The Head Voice and Other Problems Part 7

Following the course of music from the beginning we shall see that it has kept pace with civilization. As the race has grown mentally it has expressed itself in a larger and more perfect way in its literature, its painting and music. Physically the race has not grown perceptibly in the last five thousand years, but mentally its growth can scarcely be measured. If we follow each nation through the past thousand years we shall see that its art product has not only kept pace with its development, but that in its art we may see all of its racial characteristics, those habits of mind which are peculiarly its own. A nation left to itself will develop a certain trend of thought which will differentiate it from all other nations. A trend of thought which will affect its art, literature, politics, religion, and in course of time will produce marked physical characteristics. This is noticeable in all nations which have lived long unto themselves.

But modern methods of communication are destroying this. As nations are brought into closer contact with each other they begin to lose their peculiarities. The truth of this statement may be seen in the fact that in the past fifty years composers all over the world have been affected by the modern German school of composition. Not one has escaped. While a nation lived unto itself it could preserve its national life in its art, but more and more the life of each nation is becoming a composite of the life of all nations. The musical output of the world shows this unmistakably.

What will be the music of the future? We know the music of yesterday and today, but the music of the future can be foretold only by the prophet whose vision is clear enough to see unmistakably what the trend of civilization will be during the coming years. There are mighty forces operating in the world today. If they succeed in bringing humanity to a saner, more normal state of mind, to a clearer realization of what is worth while and what is worthless, then all art will become purer and more wholesome, more helpful and necessary, and music speaking a language common to all will be supreme among the arts.

VI

SINGING AS AN ART

No artist can be graceful, imaginative, or original, unless he be truthful.

Ruskin. _Modern Painters_.

"Art is a transfer of feeling" said Tolstoy. While this applies to art in general it has a particular application to the art of singing. The material of the singer's art is feeling. By means of the imagination he evokes within himself feelings he has experienced and through the medium of his voice he transfers these feelings to others. By his ability to reconstruct moods, feelings and emotions within himself and express them through his voice, the singer sways mult.i.tudes, plays upon them, carries them whithersoever he will from the depths of sorrow to the heights of exaltation. His direct and constant aim is to make his hearers _feel_, and feel deeply. As a medium for the transfer of feeling the human voice far transcends all others. Since the beginning of the human race the voice has been the means by which it has most completely revealed itself, but the art is not in the voice, but in the feeling transferred.

It is the same whether the medium be the voice, painting, sculpture, poetry or a musical instrument. We speak of a painting as being a great work of art, but the art is not in the painting, the art is the feeling of beauty which the painting awakes in the observer. When we listen to an orchestra the music is what we feel. Said Walt Whitman: "Music is what awakes within us when we are reminded by the instruments."

Nothing exists separate from cognition. Real art therefore consists of pure feeling rather than of material objects. _If the singer succeeds in transferring his feelings to others he is an artist_, this regardless of whether his voice is great or small. Voice alone does not const.i.tute an artist. One must have something to give. Schumann said: "The reason the nightingale sings love songs and the lap dog barks is because the soul of the nightingale is filled with love and that of the lap dog with bark." It will be apparent therefore, that the study of the art of singing should devote itself to developing in the singer the best elements of his nature--all that is good, pure and elevating. We have no right to transfer to others any feeling that is impure or unwholesome.

The technic of an art is of small moment compared with its subject matter. _An unworthy poem cannot be purified by setting it to music no matter how beautiful the music may be._

THE PRINCIPLES OF INTERPRETATION

I fancy there is nothing more intangible to most people than the term "_phrasing_." I have asked a great many students to give me the principles of phrasing, but as yet I have seen none who could do it, and yet all singers, from the youngest to the oldest must make some use of these principles every time they sing. Now a thing in such general use should be, and is, subject to a.n.a.lysis.

_All of the rules of phrasing, like the rules of composition, grow out of what sounds well._ Beauty and ugliness are matters of mental correspondence. In music a thing to be beautiful must satisfy a mental demand, and this demand is one's _taste_. The sense of fitness must obtain. When the singer interprets a song the demand of the listener is that he shall do well what he undertakes to do: that he shall portray whatever phase of life the song contains, accurately, definitely, that he shall have a _definite intent and purpose_, that he shall be in the mood of the song. The singer must not portray one mood with his face, another with his voice, while the poem suggests still a third. He must avoid incongruity. All things must work together. There must be therefore, the evidence of intelligent design in every word and phrase.

The song is a unit and each phrase contains a definite idea, therefore it must not be detached or fragmentary, but must have the element of continuity and each and every part must be made to contribute to the central idea.

The element of insecurity must not be allowed to enter. If it does, the listener feels that the singer is not sure of himself, that he cannot do what he set out to do: therefore he is a failure.

Another demand is that the singer shall be intelligent. A poem does not lose its meaning or its strength by being a.s.sociated with music, and to this end the singer must deliver the text with the same understanding and appreciation of its meaning as would a public reader.

Now from the above we infer certain principles. The demand for continuity means that the singer must have a pure _legato_. That is, he must be able to connect words smoothly, to pa.s.s from one word to another without interrupting the tone, that the tone may be continuous throughout each phrase.

The feeling of security lies in what is known as _sostenuto_, the ability to sustain the tone throughout the phrase with no sense of diminis.h.i.+ng power. It means in short the organ time.

From the demand for design in each word and phrase comes _contrast_.

This may be made in the power of the tone by means of cres. dim. sfz. It may be made in the tempo by means of the r.e.t.a.r.d, accelerando, the hold, etc. It may also be made in the quality of the tone by using the various shades from bright to somber.

The basis of phrasing then, may be found in legato, sostenuto and contrast. All of the other things involved in interpretation cannot make a good performance if these fundamental principles be lacking. A more complete outline of interpretation follows:

AN OUTLINE OF INTERPRETATION

{ Pitches READING { Note Lengths { Rhythm

{ Vowels { Enunciation { Consonants DICTION { p.r.o.nunciation { Accent { Emphasis

{ Even Scale VOICE { Quality { Freedom { Breath Control

{ Attack TECHNIC { Flexibility { Execution

{ Legato PHRASING { Sostenuto { Power { Contrast { Tempo { Color { Proportion

{ Emotional Concept MOOD { Facial Expression { Stage Presence

Most of the things mentioned in this outline of interpretation have been discussed elsewhere, but the subject of diction requires further explanation.

DICTION

The mechanism of speech might be discussed at any length, but to reduce it to its simplest form it consists of the sound producing instrument,--the vocal cords, the organs of enunciation--lips, tongue, teeth and soft palate, and the channel leading to the outer air. When the vocal cords are producing pitch and the channel is free the result is a vowel. If an obstruction is thrown into the channel the result is a consonant. Vowels and consonants, then, const.i.tute the elements of speech. The vowels are the emotional elements and the consonants are the intellectual elements. By means of vowel sounds alone emotions may be awakened, but when definite ideas are expressed, words which are a combination of vowels and consonants must be used. It is nothing short of amazing that with this simple mechanism, by using the various combinations of open and obstructed channel in connection with pitch, the entire English language or any other language for that matter can be produced.

Vowels are produced with an open channel from the vocal cords to the outer air. Consonants are produced by partial or complete closing of the channel by interference of the lips, tongue, teeth and soft palate.

If language consisted entirely of vowels learning to sing would be much simpler than it is. It is the consonants that cause trouble. It is not uncommon to find students who can vocalize with comparative ease, but the moment they attempt to sing words the mechanism becomes rigid. The tendency toward rigidity is much greater in enunciating consonants than it is in enunciating vowels, and yet they should be equally easy. Here is where the student finds his greatest difficulty in mastering English diction.

The most frequent criticism of American singers is their deficiency in diction. Whether it please us or no, it must be admitted that on the whole the criticism is not without foundation.

The importance of effective speech is much underestimated by students of singing, and yet it requires but a moment's consideration to see that the impression created by speech is the result of forceful diction no less than of subject matter. Words mean the same thing whether spoken or sung, and the singer no less than the speaker should deliver them with a full understanding of their meaning.

The proposition confronting the singer is a difficult one. When he attempts the dramatic he finds that it destroys his legato. He loses the sustained quality of the organ tone, which is the true singing tone, and _bel canto_ is out of the question.

This is what is urged against the operas of Wagner and practically everything of the German school since his day. The dramatic element is so intense and the demand so strenuous that singers find it almost, if not quite impossible, to keep the singing tone and reach the dramatic heights required. They soon find themselves shouting in a way that not only destroys the singing tone but also the organ that produces it. The truth of this cannot be gainsaid. There is a considerable amount of vocal wreckage strewn along the way, the result of wrestling with Wagnerian recitative. Wagnerian singers are, as a rule, vocally shorter lived than those that confine themselves to French and Italian opera.

But it will be argued by some that these people have not learned how to sing, that if they had a perfect vocal method they could sing Wagner as easily as Ma.s.senet. That they have not learned to sing Wagner is evident, and this brings us to the question--Shall the singer adjust himself to the composer or the composer to the singer? A discussion of this would probably lead nowhere, but I submit the observation, that many modern composers show a disregard for the possibilities and limitations of the human voice that amounts to stupidity. Because a composer can write great symphonies the public is inclined to think that everything he writes is great. Let it be understood once for all that bad voice writing is bad whether it is done by a symphonic writer or a popular songwriter. In the present stage of human development there are certain things the voice can do and other things it cannot do, and these things can be known only by those who understand the voice, and are accustomed to working with it. To ignore them completely when writing for voices is no evidence of genius. Composers seem to forget that the singer must create the pitch of his instrument as well as its quality at the moment he uses it. They also forget that his most important aid in this is the feeling of tonality. When this is destroyed and the singer is forced to measure intervals abstractedly he is called upon to do something immeasurably more difficult than anything that is asked of the instrumentalist. Many modern composers have lost their heads and run amuck on the modern idiom, and their writing for voices is so complex that it would require a greater musician to sing their music than it did to write it.

But to return, I do not say that it is impossible to apply the principles of _bel canto_ to Wagner's dramatic style of utterance. On the contrary I believe it is possible to gain such a mastery of voice production and enunciation that the Wagnerian roles may be sung, not shouted, and still not be lacking in dramatic intensity, but it requires a more careful study of diction and its relation to voice production than most singers are willing to make.

A majority of singers never succeed in establis.h.i.+ng the right relation between the vocal organ and the organs of enunciation. Years of experience have verified this beyond peradventure.

It is a very common thing for singers to vocalize for an indefinite period with no ill effect, but become hoa.r.s.e with ten minutes of singing. The reason is apparent. They have learned how to produce vowels with a free throat but not consonants. The moment they attempt to form a consonant, tension appears, not only in those parts of the mechanism which form the consonant, but in the vocal organ as well. Under such treatment the voice soon begins to show wear, and this is exactly what happens to those singers who find it difficult to sing the Wagner operas.

The solution of this problem lies in the proper study of diction. The intellectual elements of speech consonants are formed almost entirely in the front of the mouth with various combinations of lips, tongue and teeth. Three things are necessary to their complete mastery.

=First,=--consonants must be produced without tension. It will be well to remember in this connection that consonants are not to be sung. They are points of interference and must be distinct but short. The principle of freedom applies to consonants no less than to vowels.

=Second,=--consonants must not be allowed to interrupt the continuity of the pitch produced by the vocal cords. This is necessary to preserve legato. Some consonants close the channel completely, others only partially. It is a great achievement to be able to sing all consonant combinations and still preserve a legato.

=Third,=--consonants must in no way interfere with the freedom of the vocal organ. If the student attempts to sing the consonants, that is, to prolong them he is sure to make his throat rigid and the pure singing tone at once disappears. He must therefore learn dramatic utterance without throwing the weight of it on the throat. To do this he must begin with a consonant which offers the least resistance and practice it until the three points mentioned have been mastered. The one which will give the least trouble is l. At the pitch G sing ah-lah-lah-lah-lah, until it can be done with relaxed tongue, with perfect continuity of tone, and with perfect freedom in the vocal instrument. In the same way practice n, d, v, th, m, and the sub vocals, b, d, g. Always begin with a vowel.

If the singer has the patience to work the problem out in this way he can apply the principles of _bel canto_ to dramatic singing. The road to this achievement is long, longer than most people suspect, but if one is industrious and persevering it may be accomplished.