TONE-PRODUCTION AND VOICE CULTURE

In no other form of expression do art and nature seem so closely identified as in the art of singing? A perfect voice speaks so directly to the soul of the hearer that all appearance of artfully prepared effect is absent. Every tone sung by a consummate vocal artist seems to be poured forth freely and spontaneously. There is no evidence of calculation, of carefully directed effort, of attention to the workings of the voice, in the tones of a perfect singer. Yet if the accepted idea of Voice Culture is correct, this semblance of spontaneity in the use of the voice can result only from careful and incessant attention to mechanical rules. That the voice must be managed or handled in some way neither spontaneous nor instinctive, is the settled conviction of almost every authority on the subject. All authorities believe also that this manner of handling the voice must be acquired by every student of singing, in the course of carefully directed study.

This training in the use of the voice is the most important feature of education in singing. Voice Culture embraces a peculiar and distinct problem, that of the correct management of the vocal organs. Vocal training has indeed come to be considered synonymous with training in the correct use of the voice. Every method of instruction in singing must contain as its most important element some means for dealing with the problem of tone-production.

No complete and satisfactory solution of this problem has ever been found. Of this fact, every one acquainted with the practical side of Voice Culture must be well aware. As the present work is designed solely to suggest a new manner of dealing with this question, it is advisable to define precisely what is meant by the problem of tone-production.

In theory, the question may be stated very simply. It is generally believed throughout the vocal profession that the voice has one correct mode of action, different from a wide variety of incorrect actions of which it is capable;—that this mode of action, though ordained by Nature, is not in the usual sense natural or instinctive;—that the correct vocal action must be acquired, through a definite understanding and conscious management of the muscular movements involved. The theoretical problem, therefore, is: What is the correct vocal action, and how can it be acquired?

On the practical side, the nature of the problem is by no means so simple. In actual instruction in singing, the subject of vocal management cannot readily be dissociated from the wide range of other topics comprised in the singer’s education. In much that pertains to the art of music, the singer’s training must include the same subjects that form the training of every musician. In addition to this general musical training, about the same for all students of music, each student must acquire a technical command of the chosen instrument. This is necessarily acquired by practice on the instrument, whether it be piano, violin, oboe, or whatever else. In the same way, vocal technique is acquired by practice in actual singing. Practice makes perfect, with the voice as with everything else.

But the voice is not invariably subject to the law that practice makes perfect. In this important respect the singer’s education presents a problem not encountered by the student of any instrument. Given the necessary talents, industry, and opportunities for study, the student of the violin may count with certainty on acquiring the mastery of this instrument. But for the vocal student, this is not necessarily true. There are many cases in which practice in singing does not bring about technical perfection. The mere singing of technical exercises is not enough; it is of vital importance that the exercises be sung in some particular manner. There is one certain way in which the voice must be handled during the practice of singing. If the vocal organs are exercised in this particular manner, the voice will improve steadily as the result of practice. This progress will continue until the perfect technical command of the voice is acquired. But if the vocal student fails to hit upon this particular way of handling the voice in practice the voice will improve little, or not at all. In such a case perfect vocal technique will never be acquired, no matter how many years the practice may continue.

What is this peculiar way in which the voice must be handled during the practice of singing? This is the practical problem of tone-production, as it confronts the student of singing.

It is important that the exact bearing of the problem be clearly understood. It is purely a feature of education in singing, and concerns only teachers and students of the art. Properly speaking, the finished singer should leave the teacher and start on the artistic career, equipped with a voice under perfect control. There should be no problem of tone-production for the trained singer, no thought or worry about the vocal action. True, many authorities on the voice maintain that the artist must, in all singing, consciously and intelligently guide the operations of the vocal organs. But even if this be the case the fact remains that this ability to manage the voice must be acquired during student days. In seeking a solution of the problem, that period in the prospective singer’s training must be considered during which the proper use of the voice is learned.

It may be taken for granted that teachers of singing have always been aware of the existence of the problem of tone-production, and have always instructed their pupils in the correct management of the voice. Yet it is only within the past hundred and fifty years that vocal management has been the subject of special study. A brief review of the history of Voice Culture will serve to bring this fact out clearly.

To begin with, the present art of singing is of comparatively recent origin. It is indeed probable that man had been using the voice in something akin to song for thousands of years before the dawn of history. Song of some kind has always played an important part in human life, savage as well as civilised. To express our emotions and feelings by means of the voice is one of our most deep-seated instincts. For this use of the voice to take on the character of melody, as distinguished from ordinary speech, is also purely instinctive. Singing was one of the most zealously cultivated arts in early Egypt, in ancient Israel, and in classic Greece and Rome. Throughout all the centuries of European history, singing has always had its recognised place, both in the services of the various churches and in the daily life of the people.

But solo singing, as we know it to-day, is a comparatively modern art. Not until the closing decades of the sixteenth century did the art of solo singing receive much attention, and it is to that period we must look for the beginnings of Voice Culture. It is true that the voice was cultivated, both for speech and song, among the Greeks and Romans. Gordon Holmes, in his Treatise on Vocal Physiology and Hygiene (London, 1879), gives an interesting account of these ancient systems of Voice Culture. But practically nothing has come down to us about the means then used for training the voice. Even if any defined methods were developed, it is absolutely certain that these had no influence on the modern art of Voice Culture.

With the birth of Italian opera, in 1600, a new art of singing also came into existence. The two arts, opera and singing, developed side by side, each dependent on the other. And most important to the present inquiry, the art or science of training voices also came into being. In Le Revolution del Teatro Musicale Italiano (Venice, 1785), Arteaga says of the development of opera: “But nothing contributed so much to clarify Italian music at that time as the excellence and the abundance of the singers.” A race of singing masters seems almost to have sprung up in Italy. These illustrious masters taught the singers to produce effects with their voices such as had never been heard of before. From 1600 to 1750 the progress of the art of singing was uninterrupted. Each great teacher carried the art a little further, discovering new beauties and powers in the voice, and finding means to impart his new knowledge to his pupils.

This race of teachers is known to-day as the Old Italian School, and their system of instruction is called the Old Italian Method. Just what this method consisted of is a much-discussed question. Whatever its system of instruction, the old Italian school seems to have suffered a gradual decline. In 1800 it was distinctly on the wane; it was entirely superseded, during the years from 1840 to 1865, by the modern scientific methods.

Considered as a practical system of Voice Culture, the old Italian method is a highly mysterious subject. Little is now known about the means used for training students of singing in the correct use of the voice. This much is fairly certain: the old masters paid little or no attention to what are now considered scientific principles. They taught in what modern vocal theorists consider a rather haphazard fashion. The term “empirical” is often applied to their method, and to the knowledge of the voice on which it was based.[1] But as to what the old masters actually knew about the voice, and just how they taught their pupils to sing, on these points the modern world is in almost complete ignorance. Many attempts have been made in recent years to reconstruct the old Italian method in the light of modern scientific knowledge of the voice. But no such analysis of the empirical system has ever been convincing.

[Note 1: “The old Italian method of instruction, to which vocal music owed its high condition, was purely empirical.” (Emma Seiler, The Voice in Singing. Phila., 1886.)]

How the practical method of the old masters came to be forgotten is perhaps the most mysterious feature of this puzzling system. There has been a lineal succession of teachers of singing, from the earlier decades of the eighteenth century down to the present. Even to-day it is almost unheard of that anyone should presume to call himself a teacher of singing without having studied with at least one recognised master. Each master of the old school imparted his knowledge and his practical method to his pupils. Those of his pupils who in their turn became teachers passed the method on to their students, and so on, in many unbroken successions. Yet, for some mysterious reason, the substance of the old method was lost in transmission.

What little is now known about the old method is derived from two sources, the written record and tradition. To write books in explanation of their system of instruction does not seem to have occurred to the earliest exponents of the art of Voice Culture. The first published work on the subject was that of Pietro Francesco Tosi, Osservazione sopra il Canto figure, brought out in Bologna in 1723. This was translated into English by M. Galliard, and published in London in 1742; a German translation by J. F. Agricola was issued in 1757. The present work will call for several citations from Tosi, all taken from the English edition. Only one other prominent teacher of the old school, G. B. Mancini, has left an apparently complete record of his method. His Riflessioni practice sul Canto figure was published in Milan in 1776. Mancini’s book has never been translated into English. Reference will, therefore, be made to the third Italian edition, brought out in Milan, 1777.

Tosi and Mancini undoubtedly intended to give complete accounts of the methods of instruction in singing in vogue in their day. But modern vocal theorists generally believe that the most important materials of instruction were for some reason not mentioned. Three registers are mentioned by Tosi, while Mancini speaks of only two. Both touch on the necessity of equalising the registers but give no specific directions for this purpose. About all these early writers have left us, in the opinion of most modern students of their works, is the outline of an elaborate system of vocal ornaments and embellishments.

On the side of tradition, a slightly more coherent set of rules has come down to us from the old masters. These are generally known as the “traditional precepts.” Just when the precepts were first formulated it is impossible to say. Tosi and Mancini do not mention them. Perhaps they were held by the old masters as a sort of esoteric mystery; this idea is occasionally put forward. At any rate, by the time the traditional precepts were given to the world in published works on the voice, their valuable meaning had been completely lost.

Gathered from all available sources, the traditional precepts are as follows:

“Sing on the breath.”

“Open the throat.”

“Sing the tone forward,” or “at the lips.”

“Support the tone.”

To the layman, these precepts are so vague as to be almost unintelligible. But modern vocal teachers are convinced that the precepts sum up the most important means used by the old masters for imparting the correct vocal action. An interpretation of the precepts in terms intelligible to the modern student would, therefore, be extremely valuable. Many scientific investigators of the voice have sought earnestly to discover the sense in which the precepts were applied by the old masters. These explanations of the traditional precepts occupy a very important position in most modern methods of instruction.

There can be no question that the old masters were highly successful teachers of singing. Even leaving out of consideration the vocal achievements of the castrati, the singers of Tosi’s day must have been able to perform music of the florid style in a masterly fashion. This is plainly seen from a study of the scores of the operas popular at that time. Empirical methods of instruction seem to have sufficed for the earlier masters. Not until the old method had been in existence for nearly one hundred and fifty years does an attempt seem to have been made to study the voice scientifically. In 1741 a famous French physician, Ferrin, published a treatise on the vocal organs. This was the first scientific work to influence the practices of vocal teachers.

For many years after the publication of Ferrin’s treatise, the scientific study of the voice attracted very little attention from the singing masters. Fully sixty years elapsed before any serious attempt was made to base a method of instruction on scientific principles. Even then the idea of scientific instruction in singing gained ground very slowly. Practical teachers at first paid but little attention to the subject. Interest in the mechanics of voice production was confined almost entirely to the scientists.

In the early decades of the nineteenth century, the mechanical features of voice production seem to have appealed to a constantly wider circle of scientists. Lickovius (1814), Magazine (1831), Bennati (1830), Bell (1832), Savard (1825), brought out works on the subject. It remained, however, for a vocal teacher, Garcia, to conceive the idea of basing practical instruction on scientific knowledge.

Manuel Garcia (1805-1906) may justly be regarded as the founder of Vocal Science. His father, Manuel del Popolo Vicente, was famous as singer, impresario, and teacher. From him Garcia inherited the old method, it is safe to assume, in its entirety. But for Garcia’s remarkable mind the empirical methods of the old school were unsatisfactory. He desired definite knowledge of the voice. A clear idea seems to have been in his mind that, with full understanding of the vocal mechanism and of its correct mode of action, voices would be more readily and surely trained. How strongly this idea had possession of Garcia is shown by the fact that he began the study of the vocal action in 1832, and that he invented the laryngoscope only in 1855.

It must not be understood that Garcia was the first teacher to attempt to formulate a systematic scheme of instruction in singing. In the works of Manstein (1834) and of Marx (1823) an ambitious forward movement on the part of many prominent teachers is strongly indicated. But Garcia was the first teacher to apply scientific principles in dealing with the specific problem of tone-production. He conceived the idea that a scientific knowledge of the workings of the vocal organs might be made the basis of a practical system or method of instruction in singing. This idea of Garcia has been the basic principle of all practical methods, ever since the publication of the results of his first laryngoscopic investigations in 1855.

Before attempting to suggest a new means of dealing with the problem of vocal management, it is well to ascertain how this problem is treated in modern methods of instruction. It would not be easy to overstate the importance assigned to the matter of tone-production in all modern systems of Voice Culture. The scientific study of the voice has dealt exclusively with this subject. A new science has resulted, commonly called “Vocal Science.” This science is generally accepted as the foundation of all instruction in singing. All modern methods are to some extent based on Vocal Science.

To arrive at an understanding of modern methods, the two directions in which vocal theorists have approached the scientific study of the voice must be borne in mind: First, by an investigation of the anatomy of the vocal organs, and of the laws of acoustics and mechanics in accordance with which they operate. Second, by an analysis of the traditional precepts of the old Italian school in the light of this scientific knowledge.

As the present work demands a review of modern methods from the practical side only, it is not necessary to include a description of the vocal organs. It will be sufficient to describe briefly the manner in which scientific investigators of the voice treat the subject of the vocal organs.

The vocal mechanism consists of three portions,—the breathing apparatus, the larynx with its appendages, and the resonance cavities. Vocal scientists apply their efforts to finding out the correct mode of action of each portion of the mechanism, and to formulating rules and exercises by which these correct actions can be acquired and combined for the production of perfect tones. The analysis of the traditional precepts also conforms to this general plan; each precept is referred to that portion of the vocal apparatus to which it seems best to apply. The outline of the principles of modern methods contained in the following chapters follows this general scheme.

It must be understood at the start that on most of the doctrines included in Vocal Science there is no unanimity of opinion among either theorists or teachers. Far from this being the case, practically all the principles of Vocal Science are the subjects of controversy.

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