Part 6 (1/2)

The boy's voice may change from the soprano to a light ba.s.s of eight or twelve tones in compa.s.s in a few months, or the change may extend over two or three years; that is, two or three years may elapse after the first distinct break before there is any certainty of vocal action in the newly-acquired compa.s.s. When the voice changes rapidly, all singing should be stopped. Really, in such cases, boys cannot sing even if they attempt to do so.

They are so hoa.r.s.e, and the pitch alternates so unexpectedly between an ”unearthly treble and a preternatural ba.s.s” that a boy can usually sing only in monotone, if, with courage proof against the ridicule occasioned by his uncontrollable vocal antics, he tries to join in. In those cases, where the larynx undergoes a slow change in growth, it is often possible for the boy to sing all through the period of change. The upper tones may be lost, while there is a corresponding gain of lower tones. This process, in many cases, goes on slowly and with so little active congestion of the larynx that the voice changes from soprano to alto, and thence to tenor almost imperceptibly. Voices which change in this way often become tenor, but not invariably.

The question now arises, Should those boys who can sing while the voice is breaking be required to take part in school singing exercises?

In Browne and Behnke's work, ”The Child Voice,” to which allusion has been made, there is given a resume of 152 replies to the question: Have you ever known of boys being made to sing through the period of p.u.b.erty, and, if so, with what result?

The answers were:

Forty correspondents have no knowledge.

Five think the voice is improved by the experiment.

Ten quote _solitary instances_ where no harm has arisen.

Ten know of the experiment having been made, and consider it has caused no harm to the voice.

Eight mention results so variable as to admit of no conclusion.

Seventy-nine say the experiment causes _certain injury_, deterioration or ruin to the after voice, and of this number ten observe that they have suffered disastrous effects _in their own person_.

These answers were from English choirmasters, organists, music teachers, singers, etc. It will be noticed that only fifteen of those who give a positive opinion upon the subject think that boys can sing through the period of break safely; while seventy-nine are positive that the result is unsafe. The other replies are vague.

It must be remembered that many of the opinions are those of instructors in cathedral schools, where one or two rehearsals and a daily church service means a great deal of singing; while other answers come from choirmasters who require of their boys equally hard work, though less in quant.i.ty.

Every individual voice must be judged by itself, if such demands as choir-singing are made upon it; and, while there are some cases, as every choirmaster will probably agree, where no perceptible injury results from singing during the change, the rule is that even when possible, it is very unsafe.

But the daily time given to singing in schools is very short; the work bears no comparison with choir-singing. It might almost be thought as necessary to forbid reading and talking during the break of voice as to forbid its use in a daily drill of fifteen or twenty minutes in singing.

Certainly it is absurd to advocate entire non-use of the voice at this period in either speech or song. It is rather correct to guard against its misuse. If boys have up to this time used only the thick register, they will in singing through the break intensify their bad habits; throatiness, harshness, nasality will become chronic. This would be bad enough, but each bad vocal habit results from the abnormal use of the vocal organs, and occasions hoa.r.s.eness, chronic sore throat, catarrh, etc.

It is quite customary in school music to a.s.sign the boys to the lower part, in part music. This practice continued from the time part-singing begins in the music course, compels the boys to use the thick register.

As the larynx gains in firmness from year to year, they experience more and more difficulty with their upper tones-- those lying from F to C.

Having used only the thick voice in all their school singing, they know of no other, and very likely consider the thin voice which they are now obliged to use in singing the higher tones as altogether too girlish for the prospective heirs of manly ba.s.s tones.

The reluctance of boys to sing the soprano would be amusing were it not, in the light of utterly false training, so pitiful.

School music is educational; its scope is controlled by those in charge.

The public expects good educational, rather than show work, and employs those to supervise and teach who are supposed to know what good educational work is in vocal music.

The supposition that children's voices can, owing to individual differences a.n.a.logous to those existing among adults, be divided into alto and soprano voices, is erroneous; children can most a.s.suredly sing in parts, but the quality of tone which in the woman's voice is called alto or contralto cannot be secured for certain physical reasons previously explained; and the use of the chest-tone, which resembles the adult woman's chest-voice as a clarinet resembles a viola, is wholly objectionable.

If, however, the voices have been trained in the use of the thin register only, the management of the boy's voice during the change is simplified; the influence of good vocal habits will be felt; the vocal bands which have never been strained will respond when their condition admits of tone-production. The boy who has been accustomed to sing with an easy action of the vocal ligaments and with open throat will at once become conscious of any unusual strain or wrong adjustment in the vocal organs. If he has learned to sing well, he has also learned not to sing badly.

The test to apply to the subject of boys' singing in school during the break may be: Can they sing without strain or push? Can they sing easily, or does it hurt? There is a certain amount of humbug in boys that must be allowed for, but it does not affect calculations as to their singing-powers more than upon their other abilities, if singing is well taught.

The speaking-voice also indicates the state of the vocal organs, and shows the effect of the break sooner than does the singing-voice. If the tones in speech are steady in pitch, singing is possible in all probability. If, on the contrary, the speaking-voice is croaky and wavering, singing is difficult, if not impossible. As the object of the study of vocal music in the public schools, in so far as it relates to the treatment of the voice, is to develop good vocal habits, not bad ones, it follows that if boys sing during the break it must be only upon those tones which lie within their compa.s.s at any time, and that the vocal organs must be used lightly, and without strain.