Caruso and Tetrazzini on the Art of Singing | Page 7

head and
tongue, for it is necessary to become thoroughly acquainted with the
mechanism with which you are to work before you can really sing.
Today I'm going to take up the subject of tone emission and the attack.
A great many singers suffer from the defect called "throatiness" of the
emission--that is to say, they attack or start the note in the throat.
Sooner or later this attack will ruin the most beautiful voice. As I have
said before, the attack of the note must come from the apoggio, or
breath prop. But to have the attack pure and perfectly in tune you must
have the throat entirely open, for it is useless to try to sing if the throat
is not sufficiently open to let the sound pass freely. Throaty tones or
pinched tones are tones which are trying to force themselves through a
half-closed throat blocked either by insufficient opening of the larynx
or by stoppage of the throat passage, due to the root of the tongue being
forced down and back too hard or possibly to a low, soft palate.
In order to have the throat perfectly open it is necessary to have the jaw
absolutely relaxed.
I have found in studying different nationalities that it is fairly easy for
the French and Spanish people to learn this relaxation of jaw and the
opening of the throat, but the English-speaking people generally talk
with the throat half shut and even talk through half-shut teeth.
Sometime, when you are talking rapidly, suddenly put your hand up to
your jaw. You will find that it is stiff; that the muscles beneath it
(tongue muscles) are tight and hard; that the jaw seldom goes down
very far in pronouncing any of the English words, whereas in singing

the jaw should be absolutely relaxed, going down and back just as far
as it can with ease.
The jaw is attached to the skull right beneath the temples in front of the
ears. By placing your two fingers there and dropping the jaw you will
find that a space between the skull and jaw grows as the jaw drops.
In singing this space must be as wide as is possible, for that indicates
that the jaw is dropped down, giving its aid to the opening at the back
of the throat. It will help the beginner sometimes to do simple relaxing
exercises, feeling the jaw drop with the fingers. It must drop down, and
it is not necessary to open the mouth wide, because the jaw is relaxed
to its utmost.
However, for a beginner it is as well to practice opening the mouth
wide, being sure to lower the jaw at the back. Do this many times a day
without emitting any sound merely to get the feeling of what an open
throat is really like. You will presently begin to yawn after you have
done the exercise a couple of times. In yawning or in starting to drink a
sip of water the throat is widely open, and the sensation is a correct one
which the singer must study to reproduce.
I have noticed a great many actors and actresses in America who speak
with jaws tightly closed, or at least closed to such an extent that only
the smallest emission of breath is possible. Such a voice production
will never allow the actor to express any varying degree of emotion and
will also completely eradicate any natural beauty of tone which the
voice may have. However, this is a fault which can easily be overcome
by practicing this daily relaxation of the jaw and always when singing
breathing as if the jaw hung perfectly loose, or, better still, as if you
had none at all. When you can see a vocalist pushing on the jaw you
can be perfectly certain that the tone she is emitting at that moment is a
forced note and that the whole vocal apparatus is being tortured to
create what is probably not a pleasant noise.
Any kind of mental distress will cause the jaw to stiffen and will have
an immediate effect upon the voice. This is one of the reasons why a
singer must learn to control her emotions and must not subject herself

to any harrowing experiences, even such as watching a sensational
spectacle, before she is going to sing. Fear, worry, fright--stage as well
as other kinds--set the jaw. So does too great a determination to
succeed. A singer's mind must control all of her feelings if it is going to
control her voice. She must be able even to surmount a feeling of
illness or stage fright and to control her vocal apparatus, as well as her
breath, no matter what happens.
The singer should feel as if her jaw