The Child-Voice in Singing

Child-Voice in Singing, by Francis E. Howard

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Title: The Child-Voice in Singing treated from a physiological and a practical standpoint and especially adapted to schools and boy choirs
Author: Francis E. Howard
Release Date: September 12, 2007 [EBook #22581]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
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[Transcriber's Note:
This text is intended for users whose text readers cannot use the "real" (unicode/utf-8) version of the file. Characters that could not be fully displayed have been "unpacked" and shown between braces:
[-a], [a:], [-e], [-I], [-o], [-U] ("long" vowels) [)a], [)e], [)i], [)oo] ("short" vowels)
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In the printed text, all musical references--including single notes showing pitch--were shown on a musical staff. In this e-text, these brief passages are shown in brackets as [Music: e' e''], where c'-c'' is the octave beginning at middle C. Durations are not significant and have generally been omitted.
Within illustrations, text in {braces} was added by the transcriber. Typographical errors are listed at the end of the e-text.]
* * * * * * * * * * * * * *
THE CHILD-VOICE IN SINGING
Treated From
A Physiological and a Practical Standpoint and Especially Adapted to Schools and Boy Choirs
By FRANCIS E. HOWARD
Supervisor of Music in the Public Schools and Choirmaster of St. John's and Trinity Churches, Bridgeport, Conn.
NEW AND REVISED EDITION
New York: The H. W. Gray Co. Sole Agents For NOVELLO & CO., Ltd., London Made in the United States of America

Copyright, 1895 By F. E. HOWARD
Copyright, 1898 By NOVELLO, EWER & CO.
Copyright renewed, 1923

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.
One of the most encouraging signs of the growth of musical taste and understanding at the present time as regards the singing of children, is the almost unanimous acquiescence of choirmasters, supervisors, teachers, and others in the idea that children should sing softly, and avoid loud and harsh tones; and the author ventures to hope that the first edition of this book has helped, in a measure at least, to bring about this state of opinion.
It is true that for a long time the art of training children's voices has been well understood by choirmasters of vested choirs, and by many others, but its basis was purely empirical.
Something more, however, than the dictum of individual taste and judgment is needed to convince the educators of our schools of the wisdom of any departure from established customs and practices. The primary end, then, of the author has been to show a scientific basis for the use of what is herein called the head-voice of the child, and to adduce, from a study of the anatomy and physiology of the larynx and vocal organs, safe principles for the guidance of those who teach children to sing.
The conditions under which music is taught in schools call for an appeal to the understanding first, and taste afterward. These conditions are:
First, the actual teaching of music is done by class-room or grade teachers. The special teacher, who usually supervises also, visits each room, it may be as often as once a week, but in most towns and cities not oftener than once in three or four weeks. At any rate the class form their ideals and habits from the daily lessons, which are given by their grade teacher.
Second, these teachers in the great majority of cases acquire their knowledge of music through teaching it, and must also, it can easily be understood, develop a sense of discrimination in musical matters in the same way. There is a strong natural tendency in the school-rooms to emphasize the teaching of music, or teaching about music, as contrasted with actual singing. The importance of using the voice properly will not suggest itself to many teachers.
It is necessary, then, that this, which is the essence of all instruction in vocal music, should be brought to the attention of the vast army of instructors in our public schools in as convincing a way as is possible. Now the best, and in fact the only way to secure the assent of our educators to a new idea in school work, is to prove its truth. "It is useless to dispute about tastes," and so the less said about harsh tone to a teacher accustomed to hear it daily, and to like it, the better; but prove to this teacher that the harsh tone is physically hurtful