The Child-Voice in Singing | Page 9

of the vocal
registers until full maturity is reached. A fixed register in a childish
throat involving a completely developed larynx would be a startling
anomaly. The laryngeal muscles of childhood are not strong. They are
weak. Most of the talk about strength of voice in children is utter
nonsense. When the muscles and other parts concerned in
tone-production perform their physiological functions in a healthy
manner, that is, in such a way that no congestion, or inflammation or
undue weariness will result, the singing-tone of the child will never be
loud. High or low, under these conditions it must perforce be soft, and
if proper directions be followed the quality will be as good as the voice

is capable of.
Everyone who has observed has also noticed the contrast in the lower
tones of children and women. The chest-voice of the woman, which she
uses in singing her lower register, is normally very beautiful in its
quality. Its tones are the product of a perfectly developed, full-grown
organ. The chest-voice of the child is an abnormal product of a weak,
growing, undeveloped organ. It possesses, even when used carefully,
little of the tone tints of the adult voice. The chest-voice belongs to
adult life, not to childhood. The so-called chest-voice of children is
only embryonic. It cannot be musical, for the larynx has not reached
that stage of growth and development where it can produce these tones
musically. The constant use of this hybrid register with children is
injurious in many ways. Its use is justified in schools merely through
custom, and it can not be doubted that as soon as the attention of
teachers is called to its evils, they will no longer tolerate its use.
The usual analogies then which are drawn between the adult female
voice and the child-voice, in so far as they imply a similar
physiological condition of the vocal organ and similar vocal training,
are not only useless, but misleading. He who tries to train the average
child-voice on the theory of two, three or five clearly-defined breaks, or
natural changes in the forms for vocal vibration assumed by the vocal
bands will get very little help from nature.
With due consideration it is said that it is a harder task to train
children's voices properly than to train the voices of adults. Where
nature is so shifty in her ways, it requires keen penetration to discover
her ends.
The child-voice is a delicate instrument. It ought not to be played upon
by every blacksmith.
CHAPTER III.
HOW TO SECURE GOOD TONE.
The practical application of the teaching of the two preceding chapters

may at first thought seem to be difficult. On the contrary, it is quite
easy. We have favorable conditions in schools; graded courses in music,
regular attendance, discipline, and women and men in charge who are
accustomed to teach. No more favorable conditions for teaching vocal
music exist than are to be found in a well-organized and
well-disciplined school. The environments of both pupils and teachers
are exactly adapted to the ready reception of ideas, on the one hand,
and the skilful imparting of them, on the other.
The abilities of the trained teachers of to-day are not half appreciated.
They often possess professional skill of the highest order, and the
supervisor of music in the public schools may count himself
exceedingly fortunate in the means he has at hand for carrying on his
work. But knowledge of voice is no more evolved from one's inner
consciousness than is knowledge of musical notation, or of the Greek
alphabet; therefore, if regular teachers in the school permit singing
which is unmusical and hurtful, it is chiefly because they are following
the usual customs, and their ears have thereby become dulled, or it may
be that even if the singing is unpleasant to them, that they do not know
how to make it better. As before said, all energies have so far been
directed to the teaching of music reading. Tone has been neglected,
forgotten, or at most its improvement has been sought spasmodically.
The carelessness regarding tone, which is so prevalent, is due to an
almost entire absence of good teaching on the subject of the
child-voice-- to ignorance, let us say-- not altogether inexcusable.
Now and then, when listening to the soprani of some well-trained
boy-choir, sounding soft and mellow on the lower notes and ringing
clear and flutey on the higher, it may have dimly occurred to the
teacher of public school music that there might be things as yet unheard
of in his musical philosophy, a vague wonder and dissatisfaction, which
has slowly disappeared under the pressure of routine work.
When one reflects upon the results which the patience and skill of our
regular teachers have accomplished in teaching pupils