Part 18

Stand in "attention" as directed, with the body responsive and the mind sensitive to physical impressions. When opening the mouth without taking in air a slight stretch will be experienced along the whole track I have described. The poise felt in this position is what permitted Bob Fitzsimmons to strike a deadly blow with a two-inch stroke. It is the responsive poise with which I sing both loud and soft tones. Furthermore, I do not believe in an absolutely relaxed lower jaw as though it had been broken. Who could sing with a broken jaw?--and a broken jaw would represent ideal relaxation. The jaw should be slightly stretched but never strained. I think that the word relaxation, as used by most teachers and as understood by most students, is responsible for more ruined voices than all other terms used in vocal teaching. I have talked this matter over with numberless great singers who are constantly before the public, and their very singing is the best contradiction of this. When you hold your hand out freely before you what is it that keeps it from falling at your side? That same condition controls the jaw. Find it: it is not relaxation. If you would be a perfect singer find the juggler who is balancing a feather. Imagine yourself poised on the top of that feather, and sing without falling off.

CONTRASTING TIMBRES THAT LEAD TO A BEAUTIFUL TONE WHEN COMBINED

We shall now seek to illustrate two contrasting qualities of tones, between which lies that quality which I sought for so long. The desired quality is not a compromise, but seems to be located half way between two extremes, and may best be brought to the attention of the reader by describing the extremes.

The first is a dark quality of tone. To get this, place the tips of the second fingers on the sides of the voice box (Adam's apple) and make a dark almost breathy sound, using "u" as in the word hum. Do this without any signs of strain. Allow the sound to float up into the mouth and nose. To many there will also be a sensation as though the sound were also floating down into the lungs (into both lungs). Do not make any conscious effort to force the sound or place it in any particular location. The sound will do it of its own accord if you do not strain. While the sound is being made, there will be a slight upward pulling of the voice box, a slight tugging at the voice box. This, of course, occurs automatically, and there should be no attempt to control it or promote it. It is nature at work. The tongue, while making this sound, should be limp, with the tip resting on the lower front teeth. All along it is necessary to caution the singer not to strive to do artificial things. Therefore do not poke or stick the tip of your tongue against the front teeth. If your tongue is not strained it will rest there naturally. Work at this exercise until you can fill the mouth and nose (and also seemingly the chest) with a rich, smooth, well-controlled, well-modulated dark sound and do it easily,--with slight effort. Do not try to hold the sound in the throat.

The second sound we shall experiment with is the extreme antithesis of the first sound. Its resonance is high and it is bright in every sense. Place the fingers on the joints just in front and above holes in the ears. Open the mouth without inhaling and make the sound of "e" as in when. As the dark sound described before cannot be made too dark this sound cannot be made too strident. It is the extreme from the rumble of the drum to the piercing rasp of the file. I have called it the animal sound, and in calling it strident, please do not infer that the nose, or any part of the mouth or soft palate, should be pinched to make it nasal, in the restricted sense of that term. When I sing this tone it is accompanied with a sensation as though the tone were being reflected downward from the voice box over to each side of the chest just in front of the arm-pits and then downward into the abdomen. Here the great danger arises that the unskilled student will try to produce this sensation, whereas the fact of the matter is that the sensation is the accompaniment of the properly produced tone and cannot be made artificially. Don't work for the sensation, work for the tone that produces such a sensation. At the same time the tone has a sensation of upward reflection, as though it arose at the back of the voice box and separated there, passed up behind the jaws to the points where your fingers are resting, entering the mouth from above, as it were from a point just between the hard and soft palates, and becoming one sound in the mouth.

The uvula and part of the soft palate should be associated with the dark sound. The hard palate and part of the soft palate should be associated with the strident tone.

THE TONGUE POSITION

In making the strident sound the tongue should rest in the same position as for the dark sound. The dark tone never changes and is the basic sound which gives fullness, foundation, depth to the ultimate tone. Without it all voices are thin and unsubstantial. The nearer the singer gets to this the nearer he approaches the great vibrating base upon which the world is founded.

Remember that the dark tone never changes. It is the background, the canvas upon which the singer paints his infinite moods by means of different vowels, emotions, and the tone colors which are derived in numberless modifications from the strident tone. Another simile may bring the subject nearer to the reader student. Imagine the dark tone and all the sensations in different parts of the body as a kind of atmosphere or gas which requires to be set on fire by the electric spark of the strident tone. The dark tone is all necessary, but it is useless unless it is properly electrified by the strident tone.

A PRACTICAL STEP

How shall we utilize what we have learned, so that the student may convince himself that herein ties the truth which, properly understood and sensibly applied, will lead to a means of improving his tone. If the foregoing has been carefully read and understood, the following exercise to get the tone which results from a combination of the dark and the strident is simple.

I. Stand erect as directed.

II. Open the mouth _without inhaling_.

III. Produce the dark tone ("u" as in hum).

IV. Close the mouth and allow the air to pass in and out of the nostrils for a few seconds.

V. Open the mouth without inhaling.

VI. Make the strident sound ("e" as in when).

VII. Close the mouth and let the air pass in and out of nostrils a few seconds.

VIII. Open the mouth without inhaling.

IX. Sing the vowel "Ah" as in _father_ in such a manner that it is a combination of the dark tone and the strident tone.

X. Do this in such a way that all of the breathy disagreeable features of the dark tone disappear but its foundation features remain to give it fullness and roundness, while all of the disagreeable features of the strident tone disappear although its color-giving, light-giving, life-giving characteristics are retained to give the combination-tone richness and sweetness. A beautiful result is inevitable, if the principle is properly understood. I have tried this with many people who have sung but little before in their lives and who were not conscious of having interesting voices. Without a long course of vocal lessons or anything of the sort they have been able to produce in a short time--a very few minutes--a tone that would be admired by any critic.

A COMFORTABLE PITCH

It is to be assumed that the student will, in these experiments, take the pitch in his voice which is most comfortable. Having mastered the combination tone on "Ah" at any pitch, it will be easy to try other pitches and other vowels. "Ah" is the natural vowel, but having secured the "know how" through a correct production of "Ah" the same results may be attained with any other vowel produced in a similar way. "E" as in _see_ has of course more of the strident quality, the high, bright quality and "OO" as in moon more of the dark, but even these extreme tones may be so placed that they become enriched through the employment of resonance of all those parts of the mouth, nose and body which may be brought naturally to reinforce them.

"PING"

I have never met a singer who was not looking for "ping" or what is called brightness. Most voices are hopelessly dead, and therefore lack sweetness. The voices are filled with night--black hollow gloomy night or else they are as strident as the caterwauling of a Tom Cat. The happy mean between the extremes is the area in which the singer's greatest results are attained.

Think of your tone, always. The breath will then take care of itself. If the tone has a tremulo, or sounds stuffy or sounds weak, you have not apportioned the right amount of breath to it, but you are not going to gain this information by thinking of the breath but by thinking of the tone.

LET YOUR OWN EARS CONVINCE YOU

Now, that is all there is to it. I am not striving to found a method or anything of the sort; but I have seen students waste years on what is called "voice placing" and not come to anything like the same result that will come after the accomplishment of this simple matter. Try it out with your own voice. You will see in a short time what it will do. Your own ears will convince you, to say nothing of the ears of your friends. All I know is that after I discovered this, it was possible for me to employ it and make records with so small a percentage of discard that I have been surprised.

It remains for the intelligent teachers to apply such knowledge to a systematic vocal course of exercises, studies and songs, which will help the pupil to progress most rapidly. Don't think that I am pretending to tell all that there is to vocal culture in an hour. It is a great and important study upon which I have spent a lifetime. However, as I said before, I have nothing to sell and I am only too happy to give this information which has cost me so many hours of thought to crystallize.

Typographical errors corrected by the transcriber of this etext:

Talmadge=>Talmage

Artious=>Artibus

citadal=>citadel

Wohltemperites=>Wohltemperiertes

liebenswurdig=>liebenswuerdig

Delibes=>Delibes

Words not changed: unforgetable, skilful, Beyreuth, marvelous