The Head Voice and Other Problems | Page 3

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