The Head Voice and Other Problems Part 10

Can a tone be disagreeable and still be scientifically produced? One combination of fundamental and overtones is, strictly speaking, just as scientific as another combination. The flute tone with its two overtones is just as scientific as the string tone with its six or eight. A tone is pleasant or disagreeable according as it corresponds to a mental demand. Even the most hardened scientist would not call a tone which offends his ear scientific. Therefore he must first produce, or have produced the tone that satisfies his ear. The question then naturally arises--when he has secured the tone that satisfies his ear of what value beyond satisfying his curiosity is a physical a.n.a.lysis? A tone is something to hear, and when it satisfies the ear that knows, that in itself is unmistakable evidence that it is rightly produced.

If this scientific knowledge of tone is necessary then every great artist in the world is unscientific, because not one of them makes any use whatsoever of such knowledge in his singing.

No. All of the scientific knowledge one may acquire is no guaranty of success as a teacher, but is rather in the nature of a hindrance, because it is likely to lead him into mechanical ways of doing things.

Further, the possession of such knowledge is no indication that one will use it in his teaching. How much of such knowledge can one use in teaching? How can he tell, save from the tone itself whether the pupil is producing it scientifically? It is a well established fact that the more the teacher tries to use his scientific information in teaching the less of an artist he becomes.

Could it be possible that a beautiful tone could be produced contrary to the laws of science? It would be an extraordinary mind that would argue in the affirmative.

=The most beautiful tone is the most perfectly produced, whether the singer knows anything of vocal mechanism or not.= In such a tone there is no consciousness of mechanics or scientific laws. The vocal mechanism is responding automatically to the highest law in the universe--the law of beauty. The most scientific thing possible is a beautiful idea perfectly expressed, because a thing inherently beautiful is eternally true, hence it is pure science.

Every tone of the human voice is the expression of life, of an idea, a feeling, an emotion, and unless interfered with the vocal mechanism responds automatically.

He who by experiment or reading has learned the action of the vocal mechanism, and attempts to make his pupil control every part of it by direct effort may imagine that he is teaching scientific voice production, but he is not, he is only doing a mechanical thing in a clumsy way.

Is it a scientific act to tell a pupil to hold his tongue down, as one writer argued recently? Is a teacher calling into action the eternal laws of science when he tells his pupil to drive the tone through the head, hoist the soft palate, groove the tongue, and make the diaphragm rigid? No. He is simply doing a mechanical thing badly for want of a better way. It is no more scientific than kicking the cat out of the way if she gets under your feet.

Any one who has learned the elements of psychology or philosophy knows that everything exists first as idea. The real universe is the one that exists in the mind of the creator. The real man is the part of him that thinks. To hold that the body thinks or acts is equivalent to saying that Gray's "Elegy" was in the pen with which the poet wrote.

To a natural scientist the only real thing is what he can see, therefore he bases his faith on what he conceives to be matter; but if we study the great ones--Oswald, Huxley, Grant, Allen, and the like, we find that they have long ago reached the conclusion that there is no such thing as matter. According to Schopenhauer the world is idea, and this so called material environment is thought objectifying itself.

Vocal teachers, like the members of other professions, are not altogether immune to an attack of intellect, and at such times the thought that they are doing something scientific is particularly agreeable.

The only study of science that can benefit any one is the study of causation, and causation cannot be cognized by the physical senses. We never see, hear, feel, taste, or smell cause. What we see or hear is effect. Causation is mental. Natural science is dealing with phenomena, with effect not cause. A regular recurrence of phenomena may establish a so called natural law, but the law is that which caused the phenomena, "Law is force" says Hegel, and it is therefore mental. We are told that the law of the earth is its path around the sun. This is not true, the law of the earth is the mind which makes it revolve around the sun. If we would learn the nature, activity, and cause of anything we must look for it in _mind_ not in matter. For this reason the process of voice production is _psychologic_ not physiologic. When a pupil sings, what we hear is _effect_ not cause. If he is doing all manner of unnecessary things with his lips, tongue, larynx, etc. what we see is effect and the cause is in wrong _mental_ concepts. The thing which caused the tone is _mental_, the force which produced it is _mental_, and the means by which we know whether it is good, or bad is _mental_.

Of this we may be sure, that the tone the pupil sings will not be better than the one he has in mind. _A tone exists first as a mental concept, and the quality of the mental concept determines the quality of the tone._

If there be such a thing as scientific voice production it will be found in the sense of what is inherently beautiful, and the scientific tone is one which will perfectly express a right idea or emotion, and in the nature of things there is an appropriate tone for everything that may be legitimately expressed, for they are correlated ideas.

Whence originated this so called scientific voice teaching? That the old Italian knew nothing of it is well understood. They considered the process artistic rather than scientific. _How does it sound_, was their slogan. The thing uppermost in their minds was beautiful tone, and they were wise enough to know that when one has a definite concept of the pure singing tone he has a more valuable a.s.set than all the mechanical knowledge he can acquire. They had but one end in view, namely, a finished artist, and everything they did was made to contribute to it.

The artist always has in mind the _finished product_. The scientist tries to find out _how it is done_. The artist begins with the idea and works forward to its complete expression. The scientist begins with the physical mechanism and works backward toward the idea.

What is responsible for the change from the methods of the the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries? It is safe to say that it did not come through the voice teachers.

In the early part of the nineteenth century an interesting thing happened. How it happened or why it happened at that particular time is not known nor does it matter. The human mind became all at once aggressively inquisitive. The desire to get at the ultimate of everything took possession of humanity and still holds it. The result was an era of scientific a.n.a.lysis and invention, the aim of which was to control the forces of nature. Previous to that time methods of living, production, transportation, agriculture, etc. were little different from that of biblical times. People and nations lived much to themselves.

They looked within for their inspiration and developed their own national characteristics. But with the invention of the steams.h.i.+p, railway, and telegraph a change came. These improved methods of transportation and communication brought all of the mentalities of the world together, and soon all habitable parts of the globe were in daily and hourly contact. The result was a mental fermentation which increased the complexity of civilization immeasurably and the present exaggerated and unnatural condition of society is the outgrowth.

Between 1809 and 1813 were born Mendelssohn, Chopin, Schumann, Liszt, and Wagner. These men are known as the founders of the modern romantic school of music. They grew up with the new civilization and could not do otherwise than reflect its complexity in their music. That the new civilization was responsible for the new art there is no doubt whatever.

All old types have pa.s.sed away. All branches of art have suffered radical changes in conforming to new ideals.

Since the wave of scientific investigation started around the world nothing has been able to escape it. The hand of the scientist has been upon everything, and to him rather than to the voice teachers must be given the credit for originating scientific voice teaching.

When the scientists began publis.h.i.+ng the results of their investigations voice teachers at once became interested. The plan looked promising. It offered them a method shorn of uncertainties. A method that brought everything under the operation of physical laws; a method that dealt only with finalities, and would operate in spite of a lack of musical intelligence on the part of the student, and at the same time enable them to lay to their souls the flattering unction of science. True it ignored altogether the psychology of the matter. It said "do it this way and a beautiful tone will come whether you are thinking it or not, because scientific laws eternally operating in the same way eternally produce the same results."

The scientific method gave voice teachers an opportunity to work with something tangible, something they could see; whereas the development of tone concept, the artistic instinct, musical feeling, and musicians.h.i.+p had to do with things which to most of them were intangible and elusive.

No one doubts the honesty of the teachers who became obsessed with the scientific idea. To them it meant increased efficiency and accuracy, quicker results with less effort, and so they broke with the old Italians, the basis of whose teaching was beautiful tone and beautiful singing. In spite of the honesty of purpose of all those who followed the new way, the results were calamitous. The art of singing received a serious setback. Voices without number were ruined. From the middle to the end of the nineteenth century the scientific idea was rampant, and during that period it is probable that the worst voice teaching in the history of the world was done. Large numbers of people with neither musicians.h.i.+p nor musical instincts acquired a smattering of anatomy and a few mechanical rules and advertised themselves as teachers of scientific voice production. The great body of vocal students, anxious to learn to sing in the shortest possible time, having no way of telling the genuine from the spurious except by trying it, fell an easy prey, and the amount of vocal damage and disaster visited upon singers in the name of science is beyond calculation.

Fortunately the reaction has begun. Slowly but surely we are returning to a saner condition of mind. Every year adds to the number of those who recognize singing as an art, whose vision is clear enough to see that the work of the scientific investigator should be confined to the laboratory and that it has no place in the studio. We are beginning to see that the basic principle of singing is _freedom in the expression of the beautiful_, and that the less there is of the mechanical in the process the better.