The Mechanism of the Human Voice Part 1

The Mechanism of the Human Voice.

by Emil Behnke.

PREFACE.

The number of books bearing more or less directly on the Theory of Voice Production which have been published during the last few years is very large, and shows clearly the extraordinary interest taken in this subject, not only by professional singers and speakers, but also by the general public. If I am now about to add another contribution to this already extensive literature, it is simply because amongst all the many excellent works on the Human Voice there is not one which brings before the reader the whole subject from beginning to end. The student who really wishes to get a clear understanding of the matter is obliged to wade through a variety of scientific books, and to pick up here and there, by means of very hard reading, such little sc.r.a.ps of information as, with much labour and waste of time, he can extract from books which were, in most instances, never written for the purpose for which he consults them.

To supply this generally-admitted want I have written these pages, in which I have endeavoured, to the best of my ability, to place before the reader in a simple and comprehensive form the Physiology of the Human Voice. I have, as far as possible, discarded all scientific terms, and it has been my aim to treat my subject in so simple and direct a manner as really to enlighten my readers instead of bewildering them. A treatise like this can, under no circ.u.mstances, be light reading; and I ask those who are truly anxious for information to give me patient study, accompanied by careful reference to the diagrams. For students who enter upon a perusal of these pages in such a spirit, this essay is specially intended; and if I have succeeded in making plain to such as these a really complicated subject, then my highest ambition will be satisfied.

E. B.

_April, 1880._

INTRODUCTION.

We are living in an age which is singularly poor in fine voices, both male and female, and with regard to the tenors of the present time there is this additional misfortune, that, as a rule, their voices do not last, but are often worn out in a very few years; in many instances while their owners are still under training, and before they have had an opportunity of making their appearance in public. If we remember that there was a time when most beautiful and highly cultivated voices were so plentiful that even in comparatively small towns there were to be found Opera Companies consisting of excellent singers, we may well ask ourselves how this remarkable change for the worse has come about.

People have attempted to account for it in various ways. Up to the middle of the last century women were forbidden by Ecclesiastical Law to take part in Church music. The voices of boys being available only for a very short time, means were taken to prevent their voices from breaking, and thus a cla.s.s of male soprani and contralti was created, who made their first appearance in Rome in the beginning of the 17th century, and to these singers the education of the female voices was soon almost exclusively entrusted. In the middle of the last century, however, when women were permitted to partic.i.p.ate in Church music, there was no longer any occasion to procure artificial female voices, and these singers gradually died out, though there were still some of them living and teaching in the beginning of the present century. According to Rossini, who certainly was eminently qualified to give an opinion on the subject, the decline of vocal art in these latter years is mainly due to the disappearance of this cla.s.s of singers, and if it be true that henceforth the training of female voices was undertaken by tenors, who, being of course unable to give a true pattern to their pupils, treated the female organ according to their own very different registers, then it can easily be understood that many voices must have been ruined by the process, and the scarcity of distinguished female singers would thus be satisfactorily accounted for. But I fail to see in what way the disappearance of male soprani and contralti could possibly have affected tenors and ba.s.ses.

Again, it is a.s.serted that the way in which modern composers write vocal music is the cause of the evil. Certain it is that in the compositions of the old Italian masters the voice is studied, and nothing introduced which is hurtful or disadvantageous. Awkward intervals are avoided, no fatigue is caused, and everything is eminently _singable_; but the music is not always expressive of the sense of the words, which were clearly considered to be of minor importance. With our modern (and especially with the German) composers, it is just the opposite, their chief aim being thoroughly to enter, not only into the spirit of their text, but even into the slightest shade, the minutest detail of it, so as to make the music, as it were, a translation of their words into a higher kind of language. What, on the other hand, is possible or impossible for the voice is, since the time of Beethoven, but rarely considered; many composers, even the most distinguished ones, having evidently little knowledge of the most beautiful of instruments, for which they are nevertheless continually writing.

When one of the greatest living masters introduced the harp into his works, he wrote for it just as though it were a piano--_i.e._, as though it were to be played upon with the thumb and four fingers. But it so happens that on that instrument the fourth finger is never used.

Consequently, when it came to the point harpists could not play that gentleman's compositions: they had first to re-write them. Here the composer, of course, was found out immediately, and he or any other man would have the same fate if he attempted to write for an instrument the properties of which he did not fully understand. But with the human voice the case is different. Every musician believes himself to be competent to write for it, though he may possibly be wholly unacquainted with its many peculiarities. It is to be feared, therefore, that modern composers must be held largely responsible for the sad state of affairs concerning vocal art at the present time, and well might they learn a lesson from Mozart, who, in spite of his genius, first carefully studied the human voice, and then wrote for it.

Another explanation of the decline of singing is this, that the gradual and very considerable rise of pitch during the last 150 years is at the bottom of all the mischief, as the vocal organ is unable to bear the strain to which it is subjected. With regard to tenors, however, the great evil is, that with very few exceptions, such as the celebrated Frenchman, Roger, they disregard, or at any rate did disregard for a considerable period, the falsetto register, singing everything, however high, in chest voice. I am afraid it cannot be said even that they have been beguiled into this serious mistake by the imperceptible rise of pitch just mentioned, but the truth is that they have committed this fatal blunder knowingly and wilfully, because they saw that it would pay. In support of this statement I will quote a few lines from the publication called "The Opera and the Art of Singing," by Glogg-ner-Castelli:

"In the field of singing a new man arose, who, in spite of great personal attributes, worked destructively for the future, and whose influence upon the later manner of singing is seldom truly recognized. I mean the singer Duprez. Hissed off at first in Paris, he turned to Italy, where he stayed several years, and then returned to the French capital. When he came to use his magnificent vocal resources, as he did in the Fourth Act of _Tell_, where he brought out the high C in the chest voice with all the might of his colossal organ, it was all over with the fame of all his predecessors. Nourrit, till then the favourite of the Parisians, a distinguished tenor singer, recognized the rival's power. His day was over, and in despair over his lost and irrecoverable glory, he flung himself from an upper window upon the pavement, and so made an end of his life. Duprez may justly be considered one of the greatest dramatic singers of our time, and the main features of his method soon spread themselves all over Europe. After hearing of Duprez, and how the chest register could be cultivated even into the highest regions of the voice, the public were no longer contented with the use of the falsetto. Soon it became impossible to be engaged as an "heroic tenor" without at least possessing the high B[b] in the chest tone. The singers found it a more thankful task to humour the taste of the public than to pay extra regard to the intentions of the composer; for often Meyerbeer himself indicates, by a _pp_, his design that the falsetto and not the chest tone should be employed. That every tenor singer, whether such high pressure suited his natural compa.s.s or not, strove to screw his voice up and 'make effect' was very natural; for art goes after bread, and a high C with the chest voice often realizes an income of thousands to its fortunate possessor. Roger has made a laudable exception; his beautiful use of the falsetto certainly produces a more agreeable effect than the forced chest tones so unnatural to the organ of many a singer. How widespread is this mistaken notion, that the use of the falsetto is entirely contrary to art, we hear frequently enough in the expressions of individuals when some unlucky tenor happens to get caught on one of these tabooed falsetto tones. Thus the school founded by Duprez, important in itself, has called into life a manner of singing, the ruinous consequences of which we can see daily."

But whatever may be the true reason or reasons, the fact that we have very few singers of eminence as compared with former ages, and that vocal art in general has gone down, is undisputed, and men have set themselves to remedy the evil by trying to ascertain the actual process by which the voice is produced, thinking that if they could but find this out there would be a true scientific basis upon which to found a way of teaching singing--or as I should rather say, of training voices--which would be sure and unerring.

The experiments of the great physiologist Johannes Muller are well known, and they have been followed up by others. But they were made upon dissected larynges, and as various teachers of singing started the most conflicting theories as to how the process shown by Muller was carried on in the living subject, and treated the voices of their pupils accordingly, these investigations have perhaps on the whole done more harm than good. Science was made responsible for the blunders of those who attempted to be guided by it. And thus it has happened that when at a later period further trials were made, but this time upon the living subject, and in the act of singing, they were received with indifference and distrust. Only very lately teachers of vocal music have begun to find out that here are facts put before them which cannot be gainsaid, and that if these investigations do nothing else, they at any rate make them acquainted with the exact nature of the vocal organ, and what it will bear and what it will not bear.

THE VOCAL ORGAN AS A MUSICAL INSTRUMENT.

"Physiologists," says Dr. Witkowski,[A] "are quite at issue when they endeavour to determine what kind of instrument the vocal organ resembles; indeed, Galien compares it to a flute, Magendie to a hautboy, Despiney to a trombone, Diday to a hunting-horn, Savart to a bird-catcher's call, Biot to an organ-pipe, Malgaigne to the little instrument used by the exhibitors of Punch, and Ferrein to a spinet or harpsichord. The last-named compared the lips of the glottis to the strings of a violin; hence was given the name _Vocal Cords_, which they have since retained. The current of air was the bow, the exertion of the chest and lungs the hand which carried the bow, the thyroid cartilages the _points d'appui_, the arytenoids the pegs, and lastly, the muscles inserted in them the power which tensed or relaxed the cords."

It must be admitted that the human voice bears more resemblance to a reed instrument than to any other; but when the comparison is pushed to its legitimate consequences it is found to break down. We cannot resist the conclusion that the vocal organ is infinitely superior to any instrument made by human hands. Its mechanism is so wonderful as to excite the profoundest admiration, and the more we continue to study it the more we marvel at the wisdom of the Divine Maker who planned it. I shall, therefore, speak of it simply as a wind instrument composed of--

1.--THE BELLOWS.

Represented by the LUNGS. Pl. I (Frontispiece), L.

2.--THE WINDPIPE. Pl. I, w.

3.--THE VOICEBOX OR LARYNX. Pl. I, v.

4.--THE RESONATOR.

Represented by (_a_) THE UPPER PART OF THE THROAT, or PHARYNX, pl.

I, P; (_b_) THE MOUTH, pl. I, M; (_c_) THE NOSE, pl. I, N.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLATE II.

THE LUNGS

R. RIGHT LUNG. L. LEFT LUNG.

W. WINDPIPE (TRACHEA).

V. VOICEBOX (LARNYX).

The top part of the left Lung is represented as partly cut away in order to show the ramifications of the Bronchial Tubes.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLATE III.

THE CHEST.

B B. BREAST BONE.

C C. COLLAR BONES.

1 TO 11. RIBS. (The twelfth not visible.)

M (curved dotted line). MIDRIFF (DIAPHRAGM).

L L. LUNGS. H. HEART.

W. WINDPIPE (TRACHEA).

The Lungs are enclosed in the chest, which they fit exactly, and of which they occupy by far the largest portion, leaving but a small s.p.a.ce for the heart. They consist of two halves (pl. II, R, L), each roughly resembling the upper part of a sugar-loaf somewhat flattened and hollowed out at the bottom. The left shows two and the right three distinct flaps or lobes. They are only connected by means of the windpipe (pl. II, W) and its branches.

=The Chest= (pl. III) is an air-tight chamber, which is narrower above than below. It is formed by the spine at the back, twelve ribs (pl. III, 1 to 11, the twelfth not visible on the drawing), with their inner and outer muscles on either side, the breast-bone (pl. III, B B) in front, the root of the neck at the top, and the midriff or diaphragm (pl. I, M) at the bottom.

=The Midriff= (pl. III, M) is a muscular and movable part.i.tion by which the lungs are separated from the abdomen. It is arched upwards like an inverted basin, but when its muscular fibres contract it flattens and descends, thus increasing the capacity of the chest at the expense of that of the abdomen.