Voice Production in Singing and Speaking | Page 6

anatomy and physiology of the larynx are considered, it will be seen that the muscular mechanisms concerned in voice-production are of a delicacy unequalled anywhere in the body except possibly in the eye and the ear. And when it is further considered that these elaborate and sensitive mechanisms of the larynx are of little use except when adequately put into action by the breath-stream, which again involves hosts of other muscular movements, and the whole in relation to the parts of the vocal apparatus above the larynx, the mouth, nose, etc., it becomes clear that only long, patient, and intelligent study will lead to the highest results.
It should also be remembered that such an apparatus can easily acquire habits which may last for life, for good or ill, artistically considered. Such delicate mechanisms can also be easily injured or hopelessly ruined; and, as a matter of fact, this is being done daily. A great musical periodical has made the statement that thousands of voices are being ruined annually, in America alone, by incompetent teaching. My experience when a practising laryngologist made me acquainted with the extent of the ruin that may be brought about by incorrect methods of using the voice, both as regards the throat and the voice itself; and contact with teachers and students has so impressed me with the importance of placing voice-production on a sound foundation, not only artistic but physiological, that I have felt constrained to tell others who may be willing to hear me what I have learned as to correct methods, with some reference also to wrong ones, though the latter are so numerous that I shall not be able to find the space to deal at length with them.
The correct methods of singing and speaking are always, of necessity, physiological. Others may satisfy a vitiated or undeveloped public taste, but what is artistically sound is also physiological. None have ever sung with more ease than those taught by the correct methods of the old Italian masters; as none run so easily as the wisely trained athlete, and none endure so well. People in singing and speaking will, as in other cases, get what they work for, but have no right to expect to sing or speak effectively by inspiration, any more than the athlete to win a race because he is born naturally fleet of foot or with a quick intelligence. In each case the ideas are converted into performance, the results attained, by the exercise of neuro-muscular mechanisms. I am most anxious that it shall be perceived that this is the case, that the same laws apply to voice-production as to running or any other exercise. The difference is one of delicacy and complexity so far as the body is concerned.
It will be understood that I speak only of the technique. For art there must be more than technique, but there is no art without good methods of execution, which constitute technique. The latter is nothing more than method--manner of performance. Behind these methods of performance, or the simplest part of them, there must be some idea. The more intelligent the student, speaker or singer, as to his art and generally, the better for the teacher who instructs scientifically, though such intelligence is largely lost to the teacher who depends on tradition and pure imitation. In the present work I shall be so concerned with the physical that I shall be able only to refer briefly to the part that intelligence and feeling play in the result.
The qualifications for the successful treatment of vocal physiology--that is, such a discussion of the subject as shall lead to a clear comprehension of the nature of the principles involved, and place them on a practical foundation, make them at once usable in actual study and in teaching--such qualifications are many, and, in their totality and in an adequate degree, difficult to attain. After more than twenty years of the best study I could give to this subject in both a theoretical and a practical manner, I feel that I have something to say which may be useful to a large class, and, so far as I know, that is my reason for writing this book.
For myself music is indispensable. The one instrument we all possess is a voice-mechanism. I am one of those who regret that so little attention is paid, especially in America, to pleasing and expressive use of the voice in ordinary conversation. Yet how much pleasure cannot a beautiful speaking voice convey! The college undergraduate rarely finds vocal study among the requirements, in spite of the fact that the voice is an instrument that he will use much more than the pen. The truth is, the home methods of voice-production are those we are most likely to carry with us through