Resonance in Singing and Speaking | Page 3

injury done by mistaken methods in early years. Jenny Lind's perfect vocal organs were quite disabled at twelve years of age by wrong methods, and they recovered only after a protracted season of rest. As a consequence her beautiful voice began to fail long before her splendid physique, and long before her years demanded. Singers taught in nature's way should be able to sing so long as strength lasts, and, like Adelaide Phillips, Carl Formes, and Sims Reeves, sing their sweetest songs in the declining years of life. Martel, at seventy years of age, had a full, rich voice. He focused all his tones alike, and employed deep abdominal breathing.
The whole matter of voice training has been clouded by controversy. The strident advocates of various systems, each of them "the only true method," have in their disputes overcast the subject with much that is irrelevant, thus obscuring its essential simplicity.
The "scientific" teachers, at one extreme, have paid too exclusive attention to the mechanics of the voice. The "empiricists" have gone to the other extreme in leaving out of account fundamental facts in acoustics, physiology, and psychology.
The truth is that no purely human function, especially one so subtle as singing, can be developed mechanically; nor, on the other hand, can the mere ipse dixit of any teacher satisfy the demands of the modern spirit.
PRINCIPLES ADVOCATED
The positions here advocated, because they seem both rational and simple, are:
=1. That the singing and speaking tones are identical, produced by the same organs in the same way, and developed by the same training.=
=2. That breathing is, for the singer, only an amplification of the correct daily habit.=
=3. That "registers" are a myth.=
=4. That "head tones, chest tones, closed tones, open tones," etc., as confined to special parts of the range of the voice, are distracting distinctions arising from false education.=
=5. That resonance determines the quality and carrying power of every tone, and is therefore the most important element in the study and training of the voice.=
=6. That the obstacles to good speaking and singing are psychologic rather than physiologic.=
=7. That, in the nature of things, the right way is always an easy way.=
CHAPTER I
THE VOCAL INSTRUMENT
Since the vocal organism first became an object of systematic study, discussion has been constant as to whether the human vocal instrument is a stringed instrument, a reed instrument, or a whistle. Discussion of the question seems futile, for practically it is all of these and more. The human vocal organs form an instrument, sui generis, which cannot be compared with any other one thing. Not only is it far more complex than any other instrument, being capable, as it is, of imitating nearly every instrument in the catalogue and almost every sound in nature, but it is incomparably more beautiful, an instrument so universally superior to any made by man that comparisons and definitions fail.
ELEMENTS
The human vocal instrument has the three elements common to all musical instruments,--a motor, a vibrator, and a resonator; to which is added--what all other instruments lack--an articulator.
1. The respiratory muscles and lungs for a =motor=.
2. The vocal cords for a =vibrator=.
3. The throat, mouth, and the nasal and head cavities for a =resonator=.
4. The tongue, lips, teeth, and palate for an =articulator=.
These elements appear in as great a variety of size and proportion as do the variations of individual humanity, and each element is, moreover, variable according to the will or feeling of the individual. This susceptibility to change constitutes a modifying power which gives a variety in tone quality possible to no other instrument and makes it our wonder and admiration. The modification and interaction of these various parts produced by the emotions of the singer or speaker give qualities of tone expressive of the feelings, as of pain or pleasure, grief or joy, courage or fear.
[Illustration: FIGURE 1.--Section of the head and throat locating the organs of speech and song, including the upper resonators. The important maxillary sinus cannot well be shown. It is found within the maxillary bone (cheek bone). The inner end of the line marked Nasal cavity locates it.]
TIMBRE
The minute differences in these physical conditions, coupled with the subtler differences in the psychical elements of the personality, account for that distinctive physiognomy of the voice called =timbre=, which is only another name for individuality as exhibited in each person. The same general elements enter into the composition of all voices, from the basso profundo to the high soprano.
That the reader may better understand the proportion and relations of the different parts of the vocal apparatus, a sectional drawing of the head is here produced, showing the natural position of the vocal organs at rest. As the drawing represents but a vertical section of the head the reader should note that the sinuses, like the eyes and nostrils, lie in