Voice Production in Singing and Speaking

Production in Singing and Speaking, by Wesley Mills

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Title: Voice Production in Singing and Speaking Based on Scientific Principles (Fourth Edition, Revised and Enlarged)
Author: Wesley Mills
Release Date: November 20, 2006 [EBook #19880]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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VOICE PRODUCTION
IN
SINGING AND SPEAKING
BASED ON
SCIENTIFIC PRINCIPLES
BY
WESLEY MILLS, M.A., M.D., F.R.S.C.
EMERITUS PROFESSOR OF PHYSIOLOGY IN McGILL UNIVERSITY, AND LECTURER ON VOCAL PHYSIOLOGY AND HYGIENE IN THE McGILL UNIVERSITY CONSERVATORIUM OF MUSIC, MONTREAL, CANADA
FOURTH EDITION, REVISED AND ENLARGED
[Illustration: publisher logo]
PHILADELPHIA & LONDON J.B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
COPYRIGHT, 1906, BY J.B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
The Rights of Translation and all other Rights Reserved
COPYRIGHT, 1913, BY J.B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
Electrotyped and Printed by J.B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia, U.S.A.
[Transcriber's Notes: In this e-text, illustrations of music notation have been rendered using standard text notation, e.g.: C = C two octaves below middle C; c = C one octave below middle C; c' = middle C; c'' = C one octave above middle C, etc.
Macrons are indicated thus: [=a], [=e], [=i], [=o], [=u].]
[Illustration: Illustrations of the appearance of the larynx during phonation in two special cases. (Gr��nwald.)]
EXPLANATION OF THE COLORED ILLUSTRATIONS.
They contrast with each other in that the one (upper) is too red; the other, too pale. The upper represents appearances such as one gets with the laryngoscope when the subject has a very severe cold, or even inflammation of the larynx, including the central vocal bands. In this particular case, a young woman of twenty-five years of age, there was inflammation with a certain amount of weakness of the internal thyro-arytenoid muscles. Speaking was almost impossible, and such voice as was produced was of a very rough character. In the lower illustration we have the appearances presented in a man affected with tuberculosis of the lungs and larynx. The pallor of the larynx is characteristic. There is weakness of the internal thyro-arytenoid muscle on the right side, which results in imperfect tension of the vocal band on that side, so that the voice is uncertain and harsh. Such illustrations are introduced to impress the normal by contrast. The reader is strongly advised to compare these figures with others in the body of the work, especially those of Chapter VII.

PREFACE TO THE FOURTH REVISED AND ENLARGED EDITION.
In addition to certain emendations, etc., introduced throughout the work, I have thought it well to add a chapter in which the whole subject is treated in a broad and comprehensive way in the light of the latest scientific knowledge.
In this review the psychological aspects of the subject have not been neglected, and the whole has been related to practice to as great an extent as the character of the book permits.
It is significant that on both sides of the Atlantic there is a growing conviction that the foundations for speaking and singing as an art must be made as scientific as the state of our knowledge will permit.
THE AUTHOR.
January, 1913.

PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION.
No preface to the Second Edition was written, so few were the changes that were made in the work, and the same might apply to this Third Edition. However, the fact that within a period of less than two years, a Second English and a Third American Edition have been called for, seems to the Author to be so conclusive an endorsement of the application of science to vocal art, that he may be entitled at least to express his gratification at the progress the cause, to which he has devoted his pen, is making. It would seem that the better portion at least of that public that is interested in the progress of vocal art has made up its mind that the time has come when sense and science must replace tradition and empiricism.
THE AUTHOR.
MONTREAL, September, 1908.

PREFACE.
The present work is based on a life study of the voice, and has grown out of the conviction that all teaching and learning in voice-culture, whether for the purposes of singing or speaking, should as far as possible rest on a scientific foundation.
The author, believing that practice and principles have been too much separated, has endeavored to combine them in this book. His purpose has not been to write an exhaustive work on vocal physiology, with references at every step to the views of various authors; rather has he tried always to keep in mind the real needs of the practical voice-user, and to give him a sure foundation for the