that length of time they are still
+asking, not to say clamoring, for more, may, in a measure, justify the
+decision to issue this book. It is not an arraignment of vocal teachers,
+although there are occasional hints, public and private, which lead me
+to believe that we are not altogether without sin. But if this be true
+we take refuge in the belief that our iniquity is not inborn, but rather
+is it the result of the educational methods of those immediately
+preceding us. This at least shifts the responsibility.
+
+Words are dangerous things, and are liable at any moment to start a
+verbal conflagration difficult to control. Nowhere is this more likely
+to occur than in a discussion of voice training.
+
+From a rather wide acquaintance with what has been said on this subject
+in the past hundred years, I feel perfectly safe in submitting the
+proposition that the human mind can believe anything and be
+conscientious in it.
+
+Things which have the approval of ages emit the odor of sanctity, and
+whoever scoffs does so at his peril. Charles Lamb was once criticised
+for speaking disrespectfully of the equator, and a noted divine was
+severely taken to task for making unkind remarks about hell. Humanity
+insists that these time honored institutions be treated with due
+respect. I have an equal respect for those who believe as I do and those
+who do not; therefore if anything in this book is not in accord with
+popular opinion it is a crack at the head of the idol rather than that
+of the worshipper.
+
+There is no legislative enactment in this great and free country to
+prevent us from _believing_ anything we like, but there should be some
+crumbs of comfort in the reflection that we cannot _know_ anything but
+the truth. One may believe that eight and three are thirteen if it
+please him, but he cannot know it because it is not true. Everything
+that is true has for its basis certain facts, principles, laws, and
+these are eternal and unchangeable. The instant the law governing any
+particular thing becomes definitely known, that moment it becomes
+undebatable. All argument is eliminated; but while we are searching for
+these laws we are dealing largely in opinions, and here the offense
+enters, for as Mr. Epictetus once said, "Men become offended at their
+opinion of things, not at the things themselves." We can scarcely
+imagine any one taking offense at the multiplication table, neither is
+this interesting page from the arithmetic any longer considered a fit
+subject for debate in polite society, but so far as we know this is the
+only thing that is immune.
+
+Our musical judgments, which are our opinions, are governed by our
+experience; and with the growth of experience they ripen into solid
+convictions. For many years I have had a conviction that voice training
+is much simpler and less involved than it is generally considered. I am
+convinced that far too much is made of the vocal mechanism, which under
+normal conditions always responds automatically. Beautiful tone should
+be the primary aim of all voice teaching, and more care should be given
+to forming the student's tone concept than to that of teaching him how
+to control his throat by direct effort. The controlling power of a right
+idea is still much underestimated. The scientific plan of controlling
+the voice by means of mechanical directions leaves untouched the one
+thing which prevents its normal, automatic action, namely tension.
+
+But, someone inquires, "If the student is singing with rigid throat and
+tongue would you say nothing about it?" I would correct it, but not by
+telling him to hold his tongue down. A relaxed tongue is always in the
+right place, therefore all he needs to learn about the tongue is how to
+relax it.
+
+It has been hinted that he who subscribes to Dr. Fillebrown's declaration
+that [A]"The process of singing is psychologic rather than physiologic"
+has nothing tangible to work with. Now tone concept and musical feeling
+are absolutely essential to singing, and they are definite entities to one
+who has them. All musical temperaments must be vitalized. Imaginations
+must be trained until they will burst into flame at the slightest poetic
+suggestion. Musical natures are not fixed quantities. They are all subject
+to the law of growth. Every vocal student is an example of the law of
+evolution. Few people find it easy in the beginning to assume instantly a
+state of intense emotion. These things are habits of mind which must be
+developed, and they furnish the teacher with definite problems.
+
+    [A] _Resonance in Singing and Speaking_, by Thomas Fillebrown.
+
+To repeat, _the tone is the thing_, and _how it sounds_ is what
+determines whether it is right or wrong. And so we come back again to
+the ear, which is the taste. Does it please the ear? If so, is the ear
+reliable? Not always. If all teachers were trying for the same tone
+quality there would be no need of further writing on the subject, but
+they are not. On the contrary no two of them are trying for exactly the
+same quality. Each one is trying to make the voice produce his idea of
+tone quality, and the astounding thing about the human voice is that for
+a time at least, it can approximate almost anything that is demanded of
+it. If a voice is ruined, the ear of the teacher is directly
+responsible. It is useless to try to place the blame elsewhere.
+
+Truth is always simple. If it seems difficult it is due to our clumsy
+way of stating it. Thought, like melodies, should run on the line of the
+least resistance. In the following pages I have eschewed all mystifying
+polysyllabic verbiage, and as Mark Twain once said, have "confined
+myself to a categorical statement of facts unincumbered by an obscuring
+accumulation of metaphor and allegory."
+
+It is hoped that this book will be useful. It is offered as a guide
+rather than as a reformer. It aims to point in the right direction, and
+"do its bit" in emphasizing those things which are fundamental in voice
+training. Whatever is true in it will reach and help those who need it.
+Nothing more could be asked or desired.
+
+                         [Illustration: (signed) D. A. Clippinger]
+
+Kimball Hall, Chicago.
+May, 1917.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+  INTRODUCTION
+     I. VOICE PLACING
+     II. THE HEAD VOICE
+   III. A GENERAL SURVEY OF THE SITUATION
+    IV. HINTS ON TEACHING
+     V. THE NATURE AND MEANING OF ART
+    VI. SINGING AS AN ART
+   VII. THE CONSTRUCTION OF A SONG
+  VIII. HOW TO STUDY A SONG
+    IX. SCIENTIFIC VOICE PRODUCTION
+  BIBLIOGRAPHY
+
+
+
+
+THE HEAD VOICE AND OTHER PROBLEMS.
+
+I
+
+VOICE PLACING
+
+    "The path of the sound, being formed of elastic and movable
+    parts, varies its dimensions and forms in endless ways, and
+    every modification--even the slightest--has a corresponding and
+    definite influence on the voice."
+
+                                        Garcia.  _Hints on Singing_.
+
+
+Vocal teachers are rated primarily on their ability as voice builders.
+When students look for a teacher the first thing they want to know is:
+"Can he build a voice?" His ability as an interpreter in most instances
+is taken for granted. Why this is so is easily understood. There is a
+moving appeal in the pure singing tone of the human voice that cannot
+even be approximated by any other instrument. We have all heard voices
+that were so beautiful that to hear one of them vocalize for half an
+hour would be a musical feast. Such a voice is so full of feeling, so
+vibrant with life and emotion that it moves one to the depths even if no
+words are used. It is only natural that all singers should be eager to
+possess such a voice, for it covers up a multitude of other musical
+misdemeanors. While it does not take the place altogether of the
+interpretative instinct, it does make the work of the singer much easier
+by putting his audience in sympathy with him from the beginning, thus to
+a considerable extent disarming criticism. The old Italians attached so
+much importance to beautiful tone that they were willing to work
+conscientiously for half a dozen years to obtain it. To the beautiful
+tone they added a faultless technic. Altogether it required from five to
+eight years to prepare and equip a singer for a career, but when he was
+thus prepared he could do astounding things in the way of trills,
+roulades, and cadenzas.
+
+The stories of many of these singers have come down to us through the
+musical histories, and the singing world has come to believe that the
+teachers alone were responsible. Owing to her geographic location, her
+climate, language, and racial characteristics Italy at one time
+furnished most of the great singers of the world, and the world with its
+usual lack of judgment and discrimination gave Italian teachers all of
+the credit. That the best of the Italian teachers were as near right as
+it is humanly possible to be, I have no doubt whatever, but along with
+the few singers who became famous there were hundreds who worked equally
+hard but were never heard of. A great voice is a gift of the creator,
+and the greater the gift the less there is to be done by the teacher.
+But in addition to what nature has done there is always much to be done
+by the teacher, and the nature of the vocal instrument is such that its
+training is a problem unique and peculiar. The voice can do so many
+different things, produce so many different kinds of tone, in such a
+variety of ways that the ability to determine which is right and which
+is wrong becomes a matter of aesthetic judgment rather than scientific
+or mechanical.
+
+If the scale, power, quality, and compass of the human voice were
+established as are those of the piano, the great problem in the training
+of a singer would be much simplified, possibly eliminated; but the
+singer must form the pitch, power, and quality of each tone as he uses
+it; therefore in the training of a singer we are constantly facing what
+has crystallized into the term =Voice Placing=.
+
+This term has been used as a peg upon which to hang every whim, fancy,
+formula, and vocal vagary that has floated through the human mind in the
+last two centuries. It has furnished an excuse for inflicting upon vocal
+students every possible product of the imagination, normal and abnormal,
+disguised in the word =Method=, and the willingness with which students
+submit themselves as subjects for experiment is beyond belief. The more
+mysterious and abnormal the process the more faith they have in its
+efficacy.
+
+The nature of the vocal instrument, its wide range of possibilities, and
+its intimate relation to the imagination make it a peculiarly fit
+subject for experiment. The scientist has tried to analyze it, the
+mechanic has tried to make it do a thousand things nature never intended
+it to do, the reformer has tried to reform both, and the psychologist,
+nearest right of all, has attempted to remove it from the realm of the
+material altogether. There seems to be no way to stop this theorizing,
+and it doubtless will continue until the general musical intelligence
+reaches such a point that it automatically becomes impossible.
+
+We are constantly hearing such remarks as "Mr. S knows how to place the
+voice." "Mr. G does not." "Mr. B places the voice high." "Mr. R does not
+place the voice high enough." "Mr. X is great at bringing the tone
+forward," etc., etc. This goes on through a long list of fragments of
+English difficult to explain even by those who use them.
+
+Now voice placing means just one thing, not half a dozen. It means
+learning to produce =beautiful tone=. When one can produce beautiful
+tone throughout his vocal compass his voice is placed, and it is not
+placed until he can. The injunction to _place the voice_ invariably
+leaves in the mind of the student the idea that he must direct the tone
+to some particular point, in fact he is often urged to do so, whereas
+the truth is that when the tone is properly produced there is no thought
+of trying to put it anywhere. It seems to sing itself. There is a well
+established belief among students that the tone must be consciously
+directed to the point where it is supposed to focus. This belief is
+intimately associated with another equally erroneous, that the only way
+to tell whether a tone is good or bad, right or wrong, is by the way it
+feels. A tone is something to hear. It makes its appeal to the ear, and
+why one should rely on the sense of feeling to tell whether it sounds
+right or wrong is something difficult to understand.
+
+Further, explicit directions are given for the action and control of
+everything involved in making tone except the mind of the student. The
+larynx seems to be particularly vulnerable and is subject to continuous
+attack. One says it should be held low throughout the compass. Another
+says it should rise as the pitch rises, and still another, that it
+should drop as the pitch rises. Instructions of this kind do not
+enlighten, they mystify.
+
+If there be any one thing upon which voice teachers theoretically agree
+it is "free throat". Even those who argue for a fixed larynx agree to
+this, notwithstanding it is a physical impossibility to hold the larynx
+in a fixed position throughout the compass without a considerable amount
+of rigidity. It is like believing in Infinite Love and eternal
+punishment at the same time.
+
+When the larynx is free it will not and should not be in the same
+position at all times. It will be a little lower for somber tones than
+for bright tones. It will be a little higher for the vowel e than for oo
+or o, but the adjustments will be _automatic_, never conscious. It
+cannot be too often reiterated that every part of the vocal mechanism
+must act automatically, and it is not properly controlled until it does.
+
+The soft palate also comes in for its share of instruction. I was once
+taught to raise it until the uvula disappeared. Later I was taught to
+relax it. Both of these movements of the soft palate were expected to
+result in a beautiful tone. Now if two things which are directly opposed
+to each other are equal to the same thing, then there is no use in
+bothering our heads further with logic.
+
+Such directions I believe to be of doubtful value, if not irrelevant. We
+must learn that _an idea has definite form_, and that when the mechanism
+is free, that is, plastic, the idea molds it into a corresponding form
+and the expression becomes a perfect picture of the idea. This is what
+is meant by indirect control, involuntary, automatic action.
+
+One could write indefinitely on the peculiarities of voice training, the
+unique suggestions made, the mechanical instructions given, the
+unbelievable things students are made to do with lips, tongue and larynx
+as a necessary preparation to voice production. In this as in everything
+else there are extremists. Some have such an exquisite sense of detail
+that they never get beyond it. At the other extreme are those who trust
+everything to take care of itself. Both overlook the most important
+thing, namely, how the voice sounds.
+
+It requires much time, study and experience to learn that voice training
+is simple. It is a fact that truth is naturally, inherently simple. Its
+mastery lies in removing those things which seem to make it difficult
+and complex. Training the voice, this so called "voice placing," is
+simple and easy when one has risen above that overwhelming amount of
+fiction, falsity, and fallacy that has accumulated around it, obscuring
+the truth and causing many well intentioned teachers to follow theories
+and vagaries that have no foundation in fact, and which lead both
+teacher and pupil astray. If there is any truth applicable to voice
+training it has an underlying principle, for truth is the operation of
+principle. If we start wrong we shall end wrong. If we start right and
+continue according to principle we shall reach the desired goal.
+
+=Voice training has its starting point, its basis, its foundation, in
+beautiful tone.= This should be the aim of both teacher and pupil from
+the beginning. To produce something beautiful is the aim of all artistic
+activity. Beautiful tone, as Whistler said of all art, has its origin in
+absolute truth. That which is not beautiful cannot possibly be true, for
+real nature, which is the expression of Infinite Mind, is always
+perfect, and no perfect thing can be ugly, discordant, or inharmonious.
+The imperfection we see is the result of our own imperfect understanding
+of the real universe.
+
+A _tone is something to hear_, and =hearing is mental=. An old French
+anatomist once said: "The eye sees what it is looking for, and it is
+looking only for what it has in mind." The same is true of the ear. We
+hear the tone mentally before we sing it, and we should hear it as
+distinctly as if it were sung by another. A tone first of all is a
+mental product, and its pitch, power, and quality are definite mental
+entities. When we wish to convey this tone to another we do it through
+the sound producing instrument which nature has provided for this
+purpose.
+
+That everything exists first as idea has been the teaching of the
+philosophers for ages. That the idea is the controlling, governing force
+is equally well understood. Therefore, inasmuch as the aim of all voice
+building is to produce beautiful tone we must start with the right idea
+of tone. This is where the first and greatest difficulty appears. To
+most people a tone is intangible and difficult to define. One will
+rarely find a student that can formulate anything approaching a
+definition of a musical tone and I fancy many teachers would find it far
+from easy. Unless one has a grasp of the psychology of voice, and a
+great many have not, he will begin to work with what he can see. Here
+enters the long dreary mechanical grind that eventually ruins the temper
+of both teacher and student, and results in nothing but mechanical
+singing, instead of a joyous, inspiring musical performance.
+
+In studying the pure singing tone we find the following: It is _smooth_,
+_steady_, _firm_, _rich_, _resonant_, _sympathetic_. We shall also find
+that all of its qualities and attributes are mental. It must contain the
+element of freedom (mental), firmness (mental), security (mental),
+sympathy (mental), enthusiasm, sentiment, joy, compassion, pity, love,
+sorrow (all mental). These are all qualities of the singing tone. They
+are not intangible. On the contrary, to the one who has them they are
+definite and are the things he works for from the beginning. They are
+basic and fundamental. All are combined in what I call _tone concept_,
+which is another word for musical ear, or musical taste. This tone
+concept is by far the most important thing in voice training. The
+student will not sing a tone better than the one he conceives mentally,
+therefore the mental concept of tone, or tone concept must be the basis
+of voice placing.
+
+This tone concept, or mental picture of tone qualities controls the
+vocal instrument by indirection. True tone color does not come as the
+result of trying by some physical process to make the tone light or
+dark, but _from the automatic response to musical concept or feeling_.
+
+In leaving this subject I wish to pay my respects to that company of
+cheerful sinners--the open throat propagandists. I was taught in my
+youth that the punishment for a sin committed ignorantly was none the
+less pungent and penetrating, and I trust that in administering justice
+to these offenders the powers will be prompt, punctilious and
+persevering. It is a worthy activity.
+
+No mistake of greater magnitude was ever made since voice training began
+than that of holding the throat open by direct effort. It never resulted
+in a tone a real musician's ear could endure, nevertheless during the
+latter part of the nineteenth century and even the early part of the
+twentieth it was made such an integral part of voice culture that it
+seemed to be incorporated in the law of heredity, and vocal students,
+even before they were commanded, would try to make a large cavity in the
+back of the throat. I believe however, that there is much less of this
+than formerly. Vocal teachers are beginning to see that the one
+important thing is a free throat and that when this is gained the
+response of the mechanism to the mental demand is automatic and
+unerring.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+THE HEAD VOICE
+
+    Let him take care, however, that the higher the notes, the more
+    it is necessary to touch them with softness, to avoid screaming.
+
+                    Tosi. (1647-1727) _Observations on Florid Song_.
+
+
+That the development of the upper, or head voice, is the most difficult
+as well as the most important part of the training of the singing voice,
+will be readily admitted by every experienced singing teacher.
+
+That the upper voice should be produced with as much comfort as the
+middle or lower, is scarcely debatable.
+
+That a majority of singers produce their upper voice with more or less
+difficulty, need not be argued.
+
+Why is it that after two, three or more years of study so many upper
+voices are still thick, harsh and unsteady?
+
+There is nothing in the tone world so beautiful as the male or female
+head voice when properly produced, and there is nothing so
+excruciatingly distressing as the same voice when badly produced.
+
+The pure head voice is unique in its beauty. It is full of freedom,
+elasticity, spiritual exaltation. It seems to float, as it were, in the
+upper air without connection with a human throat. Its charm is
+irresistible. It is a joy alike to the singer and the listener. It is
+the most important part of any singer's equipment. Why is it so
+difficult and why do so few have it? Various reasons are at hand.
+
+The spirit of American enterprise has found its way into voice teaching.
+It is in the blood of both teacher and pupil. The slogan is "Put it
+over." This calls for big tone and they do not see why they should not
+have it at once.
+
+The ability to use the full power of the upper voice when occasion
+demands is necessary and right, but merely to be able to sing high and
+loud means nothing. All that is required for that is a strong physique
+and determination. Such voice building requires but little time and no
+musical sense whatever; but to be able to sing the upper register with
+full power, emotional intensity, musical quality and ease, is the result
+of long and careful work under the ear of a teacher whose sense of tone
+quality is so refined that it will detect instantly the slightest degree
+of resistance and not allow it to continue.
+
+The ambitious young singer who has been told by the village oracle that
+she has a great voice and all she needs is a little "finishing," balks
+at the idea of devoting three or four years to the process, and so she
+looks for some one who will do it quickly and she always succeeds in
+finding him. To do this work correctly the old Italians insisted on from
+five to eight years with an hour lesson each day. To take such a course
+following the modern plan of one or two half hours a week, would have
+the student treading on the heels of Methuselah before it was completed.
+
+It is not always easy to make students understand that the training of
+the voice means the development of the musical mentality and at best is
+never a short process. To most of them voice culture is a physical
+process and as they are physically fit, why wait?
+
+Now the fact is that there is nothing physical in voice production save
+the instrument, and a strong physique has no more to do with good
+singing than it has with good piano playing. Voice production is a
+mental phenomenon. It is mentality of the singer impressing itself on
+the vocal instrument and expressing itself through it. The idea that the
+vocal instrument alone without mental guidance will produce beautiful
+tone is as fallacious as that a grand piano will produce good music
+whether the one at the keyboard knows how to play it or not.
+
+Let it be understood once for all that _it is the mentality of the
+individual, not his body, that is musical or unmusical_. Both teacher
+and student must learn that there is much more to do mentally and much
+less to do physically than most people suspect. They must learn that a
+musical mentality is no less definite than a physical body, and is at
+least equally important; also that right thinking is as necessary to
+good voice production as it is to mathematics.
+
+At this point there will doubtless be a strenuous objection from those
+who assert that tone cannot be produced without effort, and that a
+considerable amount of it is necessary, especially in the upper voice.
+
+It will be readily admitted that the application of force is required to
+produce tone, but how much force? Certainly not that extreme physical
+effort that makes the singer red in the face and causes his upper tones
+to shriek rather than sing. Such a display of force discloses an
+erroneous idea of how to produce the upper voice. When there is the
+right relation existing between the breath and the vocal instrument,
+when there is the proper poise and balance of parts, no such effort is
+necessary. On the contrary the tone seems to flow and the effort
+required is only that of a light and pleasant physical exercise.
+
+The pianist does not have to strike the upper tones any harder than the
+lower ones in order to bring out their full power. Why should the upper
+part of the voice require such prodigious effort?
+
+Now _all voices should have a head register_. It is a part of nature's
+equipment, and this calls for a word on the classification of voices. It
+ought not to be difficult to determine whether a voice is soprano, alto,
+tenor, baritone or bass, but I find each year a considerable number that
+have been misled. Why? A number of things are responsible. One of the
+most common is that of mistaking a soprano who has a chest register for
+an alto. This singer finds the low register easier to sing than the
+upper, consequently she and her friends decide she is an alto.
+Thereafter she sings low songs and takes the alto part in the choir. The
+longer she follows this plan the less upper voice she will have, and
+when she goes to a teacher, unless he has a discriminating and
+analytical ear, he will allow her to remain in the alto class. There is
+always something in the fiber of a tone, even though it be badly
+produced, that will disclose to the trained ear what it will be when
+rightly produced.
+
+Again, the human voice can produce such a variety of tone qualities that
+sometimes a soprano will cultivate a somber style of singing and a
+majority of people will call her alto. It requires a trained ear to
+detect what she is doing. The baritone also, because he often sings the
+bass part in a quartet, tries to make himself sound like a bass; this he
+does by singing with a somber, hollow quality which has little or no
+carrying power.
+
+Another mistake is that of classifying a voice according to its compass.
+This is the least reliable method of all. The mere fact of having high
+tones does not necessarily make one a soprano, neither is a voice always
+to be classified as alto by reason of not being able to sing high. It is
+_quality_ that decides what a voice is. Soprano is a quality. Alto is a
+quality. The terms tenor, baritone, bass, refer to a quality rather than
+a compass. These qualities are determined primarily by the construction
+of the organ.
+
+But when voices are properly trained there is not so much difference in
+the compass as most people suppose. For example: the female head voice
+lies approximately within this compass [Illustration: Figure A] and
+altos who learn to use the real head voice will have no difficulty in
+vocalizing that high.
+
+At the lower end of the voice sopranos who have a chest register will
+often sing as low as most altos. But whether they sing high or low it is
+always the quality that determines the classification of the voice.
+
+Many lyric sopranos have no chest register, and it would be a mistake to
+attempt to develop one. In such voices, which rarely have anything below
+middle C, the middle register must be strengthened and carried down and
+made to take the place of the chest voice.
+
+It must not be understood that there is but one soprano quality, one
+alto quality, etc. The voice is so individual that it cannot be thus
+limited. There are many soprano qualities between the coloratura and the
+dramatic, and the same is true of alto, tenor, baritone and bass.
+
+When the voice is rightly produced, its natural quality will invariably
+appear, and there it must be allowed to remain. An attempt to change it
+always means disaster.
+
+It will be observed that the piano string diminishes in length and
+thickness as the pitch rises, and the voice must do something which
+corresponds to this. Otherwise it will be doing that which approximates
+stretching the middle C string, for example, until it will produce its
+octave.
+
+In discussing the head voice it is the purpose to avoid as much as
+possible the mechanical construction of the instrument. This may be
+learned from the numerous books on the anatomy and physiology of the
+voice. It is an interesting subject, but beyond an elementary knowledge
+it is of little value to the teacher. A correct knowledge of how to
+train the voice must be gained in the studio, not in the laboratory. Its
+basis is the musical sense rather than the mechanical or scientific. All
+of the scientific or mechanical knowledge that the world has to offer is
+no preparation for voice training. A knowledge of the art of teaching
+begins when the teacher takes his first pupil, not before. Therefore the
+aim shall be to present the subject as it appears to the teacher.
+
+We hear much of the value of vocal physiology as a guide to good voice
+production. It is also claimed that a knowledge of it will prevent the
+singer from misusing his voice and at the same time act as a panacea for
+vocal ills. These statements do not possess a single element of truth.
+The only way the singer can injure the vocal instrument is by forcing
+it. That is, by setting up a resistance in the vocal cords that prevents
+their normal action. If this is persevered in it soon becomes a habit
+which results in chronic congestion. Singing becomes increasingly
+difficult, especially in the upper voice, and in course of time the
+singer discovers that he has laryngitis. Will a knowledge of vocal
+physiology cure laryngitis? Never. Will it prevent any one from singing
+"throaty?" There is no instance of the kind on record. In a majority of
+cases laryngitis and other vocal ills are the direct results of bad
+voice production and disappear as the singer learns to produce his upper
+tones without resistance. These things are effects, not causes, and to
+destroy the effect we must remove the cause. This will be found to be a
+wrong habit and habits are mental, not physical. When a mental impulse
+and its consequent response become simultaneous and automatic the result
+is a habit, but it is the mental impulse that has become automatic.
+
+The terms, _tension_, _rigidity_, _interference_, _resistance_, all mean
+essentially the same thing. They mean the various forms of contraction
+in the vocal instrument which prevents its involuntary action. If we
+follow these things back far enough we shall find that they all have
+their origin in some degree of fear. This fear, of which anxiety is a
+mild form, begins to show itself whenever the singer attempts tones
+above the compass of his speaking voice. Here is undeveloped territory.
+The tone lacks power, quality and freedom, and as power is what the
+untrained singer always seeks first, he begins to force it. In a short
+time he has a rigid throat, and the longer he sings the more rigid it
+becomes. By the time he decides to go to a teacher his voice is in such
+a condition that he must take his upper tones with a thick, throaty
+quality or with a light falsetto. Among female voices I have seen many
+that could sing nothing but a full tone in the upper register, and that
+only with an unsteady, unsympathetic quality.
+
+Now a point upon which all voice teachers can agree is that the upper
+voice is not properly trained until it has a perfect _messa di voce_
+that is, until the singer can swell the tone from the lightest
+pianissimo to full voice and return, on any tone in his compass, without
+a break and without sacrificing the pure singing quality. How shall this
+be accomplished? If the singer is forcing the upper voice it is safe to
+say in the beginning that it never can be done by practicing with full
+voice. Such practice will only fasten the habit of resistance more
+firmly upon the singer. To argue in the affirmative is equivalent to
+saying that the continued practice of a bad tone will eventually produce
+a good tone.
+
+There is but one way to the solution of the problem; the singer must get
+rid of resistance. When he has succeeded in doing that the problem of
+the head voice is solved. The bugaboo of voice placing permanently
+disappears. The difficulty so many have in placing the upper voice lies
+in this, that they try to do it without removing the one thing which
+prevents them from doing it. When the voice is free from resistance it
+places itself, that is, it produces without effort whatever quality the
+singer desires. The term "head voice," doubtless grew out of the
+sensation in the head which accompanies the upper tones, and this
+sensation is the result of the vibration of the air in the air head
+cavities. Many have taken this sensation as a guide to the production of
+the head voice, and in order to make sure of it they instruct the
+student to direct the tone into the head. This is not only an uncertain
+and unnecessary procedure, but is almost sure to develop a resistance
+which effectually prevents the tone from reaching the head cavities.
+When there is no interference the tone runs naturally into the proper
+channel. It is not necessary to use force to put it there.
+
+
+HEAD RESONANCE
+
+Whether or not the head cavities act as resonators is one of the many
+mooted points in voice training. Those who believe they do are much in
+the majority, but those in the minority are equally confident they do
+not. What are the arguments? That there is a sensation in the head
+cavities when singing in the upper part of the compass no one can deny.
+Does it affect tone quality? The minority offers the argument that it
+cannot do so because the soft palate automatically rises in singing a
+high tone, thus closing the passage through the nose. On the other side
+it is argued, and rightly, that the soft palate can be trained to remain
+low in singing high tones. But whether the soft palate is high or low
+does not settle the matter. It is not at all necessary that breath
+should pass through the nasal cavities in order to make them act as
+resonators. In fact it is necessary that it should not. It is the air
+that is already in the cavities that vibrates. All who are acquainted
+with resonating tubes understand this. Neither is it necessary that the
+vibrations should be transmitted to the head cavities by way of the
+pharynx and over the soft palate. They may be transmitted through the
+bones of the head. John Howard proved this, to his satisfaction at
+least, many years ago.
+
+I recall that in working with Emil Behnke he used an exercise to raise
+the soft palate and completely close the channel, yet no one can deny
+that his pupils had head resonance. There are certain facts in
+connection with this that are hard to side-step. Plunket Greene once
+told me that at one time he lost the resonance in the upper part of his
+voice, and on consulting a specialist he found a considerable growth on
+the septum. He had it removed and at once the resonance returned. Other
+equally strong arguments could be offered in support of the claim that
+the head cavities do act as resonators. At any rate the high or low
+palate is not the deciding factor.
+
+Too much cannot be said on the subject of interference, or resistance.
+So long as there is any of it in evidence it has its effect on tone
+quality. It is the result of tension, and tension is a mental impulse of
+a certain kind. Its antidote is relaxation, which is a mental impulse of
+an opposite nature. It is necessary for most singers to work at this
+until long after they think they have it.
+
+In preparing the head voice the student must begin with a tone that is
+entirely free from resistance and build from that. In a large majority
+of voices it means practicing with a light, soft tone. A voice that
+cannot sing softly is not rightly produced. While the student is working
+for the freedom which will give him a good half voice he is preparing
+the conditions for a good full voice. The conditions are not right for
+the practice of full voice until the last vestige of resistance has
+disappeared. The light voice is as necessary to artistic success as the
+full voice. The singer must have both, but he must never sacrifice
+quality for power.
+
+In the female voice the readjustments of the mechanism known as changes
+of register usually occur at about [Illustration: Figure B].
+
+In many lyric soprano voices I have found the same readjustment at the B
+and C above the staff [Illustration: Figure C].
+
+I have also noted in many bass voices a similar change of adjustment at
+the E and F below the bass clef [Illustration: Figure D].
+
+It would seem therefore, that in a majority of voices until an even
+scale has been developed, that these readjustments appear at about the E
+and F and B and C throughout the vocal compass. The exceptions to this
+rule are so numerous however, that it can scarcely be called a rule.
+Some voices will have but one noticeable readjustment, and it may be any
+one of the three.
+
+In some voices the changes are all imperceptible. In others, due to
+wrong usage, they are abrupt breaks. In every instance the teacher must
+give the voice what it needs to perfect an even scale. There should be
+no more evidence of register changes in the vocal scale than in the
+piano scale.
+
+Leaving the lower two changes for the moment, let us consider the one at
+the upper E and F. This one is so common among sopranos that there are
+few who have not one, two, or three weak tones at this point. To avoid
+these weak tones many are taught to carry the thicker tones of the
+middle register up as far as they can force them in order to get the
+"big tone" which seems to be the sole aim of much modern voice teaching.
+The victims of this manner of teaching never use the real head voice,
+and one thing happens to them all. As time goes on the upper voice grows
+more and more difficult, the high tones disappear one by one, and at the
+time when they should be doing their best singing they find themselves
+vocal wrecks. Some of them change from soprano to alto and end by that
+route.
+
+Now these are not instances that appear at long intervals. They are in
+constant evidence and the number is surprisingly large. The cause is
+ignorance of how to treat the upper voice, together with an insane
+desire for a "big tone" and a lack of patience to await until it grows.
+The incredible thing is that there is a teacher living whose ear will
+tolerate such a thing.
+
+Now there is a way to develop the head voice that gives the singer not
+only the full power of his upper voice, but makes it free, flexible and
+vibrant, a sympathetic quality, a perfect _messa di voce_, and enables
+him to sing indefinitely without tiring his voice. He must learn that it
+is possible to produce a full tone with a light mechanism. This is the
+natural way of producing the head voice. Further, the light mechanism
+must be carried far below the point where the so called change of
+register occurs.
+
+Every voice should have a head register, and it may be developed in the
+following way. With altos and sopranos I start with this exercise
+
+[Illustration: Exercise No. 1]
+
+Altos should begin at A.
+
+The student should neither feel nor hear the tone in the throat.
+Therefore he should begin with a soft _oo_. The throat should be free,
+lips relaxed but slightly forward. There should be no puckering of the
+lips for _oo_. The tone should seem to form itself around the lips, not
+in the throat. In the beginning the exercise must be practiced softly.
+No attempt must be made to increase the power, until the tone is well
+established in the light mechanism. When the _oo_ can be sung softly and
+without resistance as high as E flat use the same exercise with _o_.
+
+The next step is to blend this light mechanism with the heavier
+mechanism. It may be done in this way,
+
+[Illustration: Exercise No. 2]
+
+Sing this descending scale with a crescendo, always beginning it _pp_.
+It should be practiced very slowly at first, and with portamento.
+Carrying the head voice down over the middle and the middle down over
+the lower will in a short time blend all parts of the voice, and lay the
+foundation of an even scale. The exercise should be transposed upward by
+half steps as the voice becomes more free until it reaches F or F sharp.
+
+The next step is the building process. Use the following:
+
+[Illustration: Exercise No. 3]
+
+Altos should begin at A. In practicing these swells great care must be
+taken. Tone quality is the first consideration, and the tone must be
+pressed no further than is possible while retaining the pure singing
+quality. Where voices have been forced and are accustomed to sing
+nothing but thick tones this building process is sometimes slow. The
+student finds an almost irresistible tendency to increase the resistance
+as he increases the power of the tone. Therefore the louder he sings the
+worse it sounds. This kind of practice will never solve the problem.
+When the student is able to swell the tone to full power without
+increasing the resistance the problem is solved.
+
+The progress of the student in this, as in everything in voice training,
+depends upon _the ear of the teacher_. The untrained ear of the student
+is an unreliable guide. The sensitive ear of the teacher must at all
+times be his guide. The belief that every one knows a good tone when he
+hears it has no foundation in fact. If the student's concept of tone
+were perfect he would not need a teacher. He would have the teacher
+within himself. Every one knows what he likes, and what he likes is of
+necessity his standard at that particular time, but it is only the
+measure of his taste and may be different the next day.
+
+All things in voice training find their court of last resort in the ear
+of the teacher. All other knowledge is secondary to this. He may believe
+any number of things that are untrue about the voice, but if he have a
+thoroughly refined ear it will prevent him from doing anything wrong.
+His ear is his taste, his musical sense, and it is his musical sense,
+his musical judgment, that does the teaching.
+
+So in building the head voice the teacher must see to it that musical
+quality is never sacrificed for power. A full tone is worse than
+useless, unless the quality is musical and this can never be
+accomplished until the vocal instrument is free from resistance.
+
+Exercise No. 3 should be transposed upward by half steps, but never
+beyond the point at which it can be practiced comfortably.
+
+As tension shows most in the upper part of the voice the student should
+have, as a part of his daily practice, exercises which release the voice
+as it rises. Use the following:
+
+[Illustration: Exercise No. 4]
+
+Begin with medium power and diminish to _pp_ as indicated. The upper
+tone must not only be sung softly, but the throat must be entirely free.
+There must be no sense of holding the tone.
+
+Transpose to the top of the voice.
+
+[Illustration: Exercise No. 5]
+
+No. 5 is for the same purpose as No. 4 but in an extended form. Begin
+with rather full voice and diminish to _pp_ ascending. Increase to full
+voice descending.
+
+Continue the building of the upper voice using the complete scale.
+
+[Illustration: Exercise No. 6]
+
+Thus far in preparing the head voice we have used the vowels _oo_ and
+_o_. We may proceed to the vowel _ah_ in the following way. Using Ex.
+No. 6 first sing _o_ with loose but somewhat rounded lips. When this
+tone is well established sing _o_ with the same quality, the same focus,
+or placing without rounding the lips. It amounts to singing _o_ with the
+_ah_ position. When this can be done then use short _u_ as in the word
+_hum_. This gives approximately the placing for _ah_ in the upper voice.
+When these vowels can all be sung with perfect freedom transpose upward
+by half steps.
+
+[Illustration: Exercise No. 7]
+
+In No. 7 when the crescendo has been made on the upper tone carry the
+full voice to the bottom of the scale.
+
+[Illustration: Exercise No. 8]
+
+This is another way of blending the different parts of the voice. It
+should be sung portamento in both directions. When sung by a female
+voice it will be Middle, Head, Middle as indicated by the letters M, H,
+M. When sung by the male voice it will be Chest, Head, Chest as
+indicated by the letters C, H, C. Transpose upward by half steps.
+
+When the foregoing exercises are well in hand the head voice may be
+approached from the middle and lower registers in scale form as in the
+following:
+
+[Illustration: Exercise No. 9]
+
+[Illustration: Exercise No. 10]
+
+[Illustration: Exercise No. 11.]
+
+[Illustration: Exercise No. 12.]
+
+[Illustration: Exercise No. 13.]
+
+The fact that male voices are more often throaty in the upper register
+then female voices calls for special comment.
+
+The following diagram showing the relationship of the two voices will
+help to elucidate the matter.
+
+[Illustration: Figure E]
+
+I have here used three octaves of the vocal compass as sufficient for
+the illustration. Remembering that the male voice is an octave lower
+than the female voice we shall see that the female voice is a
+continuation, as it were, of the male voice; the lower part of the
+female compass overlapping the upper part of the male compass, the two
+having approximately an octave G to G in common. Further it will be seen
+that both male and female voices do about the same thing at the same
+absolute pitches. At about E flat or E above middle C the alto or
+soprano passes from the chest to the middle register. It is at the same
+absolute pitches that the tenor passes from what is usually called open
+to covered tone, but which might better be called from chest to head
+voice. There is every reason to believe that the change in the mechanism
+is the same as that which occurs in the female voice at the same
+pitches. That there is oftentimes a noticeable readjustment of the
+mechanism in uncultivated voices at these pitches no observing teacher
+will deny, and these are the voices which are of special interest to the
+teacher, and the ones for which books are made. It will be observed that
+this change in the male voice takes place in the upper part of his
+compass instead of in the lower, as in the female voice. This change
+which is above the compass of the speaking voice of the tenor or
+baritone, adds greatly to its difficulty. For this reason the training
+of the male head voice requires more care and clearer judgment than
+anything else in voice training.
+
+In treating this part of the female voice we have learned that if the
+heavy, or chest voice, is carried up to G or A above middle C it weakens
+the tones of the middle register until they finally become useless. Then
+the chest tones become more difficult and disappear one by one and the
+voice has no further value. Identically the same thing happens to the
+tenor who, by reason of sufficient physical strength forces his chest
+voice up to G, A, or B flat. He may be able to continue this for awhile,
+sometimes for a few years, but gradually his upper tones become more
+difficult and finally impossible and another vocal wreck is added to the
+list.
+
+In restoring the female voice that has carried the chest voice too high
+it is necessary to carry the middle register down, sometimes as low as
+middle C until it has regained its power. The tenor or baritone must do
+essentially the same thing. He must carry the head voice, which is a
+lighter mechanism than the chest voice, down as low as this c
+[Illustration: Figure F] using what is often called mixed voice. When
+the pitches [Illustration: Figure G] are practiced with a sufficiently
+relaxed throat the tone runs naturally into the head resonator with a
+feeling almost the equivalent of that of a nasal tone, but this tone
+will be in no sense nasal. It will be head voice.
+
+
+THE FALSETTO
+
+Does the falsetto have any part in the development of the head voice?
+This inoffensive thing is still the subject of a considerable amount of
+more of less inflammatory debate both as to what it is and what it does.
+Without delay let me assure every one that it is perfectly harmless.
+There is no other one thing involved in singing, immediate or remote,
+from which the element of harm is so completely eliminated. It is held
+by some that it is produced by the false vocal chords. This position is
+untenable for the reason that I have known many singers who could go
+from the falsetto to a full ringing tone and return with no perceptible
+break. Now since it will hardly be argued that a ringing, resonant tone
+could be produced by the false vocal cords, it is evident that the
+singer must change from the false to the true vocal cords somewhere in
+the process--a thing which is unthinkable.
+
+It is held by others that the falsetto is a relic of the boy's voice,
+which has deteriorated from lack of use. This seems not unreasonable,
+and a considerable amount of evidence is offered in support of it. We
+may safely assume however that it is produced by the true vocal cords
+and the lightest register in the male voice. What is its use? Unless its
+quality can be changed it has little or no musical value. There are some
+teachers who claim that the falsetto mechanism is the correct one for
+the tenor voice and should be used throughout the entire compass. I am
+not prepared to subscribe to this. There are others who believe that the
+falsetto should be developed, resonated, so that it loses its flute
+quality, and blended with the head voice. This seems in the light of my
+experience to be reasonable. When this can be done it gives the singer
+the most perfect mechanism known. But it cannot always be done. The
+voice is individual, and the entire sum of individual experience leaves
+its impression on it. I have found many voices where the falsetto was so
+completely detached from the head voice that it would be a waste of time
+to attempt to blend them.
+
+But there is one place in voice training where the practice of the
+falsetto has a distinct value. I have seen many tenors and baritones who
+forced the heavy chest voice up until they developed an automatic
+clutch, and could sing the upper tones only with extreme effort. To
+allow them to continue in that way would never solve their problem. In
+such a condition half voice is impossible. It must be one thing or the
+other, either the thick chest voice or falsetto. The falsetto they can
+produce without effort, and herein lies its value. They become
+accustomed to hearing their high tones without the association of
+effort, and after a time the real head voice appears. The thing which
+prevented the head voice from appearing in the beginning was extreme
+resistance, and as soon as the resistance disappeared the head voice
+made its appearance. This was accomplished by the practice of the very
+light register known as falsetto. When the head voice appears the use of
+the falsetto may be discontinued.
+
+The thing expected of the teacher is results and he should not be afraid
+to use anything that will contribute to that end.
+
+It is in the upper part of the voice that mistakes are most likely to be
+made and ninety nine per cent of the mistakes is forcing the voice, that
+is, singing with too much resistance. So long as the resistance
+continues a good full tone is impossible. The plan outlined above for
+eliminating resistance has been tested with many hundreds of voices and
+has never failed. The idea held by some that such practice can never
+produce a large tone shows a complete misunderstanding of the whole
+matter. That it produces the full power of the voice without sacrificing
+its musical quality is being proved constantly.
+
+Every day we hear the story of voices ruined by forcing high tones. Who
+is responsible? Each one must answer for himself. With the hope of
+diminishing it in some degree, this outline is offered.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+A GENERAL SURVEY OF THE SITUATION
+
+    "I will roar you as gently as any sucking dove: I will roar you
+    an't were any nightingale."
+
+                          Shakespeare.  _A Midsummer Night's Dream_.
+
+
+The singing world is confronted with a situation unique in its humor. On
+every side we hear the lachrymose lament that voice training is in a
+chaotic condition, that _bel canto_ is a lost art, and that the golden
+age of song has vanished from the earth.
+
+The unanimity of this dolorous admission would seem to be a sad
+commentary on the fraternity of voice teachers; but here enters the
+element of humor. There is not recorded a single instance of a voice
+teacher admitting that his own knowledge of the voice is chaotic. He
+will admit cheerfully and oftentimes with ill concealed enthusiasm that
+every other teacher's knowledge is in a chaotic condition, but his own
+is a model of order and intelligence.
+
+If we accept what voice teachers think of themselves the future looks
+rosy. If we accept what they think of each other the future is ominous
+and the need for reform is dire and urgent.
+
+But if a reform be ordered where shall it begin? Obviously among the
+teachers themselves. But judging from the estimate each one puts upon
+himself how shall we reform a thing which is already perfect? On the
+other hand, if we take the pessimistic attitude that all teachers are
+wrong will it not be a case of the blind leading the blind, in which
+instance their destination is definitely determined somewhere in the New
+Testament. Verily the situation is difficult. Nevertheless it is not
+altogether hopeless. The impulse to sing still remains. More people are
+studying singing, and more people sing well today than at any other time
+in the history of the world. The impulse to sing is as old as the human
+race. When the joy of life first welled up within man and demanded
+utterance the vocal instrument furnished by nature was ready to respond
+and the art of singing began, and if we may venture a prophecy it will
+never end in this world or the next. It cannot be destroyed even by the
+teachers themselves. It is this natural, inborn desire to sing that is
+directly responsible for the amazing perseverance of many vocal
+students. If after a year or two of study they find they are wrong they
+are not greatly disturbed, but select another teacher, firm in the faith
+that eventually they will find the right one and be safely led to the
+realization of their one great ambition--to be an artist. It is this
+that has kept the art alive through the centuries and will perpetuate
+it. This impulse to sing is something no amount of bad teaching can
+destroy.
+
+
+THE REFORM
+
+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.
+
+
+MENTALITY
+
+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.
+
+
+GETTING TOGETHER
+
+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.
+
+
+WHY TEACHERS DISAGREE
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+HINTS ON TEACHING
+
+    "We live in a world of unseen realities, the world of thoughts
+    and feelings. But 'thoughts are things,' and frequently they
+    weigh more and obtain far more in the making of a man than do
+    all the tangible realities which surround him. Thoughts and
+    feelings are the stuff of which life is made. They are the
+    language of the soul. By means of them we follow the development
+    of character, the shaping of the soul which is the one great
+    purpose of life."
+
+                                   _Appreciation of Art_. Loveridge.
+
+
+Every year a large number of young men and women go in quest of a
+singing teacher. The impulse to sing, which is inborn, has become so
+insistent and irrepressible that it must be heeded; and the desire to do
+things well, which is a part of the mental equipment of every normal
+human being, makes outside assistance imperative. Wherever there is a
+real need the supply is forthcoming, so there is little difficulty in
+finding some one who is ready, willing, in fact rather anxious, to
+undertake the pleasant task of transforming these enthusiastic amateurs
+into full-fledged professionals.
+
+The meeting of the teacher and student always takes place in the studio,
+and it is there that all vocal problems are solved. Let no one imagine
+that any vocal problem can be solved in a physics laboratory. Why?
+_Because not one of the problems confronting the vocal student is
+physical. They are all mental._ The writer has reached this conclusion
+not from ignoring the physical, but from making a comprehensive study of
+the vocal mechanism and its relation to the singer.
+
+The anatomy and physiology of the vocal mechanism are absorbing to one
+who is interested in knowing how man, through untold centuries of growth
+has perfected an instrument through which he can express himself; but no
+matter how far we go in the study of anatomy and physiology all we
+really learn is what mind has done. If man has a more perfect and highly
+organized vocal instrument than the lower animals it is because his
+higher manifestation of mind has formed an instrument necessary to its
+needs.
+
+When man's ideas and needs were few and simple his vocabulary was small,
+for language is the means by which members of the species communicate
+with each other. Whenever man evolved a new idea he necessarily invented
+some way of communicating it, and so language grew. A word is the symbol
+of an idea, but invariably the idea originates the word. The word does
+not originate the idea. The idea always arrives first. All we can ever
+learn from the study of matter is phenomena, the result of the activity
+of mind.
+
+Thus we see that so called "scientific study" of the vocal mechanism is
+at best, but a study of phenomena. It creates nothing. It only discovers
+what is already taking place, and what has been going on indefinitely
+without conscious direction will, in all probability, continue.
+
+The value attached by some to the study of vocal physiology is greatly
+overestimated. In fact its value is so little as to be practically
+negligible. It furnishes the teacher nothing he can use in giving a
+singing lesson, unless, perchance he should be so unwise as to begin the
+lesson with a talk on vocal mechanism, which, by the way, would much
+better come at the last lesson than the first. All we can learn from the
+study of vocal physiology is the construction of the vocal instrument,
+and this bears the same relation to singing that piano making bears to
+piano playing. The singer and his instrument are two different things,
+and a knowledge of the latter exerts very little beneficial influence on
+the former.
+
+To reach a solution of the vocal problem we must understand the relation
+existing between the singer and his instrument.
+
+The singer is a mentality, consequently everything he does is an
+activity of his mentality. Seeing, hearing, knowing, is this mentality
+in action. The two senses most intimately associated with artistic
+activity are seeing and hearing, and these are mental. In painting,
+sculpture, and architecture we perceive beauty through the eye. In music
+it reaches us through the ear; but _the only thing that is cognizant is
+the mind_. To man the universe consists of mental impressions, and that
+these impressions differ with each individual is so well understood that
+it need not be argued. Two people looking at the same picture will not
+see exactly the same things. Two people listening to a musical
+composition may hear quite different things and are affected in
+different ways, because _it is the mind that hears_, and as no two
+mentalities are precisely the same, it must be apparent that the
+impressions they receive will be different. The things these mentalities
+have in common they will see and hear in common, but wherein they differ
+they will see and hear differently. Each will see and hear to the limit
+of his experience, but no further.
+
+To be a musician one must become conscious of that particular thing
+called music. He must learn to think music. The elements of music are
+rhythm, melody, harmony, and form, and their mastery is no less a mental
+process than is the study of pure mathematics.
+
+The human mind is a composite. It is made up of a large number of
+faculties combined in different proportions. The germs of all knowledge
+exist in some form and degree in every mind. When one faculty
+predominates we say the individual has talent for that particular thing.
+If the faculty is abnormally developed we say he is a genius, but all
+things exist as possibilities in every mind. Nature puts no limitations
+on man. Whatever his limitations, they are self imposed, nature is not a
+party to the act.
+
+Now this is what confronts the teacher whenever a student comes for a
+lesson. He has before him a mentality that has been influenced not only
+by its present environment, but by everything that has preceded it. "Man
+is," as an old philosopher said, "a bundle of habits," and habits are
+mental trends. His point of view is the product of his experience, and
+it will be different from that of every one else. The work of the
+teacher is training this mentality. Understanding this it will be seen
+how futile would be a fixed formula for all students, and how
+necessarily doomed to failure is any method of voice training which
+makes anatomy and physiology its basis. Further, there is much to be
+done in the studio beside giving the voice lesson. Whistler said that
+natural conditions are never right for a perfect picture. From the
+picture which nature presents the artist selects what suits his purpose
+and rejects the rest. It is much the same in the training of a singer.
+In order that the lesson be effective the conditions must be right. This
+only rarely obtains in the beginning. The student's attitude toward the
+subject must be right or the lesson will mean little to him. The lesson
+to be effective must be protected by _honesty_, _industry_ and
+_perseverance_. If these are lacking in various degrees, as they often
+are, little progress will be made. If the student is studying merely for
+"society purposes," not much can be expected until that mental attitude
+is changed. Students always want to sing well, but they are not always
+willing to make the sacrifice of time and effort; consequently they lack
+concentration and slight their practice. Sometimes the thought uppermost
+in the student's mind is the exaltation of the ego, in other words,
+fame. Sometimes he measures his efforts by the amount of money he thinks
+he may ultimately earn, be it great or small. Sometimes he overestimates
+himself, or what is equally bad, underestimates himself. It is a very
+common thing to find him putting limitations on himself and telling of
+the few things he will be able to do and the large number he never will
+be able to do, thus effectually barring his progress. Then there is
+always the one who is habitually late. She feels sure that all of the
+forces of nature are leagued in a conspiracy to prevent her from ever
+being on time anywhere. She, therefore, is guiltless. There is another
+one who is a riot of excuses, apologies and reasons why she has not been
+able to practice. Her home and neighborhood seem to be the special
+object of providential displeasure, which is manifested in an unbroken
+series of calamitous visitations ranging from croup to bubonic plague,
+each one making vocal practice a physical and moral impossibility.
+
+All of these things are habits of mind which must be corrected by the
+teacher before satisfactory growth may be expected. In fact he must
+devote no inconsiderable part of his time to setting students right on
+things which in themselves are no part of music, but which are elements
+of character without which permanent success is impossible.
+
+A great musical gift is of no value unless it is protected by those
+elements of character which are in themselves fundamentally right.
+Innumerable instances could be cited of gifted men and women who have
+failed utterly because their gifts were not protected by honesty,
+industry and perseverance.
+
+I have spoken at some length of the importance of the right mental
+attitude toward study and the necessity of correcting false conceptions.
+Continuing, it must be understood that the work of the teacher is all
+that of training the mind of his student. It is developing concepts and
+habits of mind which when exercised result in beautiful tone and
+artistic singing. It must also be understood that the teacher does not
+look at the voice, he listens to it. Here voice teachers automatically
+separate themselves from each other. No two things so diametrically
+opposite as physics and metaphysics can abide peaceably in the same
+tent.
+
+Let me emphasize the statement that _the teacher does not look at the
+voice, he listens to it_. The teacher who bases his teaching on what he
+can see, that is, on watching the singer and detecting his mistakes
+through the eye, is engaged in an activity that is mechanical, not
+musical. No one can tell from observation alone whether a tone is
+properly produced. A tone is something to hear, not something to see,
+and no amount of seeing will exert any beneficial influence on one's
+hearing.
+
+The process of learning to read vocal music at sight is that of learning
+to _think tones_, to _think in the key_, and to _think all manner of
+intervals and rhythmic forms_. It is altogether mental, and it is no
+less absurd to hold that a knowledge of anatomy is necessary to this
+than it is essential to the solution of a mathematical problem. The
+formation of tone quality is no less a mental process than is thinking
+the pitch. If the student sings a wrong pitch it is because he has
+thought a wrong pitch, and this is true to a large extent at least, if
+his tone quality in not good. He may at least be sure of this, that _he
+never will sing a better tone than the one he thinks_.
+
+A large part of the vocal teacher's training should be learning how to
+listen and what to listen for. This means training the ear, which is the
+mind, until it is in the highest degree sensitive to tone quality as
+well as to pitch. When there is a failure in voice training it may be
+counted upon that the teacher's listening faculty is defective. The gist
+of the whole thing is what the teacher's ear will stand for. If a tone
+does not offend his ear he will allow it to continue. If it does offend
+his ear he will take measures to stop it.
+
+More is known of vocal mechanism today than at any other time in the
+world's history, and yet who dares to say that voice teaching has been
+improved by it? Is voice teaching any more accurate now than it was a
+hundred years ago? Did the invention of the laryngoscope add anything of
+value to the voice teacher's equipment? No. Even the inventor of it said
+that all it did was to confirm what he had always believed. An enlarged
+mechanical knowledge has availed nothing in the studio. The character of
+the teacher's work has improved to the degree in which he has recognized
+two facts--first, the necessity of developing his own artistic sense as
+well as that of his pupil, second, that the process of learning to sing
+is psychologic rather than physiologic.
+
+When the student takes his first singing lesson what does the teacher
+hear? He hears the tone the student sings, but what is far more
+important, he hears in his own mind the tone the student ought to sing.
+He hears his own tone concept and this is the standard he sets for the
+student. He cannot demand of him anything beyond his own concept either
+in tone quality or interpretation.
+
+Young teachers and some old ones watch the voice rather than listen to
+it. At the slightest deviation from their standard of what the tongue,
+larynx, and soft palate ought to do they pounce upon the student and
+insist that he make the offending organ assume the position and form
+which they think is necessary to produce a good tone. This results in
+trying to control the mechanism by direct effort which always induces
+tension and produces a hard, unsympathetic tone.
+
+The blunder here is in mistaking effect for cause. The tongue which
+habitually rises and fills the cavity of the mouth does so in response
+to a wrong mental concept of cause. The only way to correct this
+condition is to change the cause. The rigid tongue we see is effect, and
+to tinker with the effect while the cause remains is unnecessarily
+stupid. An impulse of tension has been directed to the tongue so often
+that the impulse and response have become simultaneous and automatic.
+The correction lies in directing an impulse of relaxation to it. When it
+responds to this impulse it will be found to be lying in the bottom of
+the mouth, relaxed, and ready to respond to any demand that may be made
+upon it. To try to make the tongue lie in the bottom of the mouth by
+direct effort while it is filled with tension is like trying to sweep
+back the tide with a broom. The only way to keep the tide from flowing
+is to find out what causes it to flow and remove the cause. The only way
+to correct faulty action of any part of the vocal mechanism is to go
+back into mentality and remove the cause. It will always be found there.
+
+
+DIRECT AND INDIRECT CONTROL
+
+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.
+
+
+INDIRECT CONTROL
+
+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.
+
+
+VOICE TRAINING IS SIMPLE
+
+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.
+
+
+TWO THINGS INVOLVED
+
+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.
+
+
+KNOW WHAT YOU WANT
+
+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
+
+  "An infant crying in the night.
+  And with no language but a cry."
+
+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.
+
+
+BREATH CONTROL
+
+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.
+
+
+REGISTERS
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+THE NATURE AND MEANING OF ART
+
+    One function, then, of art is to feed and mature the imagination
+    and the spirit, and thereby enhance and invigorate the whole of
+    human life.
+
+                      _Ancient Art and Ritual_. Jane Ellen Harrison.
+
+
+A large percentage of the population of the civilized world has more or
+less to do with what is called art. In its various forms art touches in
+some degree practically the entire human race. Its various activities
+have developed great industries, and for the entertainment it affords
+fabulous sums of money are spent.
+
+What is this thing called art which takes such a hold upon the human
+race? If it has no social or economic value then a vast amount of time
+and money are wasted each year in its study and practice. A brief
+inquiry into the nature and meaning of art may well be associated with a
+discussion of the art of singing.
+
+Art as a whole comes under the head of Aesthetics, which may be defined
+as the philosophy of taste, the science of the beautiful.
+
+It will doubtless be admitted without argument that ever since the dawn
+of consciousness the visible world has produced sense impressions
+differing from each other--some pleasant, some unpleasant. From these
+different sense impressions there gradually evolved what is known as
+beauty and ugliness. An attempt to discover the principles underlying
+beauty and ugliness resulted in Aesthetics, the founder of which was
+Baumgarten (1714-1762).
+
+It will be interesting to hear what he and the later aestheticians have
+to say about art. Most of them connect it in some way with that which is
+beautiful, that is, pleasing, but they do not all agree in their
+definition of beauty.
+
+Baumgarten defined beauty as the perfect, the absolute, recognized
+through the senses. He held that the highest embodiment of beauty is
+seen by us in nature, therefore the highest aim of art is to copy
+nature.
+
+Winkelmann (1717-1768) held the law and aim of art to be beauty
+independent of goodness. Hutcheson (1694-1747) was of essentially the
+same opinion.
+
+According to Kant (1724-1804) beauty is that which pleases without the
+reasoning process.
+
+Schiller (1758-1805) held that the aim of art is beauty, the source of
+which is pleasure without practical advantage.
+
+These definitions do not wholly satisfy. They do not accord to art the
+dignified position it should hold in social development. But there are
+others who have a clearer vision. Fichte (1762-1814) said that beauty
+exists not in the visible world but in the beautiful soul, and that art
+is the manifestation of this beautiful soul, and that its aim is the
+education of the whole man.
+
+In this we begin to see the real nature and activity of art. There are
+other aestheticians who define art in much the same way.
+
+Shaftesbury (1670-1713) said that beauty is recognized by the mind only.
+God is fundamental beauty.
+
+Hegel (1770-1831) said: "Art is God manifesting himself in the form of
+beauty. Beauty is the idea shining through matter. Art is a means of
+bringing to consciousness and expressing the deepest problems of
+humanity and the highest truths." According to Hegel beauty and truth
+are one and the same thing.
+
+Thus we see that the great thinkers of the world make art of supreme
+importance in the perfecting of the human race. They all agree that art
+is not in material objects, but is a condition and activity of spirit.
+They agree in the main that beauty and truth emanate from the same
+source. Said Keats:
+
+  "Beauty is truth and truth beauty,
+   That is all ye know on earth and all ye need know."
+
+Said Schelling: "Beauty is the perception of the Infinite in the
+finite."
+
+But perhaps the highest concept of art is from the great artist
+Whistler. He said: "Art is an expression of eternal absolute truth, and
+starting from the Infinite it cannot progress, IT IS."
+
+Art in some form and in some degree finds a response in every one. Why?
+Because every one consciously or unconsciously is looking toward and
+striving for perfection. This is the law of being. Every one is seeking
+to improve his condition, and this means that in some degree every one
+is an idealist. Ever since time began idealism has been at work, and to
+it we owe every improved condition--social, political and religious.
+
+Hegel believed that the aim of art is to portray nature in perfect form,
+not with the imperfections seen around us; and Herbert Spencer defined
+art as the attempt to realize the ideal in the present. The artist tries
+to make his picture more perfect than what he sees around him. The poet,
+the sculptor, the musician, the craftsman, the mechanic, are all
+striving for a more perfect expression, because perfection is the
+fundamental, eternal law of being.
+
+Wagner said: "The world will be redeemed through art," and if Whistler's
+definition be accepted he is not far from the truth.
+
+The important thing to remember is that art is not a mere pastime, but a
+great world force operating to lift mortals out of mortality. It is the
+striving of the finite to reach the Infinite.
+
+In human history art, no less than languages, has conformed to the
+theory of evolution. Language in the beginning was monosyllabic. Far
+back in the early dawn of the race, before the development of the
+community spirit, when feelings, emotions, ideas, were simple and few
+the medium of expression was simple, and it grew with the demand for a
+larger expression.
+
+This same process of evolution is seen in the growth of each individual.
+The child, seeing grimalkin stalk stealthily into the room, points the
+finger and says "cat." This is the complete expression of itself on that
+subject. It is the sum total of its knowledge of zoology at that
+particular moment; and a long process of development must follow before
+it will refer to the same animal as a "Felis Domestica."
+
+In a similar way musical expression keeps step with musical ideas. In
+the beginning musical ideas were short, simple, fragmentary,
+monosyllabic, mere germs of melody (adherents of the germ theory will
+make a note of this). The Arab with his rudimentary fiddle will repeat
+this fragment of melody [Illustration: Figure H] by the hour, while a
+company of his unlaundered brethren dance, until exhausted, in dust to
+their ankles, with the temperature near the boiling point. This musical
+monosyllable is ample to satisfy his artistic craving. In other words it
+is the complete musical expression of himself.
+
+The following is a complete program of dance music for the aborigines of
+Australia. [Illustration: Figure I] The repetition of this figure may
+continue for hours. If it were inflicted on a metropolitan audience it
+would result in justifiable homicide, but to the Australian it furnishes
+just the emotional stimulus he desires.
+
+[Illustration: Figure J] This one from Tongtoboo, played Allegro, would
+set the heels of any company, ancient or modern, in motion.
+
+These people may be said to be in the rhythmic stage of music, that is,
+a stage of development in which a rhythmic movement which serves to
+incite the dance furnishes complete artistic satisfaction.
+
+As it is a long distance from the monosyllabic expression of the child
+to the point where he can think consecutively in polysyllabic
+dissertation, so it is an equally long distance from the inarticulate
+musical utterances of the barbarous tribes to the endless melodies of
+Wagner, which begin at 8 P. M. and continue until 12.15 A. M. without
+repetition.
+
+Following the course of music from the beginning we shall see that it
+has kept pace with civilization. As the race has grown mentally it has
+expressed itself in a larger and more perfect way in its literature, its
+painting and music. Physically the race has not grown perceptibly in the
+last five thousand years, but mentally its growth can scarcely be
+measured. If we follow each nation through the past thousand years we
+shall see that its art product has not only kept pace with its
+development, but that in its art we may see all of its racial
+characteristics, those habits of mind which are peculiarly its own. A
+nation left to itself will develop a certain trend of thought which will
+differentiate it from all other nations. A trend of thought which will
+affect its art, literature, politics, religion, and in course of time
+will produce marked physical characteristics. This is noticeable in all
+nations which have lived long unto themselves.
+
+But modern methods of communication are destroying this. As nations are
+brought into closer contact with each other they begin to lose their
+peculiarities. The truth of this statement may be seen in the fact that
+in the past fifty years composers all over the world have been affected
+by the modern German school of composition. Not one has escaped. While a
+nation lived unto itself it could preserve its national life in its art,
+but more and more the life of each nation is becoming a composite of the
+life of all nations. The musical output of the world shows this
+unmistakably.
+
+What will be the music of the future? We know the music of yesterday and
+today, but the music of the future can be foretold only by the prophet
+whose vision is clear enough to see unmistakably what the trend of
+civilization will be during the coming years. There are mighty forces
+operating in the world today. If they succeed in bringing humanity to a
+saner, more normal state of mind, to a clearer realization of what is
+worth while and what is worthless, then all art will become purer and
+more wholesome, more helpful and necessary, and music speaking a
+language common to all will be supreme among the arts.
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+SINGING AS AN ART
+
+    No artist can be graceful, imaginative, or original, unless he
+    be truthful.
+
+                                          Ruskin. _Modern Painters_.
+
+
+"Art is a transfer of feeling" said Tolstoy. While this applies to art
+in general it has a particular application to the art of singing. The
+material of the singer's art is feeling. By means of the imagination he
+evokes within himself feelings he has experienced and through the medium
+of his voice he transfers these feelings to others. By his ability to
+reconstruct moods, feelings and emotions within himself and express them
+through his voice, the singer sways multitudes, plays upon them, carries
+them whithersoever he will from the depths of sorrow to the heights of
+exaltation. His direct and constant aim is to make his hearers _feel_,
+and feel deeply. As a medium for the transfer of feeling the human voice
+far transcends all others. Since the beginning of the human race the
+voice has been the means by which it has most completely revealed
+itself, but the art is not in the voice, but in the feeling transferred.
+It is the same whether the medium be the voice, painting, sculpture,
+poetry or a musical instrument. We speak of a painting as being a great
+work of art, but the art is not in the painting, the art is the feeling
+of beauty which the painting awakes in the observer. When we listen to
+an orchestra the music is what we feel. Said Walt Whitman: "Music is
+what awakes within us when we are reminded by the instruments."
+
+Nothing exists separate from cognition. Real art therefore consists of
+pure feeling rather than of material objects. _If the singer succeeds in
+transferring his feelings to others he is an artist_, this regardless of
+whether his voice is great or small. Voice alone does not constitute an
+artist. One must have something to give. Schumann said: "The reason the
+nightingale sings love songs and the lap dog barks is because the soul
+of the nightingale is filled with love and that of the lap dog with
+bark." It will be apparent therefore, that the study of the art of
+singing should devote itself to developing in the singer the best
+elements of his nature--all that is good, pure and elevating. We have no
+right to transfer to others any feeling that is impure or unwholesome.
+The technic of an art is of small moment compared with its subject
+matter. _An unworthy poem cannot be purified by setting it to music no
+matter how beautiful the music may be._
+
+
+THE PRINCIPLES OF INTERPRETATION
+
+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:
+
+
+AN OUTLINE OF INTERPRETATION
+
+             { Pitches
+    READING  { Note Lengths
+             { Rhythm
+
+                              { Vowels
+             { Enunciation    { Consonants
+    DICTION  { Pronunciation
+             { Accent
+             { Emphasis
+
+             { Even Scale
+    VOICE    { Quality
+             { Freedom
+             { Breath Control
+
+             { Attack
+    TECHNIC  { Flexibility
+             { Execution
+
+             { Legato
+    PHRASING { Sostenuto
+                           { Power
+             { Contrast    { Tempo
+                           { Color
+             { Proportion
+
+
+             { Emotional Concept
+    MOOD     { Facial Expression
+             { Stage Presence
+
+Most of the things mentioned in this outline of interpretation have been
+discussed elsewhere, but the subject of diction requires further
+explanation.
+
+
+DICTION
+
+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=."
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+THE CONSTRUCTION OF A SONG.
+
+    Has he put the emphasis on his work in the place where it is
+    most important? Has he so completely expressed himself that the
+    onlooker cannot fail to find his meaning?
+
+                                   _Appreciation of Art_. Loveridge.
+
+
+When you listen to a song and at its close say, "That is beautiful," do
+you ever stop and try to discover why it is beautiful? The quest may
+lead you far into the field of Aesthetics, and unless you are accustomed
+to psychological processes you may find yourself in a maze from which
+escape is difficult. Let us remember that in studying the construction
+of a song we are dealing with states of mind. A song is the product of a
+certain mood and its direct aim is to awaken a similar mood in others.
+
+It is a well established fact that sound is the most common and the most
+effective way of expressing and communicating the emotions, not only for
+man but for the lower animals as well. This method of communication
+doubtless began far back in the history of the race and was used to
+express bodily pain or pleasure.
+
+The lower animals convey their feelings to each other by sounds, not by
+words, and these sounds awaken in others the same feeling as that which
+produced them.
+
+We see, then, that emotion may be expressed by sound and be awakened by
+sound, and this obtains among human beings no less than among the lower
+animals. In the long process of ages sound qualities have become
+indissolubly associated with emotional states, and have become the most
+exciting, the most powerful sense stimulus in producing emotional
+reactions. The cry of one human being in pain will excite painful
+emotions in another. An exclamation of joy will excite a similar emotion
+in others, and so on through the whole range of human emotions.
+
+Herbert Spencer holds that the beginning of music may be traced back to
+the cry of animals, which evidently has an emotional origin and purpose.
+It is a far cry from the beginning of music as described by Spencer to
+the modern art song, but from that time to this the principle has
+remained the same. The emotional range of the lower animals is small,
+doubtless limited to the expression of bodily conditions, but the human
+race through long ages of growth has developed an almost unlimited
+emotional range, hence the vehicle for its expression has of necessity
+increased in complexity.
+
+To meet this demand music as a science has evolved a tone system. That
+is, from the infinite number of tones it has selected something over a
+hundred having definite mathematical relationships, fixed vibrational
+ratios. The art of music takes this system of tones and by means of
+combinations, progressions and movements which constitute what is called
+musical composition, it undertakes to excite a wide variety of emotions.
+
+The aim and office of music is to create moods. It does not arrive at
+definite expression. There is no musical progression which is
+universally understood as an invitation to one's neighbor to pass the
+bread. The pianist cannot by any particular tone combination make his
+audience understand that his left shoe pinches, but he can make them
+smile or look serious. He can fill them with courage or bring them to
+tears without saying a word. In listening to the Bach _B Minor Mass_ one
+can tell the _Sanctus_ from the _Gloria in Excelsis_ without knowing a
+word of Latin. The music conveys the mood unmistakably.
+
+A song is a union of music and poetry, a wedding if you please and as in
+all matrimonial alliances the two contracting parties should be in
+harmony. The poem creates a mood not alone by what it expresses directly
+but by what it implies, what it suggests. Its office is to stimulate the
+imagination rather than to inform by direct statement of facts. The
+office of music is to strengthen, accentuate, and supplement the mood of
+the poem, to translate the poem into music. The best song then, will be
+one in which both words and music most perfectly create the same mood.
+
+Arnold Bennett's definition of literature applies equally well to the
+song. He says: "That evening when you went for a walk with your faithful
+friend, the friend from whom you hid nothing--or almost nothing--you
+were, in truth, somewhat inclined to hide from him the particular matter
+which monopolized your mind that evening, but somehow you contrived to
+get on to it, drawn by an overpowering fascination. And as your faithful
+friend was sympathetic and discreet, and flattered you by a respectful
+curiosity, you proceeded further and further into the said matter,
+growing more and more confidential, until at last you cried out in a
+terrific whisper: 'My boy she is simply miraculous:' At that moment you
+were in the domain of literature." Now when such impassioned,
+spontaneous utterance is brought under the operation of musical law we
+have a perfect song. The composer furnished the words and music, but the
+thing which makes it a song comes from the singer, from the earnestness
+and conviction with which he delivers the message.
+
+Songs are divided into two general classes: those expressing the
+relationships of human beings, such as love, joy, sorrow, chivalry,
+patriotism, etc., and those expressing the relationship of man to his
+creator; veneration, devotion, praise, etc. The two great sources of
+inspiration to song writers have always been love and religion.
+
+What are the principles of song construction? They are all comprised in
+the law of fitness. The composer must do what he sets out to do. The
+materials with which he has to work are rhythm, melody and harmony. The
+most important thing in a song is the melody. This determines to a very
+great extent the health and longevity of the song. Most of the songs
+that have passed the century mark and still live do so by reason of
+their melody. There must be a sense of fitness between the poem and the
+melody. A poem which expresses a simple sentiment requires a simple
+melody. A simple story should be told simply. If the poem is sad,
+joyous, or tragic the melody must correspond. Otherwise the family
+discords begin at once. Poetry cannot adapt itself to music, because its
+mood is already established. It is the business of the composer to
+create music which will supplement the poem. A lullaby should not have a
+martial melody, neither should an exhortation to lofty patriotism be
+given a melody which induces somnolence.
+
+The same sense of fitness must obtain in the accompaniment. The office
+of the accompaniment is not merely to keep the singer on the pitch. It
+must help to tell the story by strengthening the mood of the poem. It
+must not be trivial or insincere, neither must it overwhelm and thus
+draw the attention of the listeners to itself and away from the singer.
+
+The accompaniment is the clothing, or dress, of the melody. Melodies,
+like people, should be well dressed but not over dressed. Some melodies,
+like some people, look better in plain clothes than in a fancy costume.
+Other melodies appear to advantage in a rich costume. Modern songwriters
+are much inclined to overdress their melodies to the extent that the
+accompaniment forces itself upon the attention to the exclusion of the
+melody. Such writing is as incongruous as putting on a dress suit to go
+to a fire.
+
+The significance of the theme should indicate the nature of the
+accompaniment. To take a simple sentiment and overload it with a modern
+complex harmonic accompaniment is like going after sparrows with a
+sixteen inch siege gun.
+
+Comedy in the song should not be associated with tragedy in the
+accompaniment. A lively poem should not have a lazy accompaniment. The
+great songwriters were models in this respect. This accounts for their
+greatness. Take for example Schubert's _Wohin_ and _Der Wanderer_,
+Schumann's _Der Nussbaum_, Brahms' _Feldeinsamkeit_. These
+accompaniments are as full of mood as either poem or melody.
+
+The element of proportion enters into songwriting no less than into
+architecture. A house fifteen by twenty feet with a tower sixty feet
+high and a veranda thirty feet wide would be out of proportion. A song
+with sixty-four measures of introduction and sixteen measures for the
+voice would be out of proportion. Making a song is similar to painting a
+landscape. In the painting the grass, flowers, shrubbery etc., are in
+the foreground, then come the hills and if there be a mountain range it
+is in the background. If the mountain range were in the foreground it
+would obscure everything else. So in making a song. If it tells a story
+and reaches a climax the climax should come near the end of the song.
+When the singer has carried his audience with him up to a great
+emotional height then all it needs is to be brought back safely and
+quickly to earth and left there.
+
+
+ASSOCIATION
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+HOW TO STUDY A SONG
+
+    The accent of truth apparent in the voice when speaking
+    naturally is the basis of expression in singing.
+
+                                       Garcia. _Hints on Singing_.
+
+
+First determine the general character of the song. A careful study of
+the words will enable the student to find its general classification. It
+may be dramatic, narrative, reminiscent, introspective, contemplative,
+florid, sentimental.
+
+The following are examples:
+
+Dramatic, _The Erl King_, Schubert.
+
+Narrative, _The Two Grenadiers_, Schumann.
+
+Reminiscent, _Der Doppelgaenger_, Schubert.
+
+Florid, _Indian Bell Song_, from Lakme, Delibes.
+
+Introspective, _In der Fruehe_, Hugo Wolf.
+
+Contemplative, _Feldeinsamkeit_, Brahms.
+
+Songs of sentiment. This includes all songs involving the affections and
+the homely virtues.
+
+To these might be added songs of exaltation, such as Beethoven's
+"Nature's Adoration." Character songs, in which the singer assumes a
+character and expresses its sentiments. A good example of this is "The
+Poet's Love" cycle by Schumann. Classifying the song in this way is the
+first step toward discovering its atmosphere. There is always one tempo
+at which a song sounds best and this tempo must grow out of a thorough
+understanding of its character. Metronome marks should be unnecessary.
+Intelligent study of a song will unerringly suggest the proper tempo.
+
+Next, study the poem until it creates the mood. Read it, not once, but
+many times. Imbibe not only its intellectual but its emotional content.
+It is the office of poetry to stimulate the imagination. It is under the
+influence of this stimulus that songs are written, and under its
+influence they must be sung. Hugo Wolf said that he always studied the
+poem until it composed the music. This means that he studied the poem
+until he was so filled with its mood that the proper music came of
+itself. Fix in mind the principal points in the poem and the order in
+which they occur. There usually is development of some kind in a poem.
+Learn what it is. Notice which part of the poem contains the great or
+central idea. Read it aloud. Determine its natural accent. The singing
+phrase grows out of the spoken phrase. Singing is elongated, or
+sustained, speech, but it should be none the less intelligent by reason
+of this.
+
+Now adapt the words to the music. If the music has grown out of the
+words as it should, it will follow the development of the poem and give
+it additional strength.
+
+By this time one should be in the mood of the song, and he should not
+emerge from it until the song is finished. If one is filled with the
+spirit of the song, is sincere and earnest, and is filled with a desire
+to express what is beautiful and good he will not sing badly even if his
+voice be ordinary.
+
+The composer may do much toward creating the mood for both singer and
+listener by means of his introduction. The introduction to a song is not
+merely to give the singer the pitch. It is for the purpose of creating
+the mood. It may be reminiscent of the principal theme of the song, it
+may consist of some fragment of the accompaniment, or any other
+materials which will tend to create the desired mood.
+
+In the introduction to _Rhein-gold_ where Wagner wishes to portray a
+certain elemental condition he uses 136 measures of the chord of E flat
+major.
+
+In _Feldeinsamkeit_ (The Quiet of the Fields) where the mood is such as
+would come to one lying in the deep grass in the field watching "the
+fair white clouds ride slowly overhead," in a state of complete
+inaction, Brahms establishes the mood by this treatment of the major
+chord.
+
+[Illustration: Figure K]
+
+In _Der Wanderer_ (The Wanderer) Schubert uses this musical figure to
+indicate the ceaseless motion of one condemned to endless wandering.
+
+[Illustration: Figure L]
+
+In _The Maid of the Mill_ cycle where the young miller discovers the
+brook Schubert uses this figure, which gives a clear picture of a
+chattering brooklet. This figure continues throughout the song.
+
+[Illustration: Figure M]
+
+In the song _On the Journey Home_, which describes the feelings of one
+who, after a long absence returns to view the "vales and mountains" of
+his youth, Grieg, with two measures of introduction grips us with a mood
+from which we cannot escape.
+
+[Illustration: Figure N]
+
+But one of the most striking examples of the operation of genius is
+Schubert's introduction to _Am Meer_ (By the Sea). Here with two chords
+he tells us the story of the lonely seashore, the deserted hut, the
+tears, the dull sound of breakers dying on a distant shore, and all
+around the unfathomable mystery of the mighty deep.
+
+[Illustration: Figure O]
+
+Classic song literature is full of interesting examples of this kind. If
+we learn how to study the works of these great ones of the earth we
+shall see how unerring is the touch of genius, and some day we shall
+awaken to see that these kings and prophets are our friends, and that
+they possess the supreme virtue of constancy.
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+SCIENTIFIC VOICE PRODUCTION
+
+    The immediate effect of the laryngoscope was to throw the whole
+    subject into almost hopeless confusion by the introduction of
+    all sorts of errors of observation, each claiming to be founded
+    on ocular proof, and believed in with corresponding obstinacy.
+
+                Sir Morell Mackenzie. _Hygiene of the Vocal Organs_.
+
+
+He who studies the voice in a physics laboratory naturally considers
+himself a scientific man, and those teachers who make his discoveries
+the basis of their teaching believe they are teaching the science of
+voice production. The scientist says: "Have I not studied the voice in
+action? I have seen, therefore I know." But the element of uncertainty
+in what he has seen makes his knowledge little more than speculative.
+But suppose he is sure of what he has seen. Of what importance is it? He
+has seen a vocal organ in the act of producing tone under trying
+conditions, for one under the conditions necessary to the use of the
+laryngoscope is not at all likely to reach his own standard of tone
+production.
+
+Scientists would have us believe that the action of the vocal mechanism
+is the same in all voices. This claim must necessarily be made or there
+would be no such thing as scientific production. But of all the vocal
+vagaries advanced this has the least foundation in fact.
+
+Scientifically and artistically speaking there is no such thing at
+present as perfect voice, and there will be no such thing until man
+manifests a perfect mind. The best examples of voice production are not
+altogether perfect, and most of them are still a considerable distance
+from perfection. It is with these imperfect models that the scientific
+man in dealing and on which he bases his deductions.
+
+Be it right or wrong singers do not all use the vocal mechanism in the
+same way. I have in mind two well known contraltos one of whom carried
+her chest register up to A, and even to B flat occasionally. The other
+carried her middle register down to the bottom of the voice. Can the
+tenor who carries his chest voice up to [Illustration: Figure P] be said
+to use his voice in the same way as one who begins his head voice at
+[Illustration: Figure Q]?
+
+In the examination of a hundred voices selected at random all manner of
+different things would be observed. Perhaps this is responsible for the
+great diversity of opinion among scientists, for it must be said that so
+far there is little upon which they agree. Before absolute laws
+governing any organ or instrument can be formulated the nature of the
+instrument must be known. The scientists have never come anywhere near
+an agreement as to what kind of an instrument man has in his throat.
+They have not decided whether it is a stringed instrument, a brass, a
+single or double reed, and these things are vital in establishing a
+scientific basis of procedure. Not knowing what the instrument is, it is
+not strange that we are not of one mind as to how it should be played
+upon.
+
+If we are to know the science of voice production we must first know the
+mechanism and action of the vocal organ. This instrument, perhaps an
+inch and a half in length, produces tones covering a compass, in rare
+instances, of three octaves. How does it do it? According to the books,
+in a variety of ways.
+
+A majority of those voice teachers who believe in registers recognize
+three adjustments, chest middle, and upper, or chest medium, and head,
+but Dr. MacKenzie claims that in four hundred female voices which he
+examined he found in most cases the chest mechanism was used throughout.
+Mancini (1774) says there are instances in which there is but one
+register used throughout.
+
+Garcia says there are three mechanisms--chest, falsetto, and head, and
+makes them common to both sexes.
+
+Behnke divides the voice into five registers--lower and upper thick,
+lower and upper thin, and small.
+
+Dr. Guilmette says that to hold that all of the tones of the voice
+depend on one mechanism or register is an acknowledgment of ignorance of
+vocal anatomy. He further declares that the vocal cords have nothing to
+do with tone--that it is produced by vibration of the mucous membrane of
+the trachea, larynx, pharynx, mouth; in fact, all of the mucous membrane
+of the upper half of the body.
+
+When it comes to the falsetto voice, that scarehead to so many people
+who have no idea what it is, but are morally sure it is wicked and
+ungodly, the scientists give their imaginations carte blanche. Dr.
+Mackenzie, who says there are but two mechanisms, the long and short
+reed, says the falsetto is produced by the short reed.
+
+Lehfeldt and Muller hold that falsetto is produced by the vibrations of
+the inner edges or mucous covering of the vocal cords, the body of the
+cords being relaxed.
+
+Mr. Lunn feels sure that the true vocal cords are not involved in
+falsetto, that voice being produced by the false vocal cords.
+
+Mantels says that in the falsetto voice the vocal cords do not produce
+pitch, that the quality and mechanism are both that of the flute, that
+the cords set the air in vibration and the different tones are made by
+alterations in the length of the tube.
+
+Davidson Palmer says that the falsetto is the remnant of the boy's voice
+which has deteriorated through lack of use, but which is the correct
+mechanism to be used throughout the tenor voice.
+
+Mr. Chater argues along the same lines as Mr. Mantels except that he
+makes the instrument belong to the clarinet or oboe class. Others
+believe the vocal cords act as the lips do in playing a brass
+instrument.
+
+But the action of the vocal cords is but the first part of the
+unscientific controversy. What takes place above the vocal cords is
+equally mystifying. The offices of the pharynx, the mouth, the nasal
+cavities, the entire structure of the head in fact, are rich in
+uncertainties.
+
+Some think the cavities of the pharynx and head are involved
+acoustically and in some way enlarge, refine and purify the tone, but
+one famous man says the head has nothing whatever to do with it. Another
+gentleman of international reputation says the nose is the most
+important factor in singing. If your nasal cavities are right you can
+sing, otherwise you cannot.
+
+And so this verbal rambling continues; so the search for mind in matter
+goes on, with a seriousness scarcely equalled in any other line of
+strife. There is nothing more certain to permanently bewilder a vocal
+student than to deluge him with pseudo-scientific twaddle about the
+voice. And this for the simple reason that he comes to learn to sing,
+not for a course in anatomy.
+
+What is scientific voice production? Books without number have been
+written with the openly expressed intention to give a clear exposition
+of the subject, but the seeker for a scientific method soon finds
+himself in a maze of conflicting human opinions from which he cannot
+extricate himself.
+
+We are told with much unction and warmth that science means to know.
+That it is a knowledge of principles or causes, ascertained truths or
+facts. A scientific voice teacher then must know something. What must he
+know? Books on scientific voice production usually begin with a picture
+of the larynx, each part of which is labeled with a Greek word sometimes
+longer than the thing itself. It then proceeds to tell the unction of
+each muscle and cartilage and the part it plays in tone production. Now
+if this is scientific, and if science is exact knowledge, and this exact
+knowledge is the basis of scientific voice teaching, then every one who
+has a perfect knowledge of these facts about the voice, must in the
+eternal and invariable nature of facts be a perfect voice teacher, and
+every one of these perfect voice teachers must teach in exactly the same
+way and produce exactly the same results. Does history support this
+argument? Quite the reverse.
+
+There is a science of acoustics, and in this science one may learn all
+about tones, vibrating bodies, vibrating strings, vibrating cavities,
+simple, compound and complex vibrations. Will this knowledge make him a
+scientific voice teacher? When he has learned all of this he has not yet
+begun to prepare for voice teaching. There is no record of a great voice
+teacher having been trained in a physics laboratory.
+
+It is possible to analyze a tone and learn how fundamental and upper
+partials are combined and how these combinations affect quality. Does
+this constitute scientific voice production? This knowledge may all be
+gained from the various hand books on acoustics. Has any one the
+hardihood to assert that such knowledge prepares one for the responsible
+work of training voices? One may know all of this and still be as
+ignorant of voice training as a Hottentot is of Calvinism.
+
+Further, who shall decide which particular combination of fundamental
+and upper partials constitutes the perfect singing tone? If a tone is
+produced and we say, there is the perfect tone, all it proves is that it
+corresponds to our mental concept of tone. It satisfies our ear, which
+is another term for our taste.
+
+Can a tone be disagreeable and still be scientifically produced? One
+combination of fundamental and overtones is, strictly speaking, just as
+scientific as another combination. The flute tone with its two overtones
+is just as scientific as the string tone with its six or eight. A tone
+is pleasant or disagreeable according as it corresponds to a mental
+demand. Even the most hardened scientist would not call a tone which
+offends his ear scientific. Therefore he must first produce, or have
+produced the tone that satisfies his ear. The question then naturally
+arises--when he has secured the tone that satisfies his ear of what
+value beyond satisfying his curiosity is a physical analysis? A tone is
+something to hear, and when it satisfies the ear that knows, that in
+itself is unmistakable evidence that it is rightly produced.
+
+If this scientific knowledge of tone is necessary then every great
+artist in the world is unscientific, because not one of them makes any
+use whatsoever of such knowledge in his singing.
+
+No. All of the scientific knowledge one may acquire is no guaranty of
+success as a teacher, but is rather in the nature of a hindrance,
+because it is likely to lead him into mechanical ways of doing things.
+Further, the possession of such knowledge is no indication that one will
+use it in his teaching. How much of such knowledge can one use in
+teaching? How can he tell, save from the tone itself whether the pupil
+is producing it scientifically? It is a well established fact that the
+more the teacher tries to use his scientific information in teaching the
+less of an artist he becomes.
+
+Could it be possible that a beautiful tone could be produced contrary to
+the laws of science? It would be an extraordinary mind that would argue
+in the affirmative.
+
+=The most beautiful tone is the most perfectly produced, whether the
+singer knows anything of vocal mechanism or not.= In such a tone there
+is no consciousness of mechanics or scientific laws. The vocal mechanism
+is responding automatically to the highest law in the universe--the law
+of beauty. The most scientific thing possible is a beautiful idea
+perfectly expressed, because a thing inherently beautiful is eternally
+true, hence it is pure science.
+
+Every tone of the human voice is the expression of life, of an idea, a
+feeling, an emotion, and unless interfered with the vocal mechanism
+responds automatically.
+
+He who by experiment or reading has learned the action of the vocal
+mechanism, and attempts to make his pupil control every part of it by
+direct effort may imagine that he is teaching scientific voice
+production, but he is not, he is only doing a mechanical thing in a
+clumsy way.
+
+Is it a scientific act to tell a pupil to hold his tongue down, as one
+writer argued recently? Is a teacher calling into action the eternal
+laws of science when he tells his pupil to drive the tone through the
+head, hoist the soft palate, groove the tongue, and make the diaphragm
+rigid? No. He is simply doing a mechanical thing badly for want of a
+better way. It is no more scientific than kicking the cat out of the way
+if she gets under your feet.
+
+Any one who has learned the elements of psychology or philosophy knows
+that everything exists first as idea. The real universe is the one that
+exists in the mind of the creator. The real man is the part of him that
+thinks. To hold that the body thinks or acts is equivalent to saying
+that Gray's "Elegy" was in the pen with which the poet wrote.
+
+To a natural scientist the only real thing is what he can see, therefore
+he bases his faith on what he conceives to be matter; but if we study
+the great ones--Oswald, Huxley, Grant, Allen, and the like, we find that
+they have long ago reached the conclusion that there is no such thing as
+matter. According to Schopenhauer the world is idea, and this so called
+material environment is thought objectifying itself.
+
+Vocal teachers, like the members of other professions, are not
+altogether immune to an attack of intellect, and at such times the
+thought that they are doing something scientific is particularly
+agreeable.
+
+The only study of science that can benefit any one is the study of
+causation, and causation cannot be cognized by the physical senses. We
+never see, hear, feel, taste, or smell cause. What we see or hear is
+effect. Causation is mental. Natural science is dealing with phenomena,
+with effect not cause. A regular recurrence of phenomena may establish a
+so called natural law, but the law is that which caused the phenomena,
+"Law is force" says Hegel, and it is therefore mental. We are told that
+the law of the earth is its path around the sun. This is not true, the
+law of the earth is the mind which makes it revolve around the sun. If
+we would learn the nature, activity, and cause of anything we must look
+for it in _mind_ not in matter. For this reason the process of voice
+production is _psychologic_ not physiologic. When a pupil sings, what we
+hear is _effect_ not cause. If he is doing all manner of unnecessary
+things with his lips, tongue, larynx, etc. what we see is effect and the
+cause is in wrong _mental_ concepts. The thing which caused the tone is
+_mental_, the force which produced it is _mental_, and the means by
+which we know whether it is good, or bad is _mental_.
+
+Of this we may be sure, that the tone the pupil sings will not be better
+than the one he has in mind. _A tone exists first as a mental concept,
+and the quality of the mental concept determines the quality of the
+tone._
+
+If there be such a thing as scientific voice production it will be found
+in the sense of what is inherently beautiful, and the scientific tone is
+one which will perfectly express a right idea or emotion, and in the
+nature of things there is an appropriate tone for everything that may be
+legitimately expressed, for they are correlated ideas.
+
+Whence originated this so called scientific voice teaching? That the old
+Italian knew nothing of it is well understood. They considered the
+process artistic rather than scientific. _How does it sound_, was their
+slogan. The thing uppermost in their minds was beautiful tone, and they
+were wise enough to know that when one has a definite concept of the
+pure singing tone he has a more valuable asset than all the mechanical
+knowledge he can acquire. They had but one end in view, namely, a
+finished artist, and everything they did was made to contribute to it.
+The artist always has in mind the _finished product_. The scientist
+tries to find out _how it is done_. The artist begins with the idea and
+works forward to its complete expression. The scientist begins with the
+physical mechanism and works backward toward the idea.
+
+What is responsible for the change from the methods of the the
+seventeenth and eighteenth centuries? It is safe to say that it did not
+come through the voice teachers.
+
+In the early part of the nineteenth century an interesting thing
+happened. How it happened or why it happened at that particular time is
+not known nor does it matter. The human mind became all at once
+aggressively inquisitive. The desire to get at the ultimate of
+everything took possession of humanity and still holds it. The result
+was an era of scientific analysis and invention, the aim of which was to
+control the forces of nature. Previous to that time methods of living,
+production, transportation, agriculture, etc. were little different from
+that of biblical times. People and nations lived much to themselves.
+They looked within for their inspiration and developed their own
+national characteristics. But with the invention of the steamship,
+railway, and telegraph a change came. These improved methods of
+transportation and communication brought all of the mentalities of the
+world together, and soon all habitable parts of the globe were in daily
+and hourly contact. The result was a mental fermentation which increased
+the complexity of civilization immeasurably and the present exaggerated
+and unnatural condition of society is the outgrowth.
+
+Between 1809 and 1813 were born Mendelssohn, Chopin, Schumann, Liszt,
+and Wagner. These men are known as the founders of the modern romantic
+school of music. They grew up with the new civilization and could not do
+otherwise than reflect its complexity in their music. That the new
+civilization was responsible for the new art there is no doubt whatever.
+All old types have passed away. All branches of art have suffered
+radical changes in conforming to new ideals.
+
+Since the wave of scientific investigation started around the world
+nothing has been able to escape it. The hand of the scientist has been
+upon everything, and to him rather than to the voice teachers must be
+given the credit for originating scientific voice teaching.
+
+When the scientists began publishing the results of their investigations
+voice teachers at once became interested. The plan looked promising. It
+offered them a method shorn of uncertainties. A method that brought
+everything under the operation of physical laws; a method that dealt
+only with finalities, and would operate in spite of a lack of musical
+intelligence on the part of the student, and at the same time enable
+them to lay to their souls the flattering unction of science. True it
+ignored altogether the psychology of the matter. It said "do it this way
+and a beautiful tone will come whether you are thinking it or not,
+because scientific laws eternally operating in the same way eternally
+produce the same results."
+
+The scientific method gave voice teachers an opportunity to work with
+something tangible, something they could see; whereas the development of
+tone concept, the artistic instinct, musical feeling, and musicianship
+had to do with things which to most of them were intangible and elusive.
+No one doubts the honesty of the teachers who became obsessed with the
+scientific idea. To them it meant increased efficiency and accuracy,
+quicker results with less effort, and so they broke with the old
+Italians, the basis of whose teaching was beautiful tone and beautiful
+singing. In spite of the honesty of purpose of all those who followed
+the new way, the results were calamitous. The art of singing received a
+serious setback. Voices without number were ruined. From the middle to
+the end of the nineteenth century the scientific idea was rampant, and
+during that period it is probable that the worst voice teaching in the
+history of the world was done. Large numbers of people with neither
+musicianship nor musical instincts acquired a smattering of anatomy and
+a few mechanical rules and advertised themselves as teachers of
+scientific voice production. The great body of vocal students, anxious
+to learn to sing in the shortest possible time, having no way of telling
+the genuine from the spurious except by trying it, fell an easy prey,
+and the amount of vocal damage and disaster visited upon singers in the
+name of science is beyond calculation.
+
+Fortunately the reaction has begun. Slowly but surely we are returning
+to a saner condition of mind. Every year adds to the number of those who
+recognize singing as an art, whose vision is clear enough to see that
+the work of the scientific investigator should be confined to the
+laboratory and that it has no place in the studio. We are beginning to
+see that the basic principle of singing is _freedom in the expression of
+the beautiful_, and that the less there is of the mechanical in the
+process the better.
+
+
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHY
+
+
+The Italian School of Florid Song. Pier Franceso Tosi. London, 1743.
+
+Practical Reflections on the Figurative Art of Singing. Mancini
+(1716-1800) English Edition. Boston, 1912.
+
+The Psychology of Singing. David Taylor. New York, 1908.
+
+The Philosophy of Singing. Clara Kathleen Rogers. New York, 1898.
+
+My Voice and I. Clara Kathleen Rogers. Chicago, 1910.
+
+The Rightly Produced Voice. Davidson Palmer. London, 1897.
+
+Expression in Singing. H. S. Kirkland. Boston, 1916.
+
+The Art of the Singer. W. J. Henderson. New York, 1906.
+
+English Diction for Singers and Speakers. Louis Arthur Russell. Boston,
+1905.
+
+Resonance in Speaking and Singing. Thomas Fillebrown. Boston, 1911.
+
+Hints of Singing. Garcia. London, 1894.
+
+The Singing of the Future. D. Ffrangcon-Davies. London, 1908.
+
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+
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