The Head Voice and Other Problems | Page 4

belief among students that the tone must be consciously directed to the point where it is supposed to focus. This belief is intimately associated with another equally erroneous, that the only way to tell whether a tone is good or bad, right or wrong, is by the way it feels. A tone is something to hear. It makes its appeal to the ear, and why one should rely on the sense of feeling to tell whether it sounds right or wrong is something difficult to understand.
Further, explicit directions are given for the action and control of everything involved in making tone except the mind of the student. The larynx seems to be particularly vulnerable and is subject to continuous attack. One says it should be held low throughout the compass. Another says it should rise as the pitch rises, and still another, that it should drop as the pitch rises. Instructions of this kind do not enlighten, they mystify.
If there be any one thing upon which voice teachers theoretically agree it is "free throat". Even those who argue for a fixed larynx agree to this, notwithstanding it is a physical impossibility to hold the larynx in a fixed position throughout the compass without a considerable amount of rigidity. It is like believing in Infinite Love and eternal punishment at the same time.
When the larynx is free it will not and should not be in the same position at all times. It will be a little lower for somber tones than for bright tones. It will be a little higher for the vowel e than for oo or o, but the adjustments will be automatic, never conscious. It cannot be too often reiterated that every part of the vocal mechanism must act automatically, and it is not properly controlled until it does.
The soft palate also comes in for its share of instruction. I was once taught to raise it until the uvula disappeared. Later I was taught to relax it. Both of these movements of the soft palate were expected to result in a beautiful tone. Now if two things which are directly opposed to each other are equal to the same thing, then there is no use in bothering our heads further with logic.
Such directions I believe to be of doubtful value, if not irrelevant. We must learn that an idea has definite form, and that when the mechanism is free, that is, plastic, the idea molds it into a corresponding form and the expression becomes a perfect picture of the idea. This is what is meant by indirect control, involuntary, automatic action.
One could write indefinitely on the peculiarities of voice training, the unique suggestions made, the mechanical instructions given, the unbelievable things students are made to do with lips, tongue and larynx as a necessary preparation to voice production. In this as in everything else there are extremists. Some have such an exquisite sense of detail that they never get beyond it. At the other extreme are those who trust everything to take care of itself. Both overlook the most important thing, namely, how the voice sounds.
It requires much time, study and experience to learn that voice training is simple. It is a fact that truth is naturally, inherently simple. Its mastery lies in removing those things which seem to make it difficult and complex. Training the voice, this so called "voice placing," is simple and easy when one has risen above that overwhelming amount of fiction, falsity, and fallacy that has accumulated around it, obscuring the truth and causing many well intentioned teachers to follow theories and vagaries that have no foundation in fact, and which lead both teacher and pupil astray. If there is any truth applicable to voice training it has an underlying principle, for truth is the operation of principle. If we start wrong we shall end wrong. If we start right and continue according to principle we shall reach the desired goal.
=Voice training has its starting point, its basis, its foundation, in beautiful tone.= This should be the aim of both teacher and pupil from the beginning. To produce something beautiful is the aim of all artistic activity. Beautiful tone, as Whistler said of all art, has its origin in absolute truth. That which is not beautiful cannot possibly be true, for real nature, which is the expression of Infinite Mind, is always perfect, and no perfect thing can be ugly, discordant, or inharmonious. The imperfection we see is the result of our own imperfect understanding of the real universe.
A tone is something to hear, and =hearing is mental=. An old French anatomist once said: "The eye sees what it is looking for, and it is looking only for what it has in mind." The same is true of the ear. We hear the