Part 4 (1/2)

By directing the attention of one's pupils to these different sensations, it is very easy to make them acquainted with the different registers of the voice--always a very necessary proceeding in the first training of a voice, although it seems to be so only in the case of such voices as have been previously misdirected.

The culture of the female voice is best begun with the two series of the falsetto register and the second of the chest register; the tones of these three middle registers must be pretty well cultivated before the lowest chest tones and the head voice are begun to be formed. The voice in this way best attains to an equal fulness. It is self-evident also that the teaching should be such that the transitions of the registers should be not at all or scarcely perceptible, consequently that all the tones should sound proportionally strong and full.

In the soprano voice the falsetto, and in the contralto voice the chest register, have more fulness and grace, and thus we may distinguish to which kind of voice a voice belongs, for the compa.s.s of the voice is not always confined within certain limits. There are contraltos that can sing the high head tones with ease, and sopranos that can sing the low chest tones with equal facility--a fact which has often given occasion to an incorrect treatment of a voice. So also with the male voice.

A ba.s.s voice sings the lower series of the chest register with more ease and sweetness and with more obscure timbre. A tenor voice sings the second series of the chest register in a clearer timbre.

The baritone and mezzo-soprano voices, so called--that is, such voices as have a limited compa.s.s, and cannot sing either the highest or the lowest tones--are by no means so numerous as they are thought to be. The best tenor voices, which cannot naturally reach the lowest ba.s.s tones, and whose organs do not allow of an unnatural forcing up beyond the higher limits of the chest register, are commonly p.r.o.nounced baritone voices, for no one now-a-days thinks of cultivating the falsetto register of the male voice.

Few teachers, likewise, understand how to teach correctly the tones of the head register. If a soprano voice cannot readily and agreeably sing the low contralto tones, and extend the falsetto scale far enough upwards beyond its limit, it is reckoned among the mezzo-soprano voices. The celebrated singing master _Thomaselli_, of _Padua_, maintained that baritone and mezzo-soprano voices ”had no existence in nature, but were only the products of our false methods of instruction.”

I have sometimes found mezzo-soprano and baritone voices, but not in so great number by far as the four chief kinds of voices--ba.s.s, tenor, contralto, and soprano.

Although an exact knowledge of the vocal organ and its various actions must be required of a teacher before the education of a voice can be committed to him, yet it would be unwise to undertake to teach singing by means of scientific explanations without sufficient previous knowledge; the pupil would, in this case, understand as little of what he was about and be as little helped as a child learning to read would be a.s.sisted by one who merely sought to make intelligible to him the mechanism by which sound is formed. The most natural and the simplest way in singing, as in all things else, is the best. Let the teacher sing correctly every tone to his pupil until the latter knows how to imitate it, and his ear has learned how to distinguish the different timbres.[5]

The discovery of the natural transitions of the registers has brought to light one of the greatest evils of our present mode of singing, and shown at the same time how wanting in durability are the voices of those of our artists whose aim and endeavor it is to force the registers upward beyond their natural limits.

Although the concert pitch is so very much higher now than it was in the most flouris.h.i.+ng period of the singing art, yet no regard is paid to this fact in the education of a voice, and our tenorists try to reach the a with the chest register, just as they did one hundred and fifty years ago.

In the _ignorance existing concerning the natural transitions of the registers, and in the unnatural forcing of the voice, is found a chief cause of the decline of the art of singing. And the present inability to preserve the voice is the consequence of a method of teaching unnatural, and therefore imposing too great a strain upon the voice._[6]

No one who has not made the art of singing a special study, can form any idea of the obscure and conflicting views in regard to the transitions of the registers which prevail among singing teachers and artists. Almost every teacher has a peculiar theory of his own in regard to the formation of the voice; every one has his own views, sometimes extremely fanciful, of the formation of tones and of the registers--views to which he tenaciously adheres, summarily rejecting all others. Almost as at the building of the tower of Babel, one teacher scarcely understands any longer what another means, and instead of harmonious endeavors to improve the art, teachers of singing are commonly found disputing among themselves.

To bring light and order into such a chaos can only be accomplished by the most thorough scientific study, and even then it is an undertaking of the greatest difficulty. Custom stands in the way as an antagonist, and there must be a conflict with long-cherished and wide-spread errors and prejudices. It lies also in the nature of the case that teachers of singing are the most determined opponents to be encountered. It is very hard for this cla.s.s, and it demands of them no common self-denial to acknowledge and renounce as errors what they have taught for years and held to be truths.

Those teachers, however, who have made the necessary sacrifice, have been compensated with the richest success; and such, we trust, will in all cases be the result, and so the path be broken for the true and the natural.

It will be perhaps comparatively easy to advance the art of singing in America; for, as Humboldt says, not entirely without truth, the Germans require for every improvement two centuries--one to find out the need of it, and another to make it.

[2] It must be remarked that the diagrams here given are copies of _reflected_ images, and therefore the upper side of the representation shows the front of the larynx, and the lower the farther side of the larynx.

[3] In recent works on laryngoscopy they are often described as continuations or parts of one of the princ.i.p.al muscles of the larynx.

[4] In recent French and English works upon laryngoscopy, the cuneiform cartilages are frequently mentioned, and sometimes confounded with the cartilages Wrisbergi.

[5] On this account the male voice should be trained by men and the female voice by women. For, as it is impossible for a man to give to a female pupil a correct perception of the tones of the head register and of the second series of the falsetto, with its peculiar female timbre, so is it impossible for a woman to sing and teach correctly the deep, sonorous chest tones of the male voice. _Frederick Wiek_, that admirable teacher, who perceives intuitively what is natural and true in instruction, has an excellent expedient. In his hours of instruction he avails himself of the aid of young women with practised voices, who sing every exercise to his female pupils until the latter are able to imitate them correctly.

[6] Voices which by this overstrained and unnatural way of singing have become worn-out and useless may by correct, proper treatment recover, even at an advanced age, their former grace and power; and even those chronic inflammations of the larynx which are so difficult of treatment may be cured by a natural and moderate exercise of the voice in singing.

III

PHYSICAL VIEW

FORMATION OF SOUNDS BY THE VOCAL ORGAN

For the artistic culture of the singing voice the knowledge of the physiological processes during the formation of tones does not suffice. This knowledge brings us acquainted only with the instrument, the artistic treatment of which is to be learned.

Having, therefore, in the preceding pages stated the most important points in the formation of tones, physiologically considered, we are now to consider more nearly the physical laws relating to the same, especially as the physical view of the subject, through the latest investigations and discoveries of Prof. Helmholtz, in Heidelberg, has so much importance for music in general. In order, however, to present a clear view of this branch of our subject, in so far as the recent advances of science can be practically applied to the improvement of the art of singing, we must recur to those natural laws which are doubtless well known to most of our readers.

In order to bring the external world to our consciousness, we are provided with various organs of sense; and as the eye is sensible to the light, the ear is sensible to sound, which comes to our consciousness either as noise (_Gerausch_) or as tone (_Klang_).