Part 2
The art of singing rose in the course of the seventeenth century to an extraordinary height of cultivation, and was diffused more and more by means of the opera, then blooming, as we have said, into beauty. But in that brilliant springtime of vocal art, it was not mere externals, such as beauty of tone, flexibility, etc., that were striven for, but, above all, the correct expression of the feeling intended in the composition. This rendered necessary to the singer the most thorough æsthetic culture, going hand in hand with the culture of the vocal organ. For only thus could he succeed in acting upon the souls of his hearers, in moving them and carrying them along with him in the emotions which the music awakened in his own mind. The dramatic singer was now strongly tempted to neglect the externals of his art for the æsthetic, purely inward conception of the music. Certain, at least, it is that to the neglect of the training of the voice (_Tonbildung_), and to the style of writing of our modern composers--a style unsuited to the art of singing, and looking only to its spiritual element--the decline of this art is in part to be traced. _Mannstein_ says that, with the disappearance of those great masters, power and beauty of tone have fallen more and more into contempt, and at the present day it is scarcely known what is meant by them. True it is, that a beautiful tone of voice (_Gesangston_), which must be considered the foundation and first requisition of fine singing, is more and more rare among our singers, male and female, and yet it is just as important in music as perfect form in the creations of the sculptor.
But the complete technical education of the earlier singers misled many of them into various unnatural artifices, in order to obtain notice and distinction. The applause of the public caused such trickeries to become the fashion among artists. The multitude, accustomed to such effects, began to mistake them for art. By the gradual disappearance of the male sopranists, instruction in singing fell into the hands of tenor singers, who usually cultivated the female voice in accordance with their own voices, which could not be otherwise than injurious in the uncertainty existing as to the limits in compass and the difference between the male and female organs of voice.
Thus it has come to pass that people are now apt to imagine that they know all that is to be known; and as teaching in singing is generally best paid, the office has been undertaken, without the slightest apparent self-distrust, by many persons who have not the slightest idea what thorough acquaintance with the organs of singing, what comprehensive knowledge of all the departments of music and what æsthetic and general culture, the teacher of singing requires. Very few persons indeed clearly understand what is meant by the education of a voice, and what high qualifications both teacher and pupil always require. The idea, for instance, is very prevalent that every musician, whatever may be the branch of music to which he is devoted, and especially every singer, is qualified to give instruction in singing. And therefore a dilettanteism without precedent has taken the place of all real artistic endeavors. Be this, however, as it may, such is the wide diffusion and popularity of music beyond all the other arts, that the want of singers artistically educated, and consequently also of a recognized sound method of instruction, becomes more and more urgent; and although we have in these times distinguished singers, male and female, as well as skilful teachers, yet the number is very small and by no means equal to the demand.
But now, as every evil, as soon as it is felt to be such, calls forth the means of its removal, already in various ways attempts are making in the department of the Art of Singing to restore it as perfectly as possible to its former high position, and if possible to elevate it to a yet higher state. It was natural that the attempt should, first of all, be made to revive the old Italian method of instruction, and that, by strict adherence in everything to what has come down to us by tradition, we should hope for deliverance and salvation; for to the Italians mainly vocal music was indebted for its chief glory. Without considering in what a sadly superficial way music--and vocal music especially--is now treated in Italy, many have given in to the erroneous idea that any Italian who can sing anything must know how to educate a voice. Thus many incompetent Italians have become popular teachers in other countries.
The old Italian method of instruction, to which vocal music owed its high condition, was purely _empirical_, i.e., the old singing masters taught only according to a sound and just feeling for the beautiful, guided by that faculty of acute observation, which enabled them to distinguish what belongs to nature. Their pupils learned by imitation, as children learn their mother tongue, without troubling themselves about rules. But after the true and natural way has once been forsaken, and for so long a period only the false and the unnatural has been heard and taught, it seems almost impossible by empiricism alone to restore the old and proper method of teaching. With our higher degree of culture, men and things have greatly changed. Our feeling is no longer sufficiently simple and natural to distinguish the true without the help of scientific principles.
But science has already done much to assist the formation of musical forms of art. Mathematics and physics have established the principal laws of sound and the processes of sound, in accordance with which our musical instruments are now constructed. Philosophical inquirers have succeeded also in discovering the eternal and impregnable laws of Nature upon which the mutual influences of melody, harmony and rhythm depend, and in thus giving to composition fixed forms and laws which no one ventures to question. And more recently Professor Helmholtz, in his great work, “Die Lehre von den Tonempfindungen,” has given to music of all kinds a scientific ground and basis. But for the culture of the human voice in singing science has as yet furnished only a few lights. The well-known experiments of _Johannes Müller_ upon the larynx gave us all that was known, until very recently, respecting the functions of the organ of singing. Many singing masters have sought to found their methods of instruction upon these observations on the larynx, at the same time putting forth the boldest conjectures in regard to the functions of the organ of singing in the living subject. But they have thus ruined more fine voices than those teachers who, without reference to the formation of the voice, only correct the musical faults of their pupils, and for the rest let them sing as they please.
This superficial treatment of science, and the unfortunate results of its application, have injured the art of singing more than benefited it, and created a prejudice against all scientific investigations in this direction among the most distinguished artists and teachers, as well as among those who take an intelligent interest in this department of music. It is a pretty common opinion that science can do little for the improvement of music, and nothing for the culture and preservation of the voice in singing. And the habit of regarding science and art as opposed to each other renders it extremely difficult to secure a hearing for the results of thorough scientific inquiry in this direction.
Science itself admits that it can neither create artistic talent, nor supply the place of it, but only furnish it with aids. Besides, with the whole inner nature of music, no forms of thought (_reflection_) have anything to do. It has “a reason above reason.” This art transmits to us in sound the expression of emotions as they rise in the human soul and connect themselves one with another. It is the revelation of our inmost life in its tenderest and finest processes, and is therefore the most ideal of the arts. It appeals directly to our consciousness. As a sense of the divine dwells in every nation, in every human being, and is impelled to form for itself a religious cultus, so we find among all nations the need of music dwelling as deeply in human nature. The most uncivilized tribes celebrate their festivals with songs as the expression of their devotion or joy, and the cultivated nations of ancient times, like the Greeks, cherished music as the ethereal vehicle of their poetry, and regarded it as the chief aid in the culture of the soul.
But together with its purely internal character, music has yet another and formal side, for if our art consisted only in the æsthetic feeling, and in representing this feeling, every person of culture, possessing the right feeling, would be able to sing, just as he understands how to read intelligibly.
Everything spiritual, everything ideal, as soon as it is to be made present to the perceptions of others, requires a form which, in its material as well as in its structure, may be more or less perfect, but it can never otherwise than submit to those eternal laws to which all that lives, all that comes within the sphere of our perceptions, is subject. To discover and establish the natural laws which lie at the basis of all our forms of art is the office of science; to fashion and control these forms and animate them with a soul is the task of art. In singing, the art consists in tones beautiful and sonorous, and fitted for the expression of every variation of feeling. To set forth the natural laws by which these tones are produced is the business of physiology and physics.
Thus is there not only an _æsthetical_ side to the art of singing, but a _physiological_ and a _physical_ side also, without an exact knowledge, appreciation, observance, and study of which, what is hurtful cannot be discerned and avoided; and no true culture of art, and consequently no progress in singing, is possible.
In the _physiological_ view of vocal art, we have to do with the quality and strength of the organ of singing in the act of uttering sound, and under the variations of sound that take place in certain tones (the register being transcended).
By the _physical_ side is to be understood the correct use and skilful management of the air flowing from the lungs through the windpipe, and brought into vibration by the vocal chords in the larynx.
But the _æsthetics_ of vocal art, and the spiritual inspiration of the form (of the sound), comprise the whole domain of music and poetic beauty.
[1] Those who are interested in the history of music are referred to the historical works already mentioned for a fuller account of what is only alluded to above.
II
PHYSIOLOGICAL VIEW
FORMATION OF SOUND BY THE ORGAN OF THE HUMAN VOICE
The great physiologist, Johannes Müller, fastened a larynx, which he had cut out with the whole trachea belonging to it, to a board, and, stretching the vocal chords by a weight that could be increased or diminished at pleasure, caused vibrations in it by blowing through the trachea with a pair of bellows, or through a tube with his own breath. In this way he succeeded in producing almost all the tones of the human voice, and even some which are beyond the compass of this organ.
He distinguished two different kinds of tones, to which he gave the names of the chest register and the falsetto register. The chest tones were produced when the vocal ligaments, slackly stretched, were made to vibrate easily in their whole breadth; the falsetto tones came merely through the vibration of the fine inner edges of the vocal chords when they were more tightly stretched. At a moderate stretching of the vocal chords, it depended upon the manner of blowing whether a sound corresponding to the chest voice or to the falsetto were produced, or whether it were higher or lower for several tones, often for a whole octave. A series of tones of more than two octaves could thus be produced in the same larynx, with, however, gaps and places at which the vocal chords, instead of being stretched gradually, have to be _stretched at once very strongly, in order that the succeeding higher half tone may be reached_. Such a place Müller indicates from c² to c♯², or d² to d♯², with the remark that it differs in different larynxes, being in some higher and in some lower. But in order to render practicable the proper stretching of the exsected larynx, muscles and membranes have to be cut, which sufficiently proves that the functions of the organ of singing in the living must be differently carried on.
_Dr. Merkel_, in Leipzig, has continued these experiments, and by means of a peculiar contrivance has succeeded in producing all the tones in the exsected larynx, without mutilating it. But these investigations, interesting as they are, throw no certain light upon the formation of sound by the vocal organ in the living.
The celebrated singing master, _Manuel Garcia_, now living in London, was the first to adopt the right mode of scientific inquiry in this department, with favorable results. He undertook to apply the laryngoscope (previously invented by the Englishman, _Liston_) to the larynx in the act of singing. The interesting results of these observations were published by him in the Philosophical Mag. and Journal of Science, vol. x. p. 218. While men of science immediately repeated Garcia's experiments and applied them with the greatest advantage to pathological purposes, they were received with distrust, scarcely noticed, and in many instances entirely rejected, by teachers of vocal music. The few who attempted to follow the path thus opened soon gave it up, because they lacked either patience or the anatomical knowledge necessary to such investigations.
The laryngoscope is well known among medical men. It is a small plane mirror of glass or metal, having a long handle. Before it is introduced into the throat, it is first warmed, to prevent its becoming dimmed. The reflecting surface of this instrument is directed downwards and forwards, so that it receives the reflection caught from a concave mirror, and presents to the eye of the observer a picture of the illuminated larynx. In using it upon oneself, there is need of a second mirror, which must be so held that the image may be seen in the laryngoscope.
The use of the laryngoscope requires in the observer a certain adroitness and long-continued practice--almost more in the observer than in the subject of observation. In self-observation one must first learn to overcome the irritation always caused at the first by the contact of the mirror with the back of the throat. Once accustomed to the contact, one soon succeeds in obtaining a sight of the larynx, sufficient for the most part for pathological purposes. But it requires long practice before one can control those organs, usually not immediately submissive to the will, and raise the epiglottis, so as to be able to see into the whole larynx. But this is absolutely indispensable, in the observation of the formation of sound, to the attainment of any substantial results. Garcia says himself that _one-third of the glottis_ was always _hidden_ from him by the epiglottis, and to this circumstance is the unsatisfactory character of his observations to be ascribed. But even when, after long practice, one is able at last to bring the whole glottis into view, this is not by any means enough. Not until observation has been so long continued that all the movements of the vocal organ are normal, notwithstanding the unnatural drawing back of the epiglottis, and not until the process that goes on is found again and again to be always the same, can it be recognized as fact.
As Garcia is the most eminent of singing masters now living, and as he has sought, solely in the interest of vocal music, to ascertain the mechanism by which sound is formed, and as his observations have been confirmed by men of science, I give them here in his own words.
In order that what follows may be better understood by those unacquainted with anatomy, a brief anatomical description of the vocal organ will be found in an Appendix to the present work.
OBSERVATIONS WITH THE LARYNGOSCOPE
BY MANUEL GARCIA
“At the moment when the person draws a deep breath, the epiglottis being raised, we are able to see the following series of movements: the arytenoid cartilages become separated by a very free lateral movement; the superior ligaments are placed against the ventricles; the inferior ligaments are also drawn back, though in a less degree, into the same cavities; and the glottis, large and wide open, is exhibited, so as to show in part the rings of the trachea. But, unfortunately, however dexterous we may be in disposing these organs, and even when we are most successful, at least _the third part of the anterior of the glottis remains concealed by the epiglottis_.
“As soon as we prepare to produce a sound, the arytenoid cartilages approach each other, and press together by their interior surfaces, and by their anterior apophyses, without leaving any space, or inter-cartilaginous glottis; sometimes, even, they come in contact so closely as to cross each other by the tubercles of Santorini. To this movement of the anterior apophyses that of the ligaments of the glottis corresponds, which detach themselves from the ventricles, come in contact with different degrees of energy, and show themselves at the bottom of the larynx, under the form of an ellipse of a yellowish color. The superior ligaments, together with the aryteno-epiglottidean folds, assist to form the tube which surmounts the glottis; and being the lower and free extremity of that tube, enframe the ellipse, the surface of which they enlarge or diminish according as they enter more or less into the ventricles. These last scarcely retain a trace of their opening. By anticipation, we might say of these cavities that, as will afterwards appear clearly enough in these pages, they only afford to the two pair of ligaments a space in which they may easily range themselves. When the aryteno-epiglottidean folds contract, they lower the epiglottis and make the superior orifice of the larynx considerably narrower.
“The meeting of the lips of the glottis, naturally proceeding from the front towards the back, if this movement is well managed, will allow, between the apophyses, _of the formation of a triangular space or inter-cartilaginous glottis_, but one which, however, is closed as soon as the sounds are produced.
“After some essays we perceive that this internal disposition of the larynx is only visible when the epiglottis remains raised. But neither all the registers of the voice, nor all the degrees of intensity, are equally fitted for its taking this position. We soon discover that the brilliant and powerful sounds of the chest register contract the cavity of the larynx, and close still more its orifice; and, on the contrary, that veiled notes, and notes of moderate power, open both, so as to render any observation easy. The falsetto register especially possesses this prerogative, as well as the first notes of the head voice. So as to render these facts more precise, we will study in the voice of the tenor the ascending progression of the chest register, and in the soprano that of the falsetto and head registers.
EMISSION OF THE CHEST VOICE
“If we emit veiled and feeble sounds, the larynx opens at the notes do re me (c d e), and we see the glottis agitated by large and loose vibrations throughout its entire extent. Its lips comprehend in their length the anterior apophyses of the arytenoid cartilages and the vocal chords; but, I repeat it, there remains no triangular space.
“As the sounds ascend, the apophyses, which are slightly rounded on their internal side, by a gradual apposition commencing at the back encroach on the length of the glottis, and as soon as we reach the sounds si do (b c¹) they finish by touching each other throughout their whole extent; but their summits are only solidly fixed one against the other at the notes do re (c♯¹ d¹). In some organs these summits are a little vacillating when they form the posterior end of the glottis, and two or three half-tones which are formed show a certain want of purity and strength, which is very well known to singers. From do re (c♯¹ d¹) the vibrations, having become rounder and purer, are accomplished by _the vocal ligaments alone_, up to the end of the register.
“The glottis at this moment presents the aspect of a line slightly swelled towards its middle, the length of which diminishes still more as the voice ascends. We also see that the cavity of the larynx has become very small, and that the superior ligaments have contracted the extent of the ellipse to less than one-half.
“Thus the organs act with a double difference: 1. The cavity of the larynx contracts itself more when the voice is intense than when it is feeble. 2. The superior ligaments are contracted, so as to reduce the small diameter of the ellipse to a width of two or three lines. But however powerful these contractions may be, neither the cartilages of Wrisberg, nor the superior ligaments themselves, ever close sufficiently to prevent the passage of the air, or even to render it difficult. This fact, which is verified also with regard to the falsetto and head registers, suffices to prove that the superior ligaments do not fill a generative part in the formation of the voice. We may draw the same conclusion by considering the position occupied by the somewhat feeble muscles which correspond to these ligaments; they cover externally the extremity of the diverging fibres of the thyro-arytenoid muscles, and take part especially in the contractions of the cavity of the larynx during the formation of the high notes of the chest and head registers.
PRODUCTION OF THE FALSETTO
“The low notes of the falsetto show the glottis infinitely better than the unisons of the chest voice, and produce vibrations more extended and more distinct. Its vibrating sides, formed by the anterior apophyses of the arytenoid cartilages and by the ligaments, become gradually shorter as the voice ascends; at the notes la si (a¹ b¹) the apophyses take part only at their summits; and in these notes there results a weakness similar to that which we have remarked in the chest notes an octave below. At the notes do re (c♯² d²), the ligaments alone continue to act; then begins the series of notes called the _head voice_. The moment in which the action of the apophyses ceases exhibits in the female voice a very sensible difference to the ear and in the organ itself. Lastly, we verify that up to the highest sounds of the register the glottis continues to diminish in length and in width.
“If we compare the two registers in these movements, we shall find some analogies in them; the sides of the glottis formed at first by the apophyses and the ligaments become shorter by degrees, and end by consisting only of the ligaments. The chest register is divided into two parts, corresponding to these two states of the glottis. The register of falsetto-head presents a complete similarity, and in a still more striking manner.
“On other points, on the contrary, these same registers are very unlike. The length of the glottis necessary to form a falsetto note always exceeds that which produces the unison of the chest. The movements which agitate the sides of the glottis are also augmented, and keep the vibrating orifice continually half opened, which naturally produces a great waste of air. A last trait of difference is in the increased extent of that elliptic surface.
“All these circumstances show in the mechanism of the falsetto a state of relaxation which we do not find in the same degree in the chest register.
MANNER IN WHICH THE SOUNDS ARE FORMED