CHAPTER XX

WHO SHOULD TEACH VOICE CULTURE AND HOW

Before illustrating the essentials of our vocal method, we wish to make an explicit statement. We do not believe that any method of singing, no matter how simple, clear, and complete it may be, is by itself an efficient medium for voice culture. Students must be taught by competent teachers who alone, through their knowledge and experience, can guarantee that the work of the pupils is correct and progressive. Thus we do believe in teachers, but our belief is conditional.

This method of voice culture has been built on a faithful interpretation of the natural principles which governed the singing of Enrico Caruso, a most valuable example and medium of comparison for students. It will reveal to them how correct, and how close to natural laws our method is, and how to safeguard the physiological rules of voice production advocated in this book. The strongest followers of this method, however, should be the free-minded and unprejudiced singing teachers, those who believe in evolution, in progress, and are earnestly concerned about the restoration of the art of singing. We stated that we believe in teachers, but our belief is conditional; we make reservations about their mission and their methods of practicing the important profession of teaching.

According to our conception, teachers must be the guides and advisers in the solution of the many problems related to voice, and in the application of the natural laws governing it. We do not believe in teachers as creators or builders of voices. There should no longer be room for such charlatans in an epoch in which science controls most of human efficiency and progress.

We do not believe in those instructors who claim that they can benefit pupils by a few weeks of teaching. This is only a commercial exploitation, vastly different from the important profession of teaching the truth about voice culture. As a matter of fact, nobody but Nature can create, make, or build the physiological product of the vocal apparatus—the voice—and nobody can efficiently assist students in their education except by years of constant work in the pursuit of good vocal results, and by mutual understanding.

The art of singing cannot be taught to any one, unless the sense of music, and the call for singing, naturally exist in his soul and blood. To be sure, we owe to nature alone the genius for song. We inherit it with our disposition, enthusiasm, and natural sentiment for singing. The great number of natural singers found among the masses of certain gifted races, who never received any vocal instruction, is the most striking evidence of this. Yet, although a natural gift, our singing may not be correct. The mechanism of voice production, which when correct is the fundamental guarantee not only for good singing, but for the preservation of the vocal organs, may be improperly performed. That is the reason the vocal education must be intrusted to experienced teachers who can insure the proper production of the voice, thus guaranteeing the required resistance of the vocal apparatus for an extended career.

The first duty of the teacher is to ascertain how near to natural is the singing of his pupil, and whether or not he observes the correct rules of voice production. He must then direct the pupil’s voice in its full, natural form, through a progressive development, avoiding any attempt to change it by artificial and complicated technicalities.

The singing teacher must keep the beginner’s mind free from poisonous theories about the breath support, the artificial division of the voice into registers, and the training of the diaphragm and intercostal muscles (the strength of which must result from years of singing and not from an unnatural development). All these conventional suggestions bear the stamp of scientific doctrines but in reality are banal ideas, opposed to the true physiological rules of voice production. Though they seem important to the elaborate makeup of teaching, in reality they add nothing useful to the learning of pupils, and in many instances prove harmful. The piano teacher does not ask his pupils to familiarize themselves with the physiology of their fingers, nor does he teach them physical maneuvers for developing their muscles. Pupils are not expected to know about doctrines; they must sing by inspiration, free from any artificial influence. The teacher, as a guarantee that his method is correct, must be acquainted with the physiology of the vocal apparatus in general, which calls also for a corresponding knowledge of the anatomy of the vocal organs. It is quite unnecessary for the pupil to know any of this, unless he is interested in making a more profound study of the voice from a scientific point of view. The conventional nomenclature which is so boldly flaunted to impress inexperienced beginners in singing schools is most often founded on arbitrary or imaginary beliefs, and must be condemned. The singing teacher must be thoroughly acquainted with the science of voice for the sake of his pupils, and not merely to make a pompous display or superficial doctrines for vain or commercial purposes.

The singing teacher, capable of judging how near to natural laws is the production of his pupil’s voice, will respect its natural production and confine his teaching to a purely guiding influence, leaving the gradual development of the voice to its progressive training. The teacher who aids the pupil in developing his voice, embellishing its quality, extending its range, and perfecting his style of musical phrasing, taking particular care to avoid exaggerated and sensational effects, sets him on the right road for securing a proper and artistic style of singing, thus fulfilling his important mission most efficiently.

When the pupil’s voice has certain set faults—either natural or acquired—due to an erroneous voice production, then another responsibility, of more vital importance, is thrust upon the teacher.

The means of correcting voices which have deviated from their natural course, of working on deformed material, deteriorated by incorrect functions of the vocal apparatus, is a problem which schools of teaching have thus far struggled in vain to solve. It is evident that they must resort to different methods.

In reference to this subject there is a perplexing and decisive matter to be settled. Who should be entrusted with the delicate mission of restoring to normal a deformed voice production? To whom, most logically, does it belong; to the laryngologist, to the singing teacher, or to some new professional element? This is the very vital question which must be answered definitely.

“Under present conditions,” as Madame Galli-Curci wrote to the author, “singing teachers know very little about the science of voice, and scientists know just as little about the art of singing.” That is true. In general the scientific men who are interested in voice are not well enough acquainted with the musical equipment indispensable for the culture of the singing voice; and among the singing teachers very few exist who are at all cognizant of the mechanism of voice production. Therefore, neither of these two elements is eligible to undertake the teaching of voice culture.

The vast number of teachers, whose origin may be traced to that class of singers who, having had short-lived careers because of their bad singing, sought refuge in the teaching field, or those pianists of mediocre ability and no success who tried to commercialize their profession to better advantage, becoming vocal instructors, are not the experienced men to whom the education of the voice can be safely intrusted, especially in its preliminary and fundamental period, which is the most essential in voice culture, and requires a thorough knowledge of the natural principles for its placement and production.

The same objection applies to coaches, conductors, or any other class of musicians (to make no mention of the unscrupulous outsiders of the musical world) who, as a result of failure in their own field, direct their activity to that of teaching singing.

Another prevailing idea in the singing world is that pupils should apply, for their voice education, to the very best singers of the past, or to great conductors. That is a banal error, and a dangerous one.

A child who begins to attend school needs the supervision of an experienced pedagogue to start his education. If, instead, it is intrusted either to a great literary man, or to one who presumes to be such, the child is improperly instructed, for the theories presented to his mentality are not suited to his age. Everybody can see the mistake of the medical student who aims to become a surgeon by assisting a professor of surgery in his operations, without first going through the preliminary studies of anatomy, pathology, and all the other medical branches which are the foundation and support of surgery. In the study of singing, however, this error is easily overlooked. Great artists or conductors are undoubtedly persons well fitted to assist students in their preparatory artistic education for the stage, inasmuch as interpretation and style of singing are concerned. In this they excel all others. But they are not competent in preliminary voice culture, for many obvious reasons.

It is universally known, in fact, that most of the greatest singers never knew how they produced their voices. Prominent examples were Patti, who, as we quoted before, when questioned about her singing would say, “I know nothing about it”; and Destinn, who could explain her physical feeling about her voice, but not her method of singing. Caruso himself tried to investigate his own voice, but his analysis was fruitless. His marvelous singing was natural, eminently natural, and his voice production could not be governed by any conscious influence.

If the great stars who shone in the firmament of opera, and are teaching at present, were capable of forgetting themselves and their artistic achievements, and could teach beginners voice placement and production instead of their own manner of singing, they would perhaps be of more assistance than experience has generally proved them to be. Singing is a personal inspiration and act; no two persons, perhaps, can sing in precisely the same way, though they may have the same method. Two voices, just as two faces, cannot be the same; therefore two mechanisms of voice production can operate along the same lines, but do not produce the same results, and the possibilities of one voice cannot coincide exactly with those of another. The principles are the same, but their application differs slightly, because the vocal means used are different.

The majority of great singers of the past sang only by natural disposition and inspiration, knowing little or nothing about the physiology of the voice. As teachers, consequently, they cannot master and apply the physiological laws which are in general unknown to them; thus their instruction must be confined purely to a method of imitation of their own singing, which bears no scientific support. An unconscious self-admiration also seems to be a weak spot in their teaching. Easily enthused with pupils’ voices, without judging their personal possibilities at the proper valuation, they try to make them counterparts of their own individuality and art. The result is that most often their teaching proves not only unsuccessful but injurious because it calls for work on too high a mental and physical plane for the minds and voices of the beginners.

We remember a popular and successful lyric soprano, widely known for the beauty of her voice, who owes her downfall to a short course of study with a prominent coloratura star retired from the stage. When the ambitious young singer applied to the great star for assistance to improve some slight shortcomings in her high tones, the teacher felt that in this pupil’s voice lay the very chance to reincarnate an edition of herself. Her dream would have been justified had the judgment been correct. The vocal means of the young singer could not withstand the strain of both lyric and coloratura soprano. The teacher, therefore, had to resort to an artificial voice production, which changed the original, natural voice into a series of forced and empty head-tones. The successful young woman went abroad with a voice of rare beauty, which she had used to great advantage for a few years in the large number of simple and artistic songs suitable to her natural means, and returned, after a few months, with the pompous addition to her repertoire of “Casta Diva” and other difficult arias, but not with the same voice of soft, natural, velvety quality, which had formerly made her prominent in the singing field. This artist paid dearly for the tragic influence of her teacher, for she was gradually forced to abandon her public career.

Great artists, it appears, cannot discriminate between their own mental and vocal attainments and those of pupils. They cannot get away from their personal assets, but instead strive to teach their so-called “secrets” to their pupils, in the hopes of making great artists of them. Meanwhile the elementary steps of voice culture are of scarcely any importance to them. Thorough physiological voice production is overlooked in their imaginative and temperamental teaching. It is a lamentable waste of valuable energy, misdirected; it is a regrettable handicap to the progress of the art of singing.

Therefore, who is the man to whom the fundamental education of pupils must be intrusted? The laryngologist?

The teaching of laryngologists endowed with natural musical disposition, upheld by a thorough knowledge of the physiology of voice, could no doubt benefit beginners and singers whose vocal defects are the result of forcible voice production. Since voice is the product of the physiological function of the vocal apparatus, laryngologists, rather than self-appointed teachers, can ascertain if the mechanism of the vocal organs is operating naturally and correctly, and, if not, can restore it to its normal function by detecting the immediate source of these defects and giving the proper assistance to pupils, which the present-day singing teachers cannot. But laryngologists who have sufficient musical experience for competently doing this work are at present very rare. Circumstances are not in their favor. Their professional career does not permit them to cultivate enough music; and the general belief that voice culture must belong only to musicians does not tempt them to enter into the difficult enterprise of restoring to Nature the command of voice production. They could save the present decadence of voice culture, but not without exposing themselves to many humiliations and sacrifices, as their advent into the field of teaching would throw them into competition with professional elements, which, in most cases, are not on equal level with their intelligence, dignity and standing. Hence the men to whom voice culture should be intrusted, provided they acquire more musical competence, are definitely kept out of the field.

To place voice culture in the hands of an infallible element, therefore, we must resort to a new professional man, an expert of the voice, who must combine all the musical requisites indispensable for voice culture with sufficient scientific knowledge to guarantee that singing conforms with natural laws.

This new professional man must be a product of the singing class, selected from those students whose natural gift—voice—is not remarkable enough to raise hopes for a great career as a singer, but whose talents can be utilized to better advantage in the art of teaching. These students, though, must be really intelligent, and endowed with general culture, to be properly equipped to enter a field of this importance.

These students must constitute the professional element which the author points out as the champions for promoting and spreading the radical reform of voice culture, conforming with the principles and suggestions already given. These men must be the founders of that new class of voice experts who will be known as _Voice Specialists_.

The Voice Specialist must possess a keen sense of understanding and of criticism which will enable him to detect the qualities and faults of his pupils. Above all, he must have sound knowledge of the physiology of voice, of its natural production, both as speaking and singing voice. He must be endowed with a fine ear in order to be able to place the voice in its natural center, and take care of its development under the guidance of the fundamental laws of acoustics applied to the vocal apparatus. He must have a facile way of clearly communicating his ideas to the pupil, making himself easily understood, and must mold his teaching according to the plane of his pupil’s intelligence. Almost every pupil must be taught in a different manner; the teacher must find the easiest means of impressing his mind with the fundamental needs of a correct method of singing.

The Voice Specialists, although not exceptional singers, must be correct singers, in order to demonstrate to pupils, in practical form, the correct voice production.

To create these new and competent elements, the author advocates a school of Voice Culture for young teachers, which must be founded as part of some important public musical or scientific institution. This school should be recognized by the Government, if the Government feels that this branch of popular education is important enough to be taken into consideration, and if it can foresee of what great service it may be to the musical element of this nation.

Private institutions, private benefactors and many a Maecenas of art are spending millions for the education of gifted young people. Thus far results have been almost entirely negative. Voices exist; ambition, too; money is lavishly expended. What, then, is the actual obstacle?

It lies in the very roots of the elementary education of the speaking voice, from which the real basis of the singing voice takes origin. Therefore, the Voice Specialists must first be instructed in the correct phonology of the speaking voice.

The method of singing which the author presents in later chapters is merely a continuation of the phonetic method for speaking. If official recognition were given to this method by the Government, starting its application in the elementary schools in the form of phonetic rules, children would learn, from the beginning, an easier and more correct form of speaking. Consequently, those endowed with the natural gift of a beautiful voice would find the road to correct singing an easy one. School teachers should be instructed along these lines, to enable them to competently instruct children.

It is part of the author’s program, if aided by public approval and moral support in his attempt to carry out the radical reform of Voice Culture, to establish a special school for conducting the education of those new teachers, the Voice Specialists, who are willing to enter the teaching field through the main door—knowledge and truth.

The Voice Specialists as we suggested at the beginning of this book, must be subject to examination before a special Board of Scientific and Musical Experts, appointed or recognized by the Government. They must get their licenses from this Board, as in the case of any other profession. This alone can protect the singing field from all kinds of intruders, charlatans, and impostors.

This is the aim of the author. The rest depends on public opinion and moral assistance.