E-text prepared by David Newman, Sigal Alon, Chuck Greif,
and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team
()
A Rational Method of Voice Culture
based on a Scientific Analysis of
all Systems, Ancient and Modern
By
New York
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1922
NEW YORK—BOSTON—CHICAGO—ATLANTA—SAN FRANCISCO
MACMILLAN & CO., Limited
LONDON—BOMBAY—CALCUTTA—MELBOURNE
THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd.
TORONTO
All rights reserved
Copyright, 1908,
By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.
Set up and electrotyped. Published November, 1908.
Norwood Press:
Berwick & Smith Co., Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.
To My Mother
whose devotion to truth and earnest
labor has prompted all my efforts
this work is affectionately dedicated
| Preface Contents Bibliography Index Notes |
A peculiar gap exists between the accepted theoretical basis ofinstruction in singing and the actual methods of vocal teachers. Judgingby the number of scientific treatises on the voice, the academicobserver would be led to believe that a coherent Science of VoiceCulture has been evolved. Modern methods of instruction in singing arepresumed to embody a system of exact and infallible rules for themanagement of the voice. Teachers of singing in all the musical centersof Europe and America claim to follow a definite plan in the training ofvoices, based on established scientific principles. But a practicalacquaintance with the modern art of Voice Culture reveals the fact thatthe laws of tone-production deduced from the scientific investigation ofthe voice do not furnish a satisfactory basis for a method of trainingvoices.
Throughout the entire vocal profession, among singers, teachers, andstudents alike, there is a general feeling of the insufficiency ofpresent knowledge of the voice. The problem of the correct management ofthe vocal organs has not been finally and definitely solved. VoiceCulture has not been reduced to an exact science. Vocal teachers are notin possession of an infallible method of training voices. Students ofsinging find great difficulty in learning how to use their voices. VoiceCulture is generally recognized as entitled to a position among theexact sciences; but something remains to be done before it can assumethat position.
There must be some definite reason for the failure of theoreticalinvestigation to produce a satisfactory Science of Voice Culture. Thiscannot be due to any present lack of understanding of the vocalmechanism on the part of scientific students of the subject. The anatomyand physiology of the vocal organs have been exhaustively studied by avast number of highly trained experts. So far as the muscular operationsof tone-production are concerned, and the laws of acoustics bearing onthe vocal action, no new discovery can well be expected. But in thisvery fact, the exhaustive attention paid to the mechanical operationsof the voice, is seen the incompleteness of Vocal Science. Attention hasbeen turned exclusively