Resonance in Singing and Speaking by Thomas Fillebrown (book suggestions .TXT) 📕

When responding to the perfectly focused tone the thin walls of the cavities and the contained air vibrate with surprising force, often for the moment blinding the singer when sounding a note intensely.

Having in my surgical work demonstrated the existence of a hitherto unrecognized connecting passage or canal between the air cavities of the face and those of the forehead,[2] the play of resonance in the cavities above the nostrils is more easily understood. The function of the cavities known as the frontal sinuses (see Fig. 1) has long been a mystery, but now that their direct connection with the lower cavities is proven, and the great significance of resonance is also beginning to be recognized, the mystery disappears. The same may be said of the other sinuses—ethmoidal, sphenoidal, and maxillary, and their interconnection.

In instruments changes in the length and form of the resonance chambers affect the pitch as well as the quality of the tone. This is demonstrated in the trombone, French horn, and other wind instruments. The lengthening of the tube of the trombone lowers the pitch of the tone, and the projection of the hand of the performer into the bell of the French horn has the effect of raising the pitch of the sound. If the variation in length or form is only slight, the result is sharp or flat, and the instrument is out of tune. In the human instrument all the organs act together as a unit; so the fact that the cavities alone may affect the pitch is practically of no great significance.

The tongue and the lips are the articulating organs, and the former has an important part to play in altering through its movements the shape of the mouth cavity.

The tip of the tongue should habitually rest against the under front teeth. The tip of the tongue, however, must frequently touch the roof of the mouth near the upper front teeth, as when pronouncing the consonants c, d, g or j, l, n, s, and t. The back part of the tongue must rise a little to close against the soft palate when pronouncing g hard, and k, and hard c, q, and x. The soft palate comes down so far to meet the tongue that the elevation of the latter need be but very slight.

When speaking, the demand is not so imperative, but when singing, the body of the tongue should lie as flat as possible, so as to enlarge the mouth, especially when giving the vowel sounds.

If the tongue is sometimes disposed to be unruly, it is the result of rigidity or misplaced effort in the surrounding parts. This tendency will only be aggravated by artificial restraint of any kind. The true way is to dismiss tongue consciousness, let go, and a normal flexibility will easily manifest itself.

The lips, equally with the tongue, are organs of articulation. The upper lip is the principal factor of the two; the under lip seems to follow the lead of the upper. The lips need much training, and it can readily be given them. While practising to educate the lips, both lips should be projected forward and upward, at the same time pronouncing the word "too." Bring the edge of the upper lip as high toward the nose as possible in practice. This will bring the corners of the mouth forward and lift the lips clear and free from the teeth, and thus add one more resonance cavity. This position of the lips also gives freedom for pronunciation. "The upper lip plays the most active part in the shaping of the vowels. It should never be drawn against the teeth when producing vowel tones; indeed, there should be often a little space between the upper lip and the teeth, so that the vibrations of the sound-waves can have free play."

The nostrils should be dilated as much as possible, as a free, wide, open nose gives a free, well-rounded tone, while a contracted nostril induces the nasal tone so much dreaded. A proper training of the facial muscles makes this dilation possible. Lifting the upper lip and projecting it forward aids the action to a great degree.

There is a strong tendency to unity of action between the nostrils and the lips and the soft palate. The soft palate moves downward and forward when the upper lip protrudes and the nostrils dilate, and moves backward and upward when the nostrils are contracted and the upper lip allowed to rest upon the teeth.

As a rule the best singers have full, round, wide, open nostrils, either given by nature or acquired by practice.

Not only must the lips and nose be trained, but the muscles of the face also. These muscles are capable, if educated, of doing important service.

The artist on the operatic stage or the speaker on the platform, without facial expression begotten of muscular activity, may lessen by half his power over an audience. To train the facial muscles is a complicated task. To do this, stand before a mirror and make all the faces ever thought of by a schoolboy to amuse his schoolmates. Raise each corner of the lip, wrinkle the nose, quilt the forehead, grin, laugh. The grimaces will not enter into a performance, but their effect upon it will be markedly beneficial.

A generation ago the speaking voice was even less understood than the singing voice. That the two were intimately connected was but half surmised. Only an occasional person recognized what is now generally conceded, that a good way to improve the speaking voice is to cultivate the singing voice.

In 1887 I published a paper in the Independent Practitioner defining the singing voice and the speaking voice as identical, and contending that the training for each should be the same so far as tone formation is involved, a conclusion at which I had arrived several years before. Subsequent experience has only served to confirm this opinion.

The past has produced many good speakers, among them Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, Edwin Booth, Wm. Charles Macready, and Edward Everett. Of the last Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote: "It is with delight that one who remembers Edward Everett in his robes of rhetorical splendor, recalls his full blown, high colored, double flowered periods; the rich, resonant, grave, far-reaching music of his speech, with just enough of the nasal vibration to give the vocal sounding-board its proper value in the harmonies of utterance." These examples of correct vocalization, however, were exceptions to the general rule; they happened to speak well, but the physiologic action of the vocal organs which produced such results in those individual cases was not understood, and hence the pupil ambitious to imitate them and develop the best of which his voice was capable had no rule by which to proceed. Few could speak with ease, still fewer could be heard by a large assembly, and sore throats seemed to be the rule.

In singing the flow of tone is unbroken between the words, but in speaking it is interrupted. In singing tone is sustained and changed from one pitch to another by definite intervals over a wide compass that includes notes not attempted in speech. In speaking tone is unsustained, not defined in pitch, is limited to a narrow compass, and the length of the tones is not governed by the measure of music.

Notwithstanding these differences, singing and speaking tones are produced by the vocal organs in the same way, are focused precisely alike, have the same resonance, and are delivered in the same manner. It has been said that speech differs from song as walking from dancing. Speech may be called the prose, and song the poetry of vocalization.

During the past decade the knowledge of the speaking voice has been greatly broadened, and the art of cultivating tone has made progress. The identity of the singing and speaking voice is becoming more fully recognized, and methods are being used to develop the latter similar to those in use for the training of the former. As Dr. Morell Mackenzie says: "Singing is a help to good speaking, as the greater includes the less."

The recognition of this truth cannot fail to be a great aid to the progress of singing in the public schools, since every enlargement of exercises common to both speaking and singing helps to solidarity and esprit de corps in teaching and in learning.

An accurate sense of pitch, melody, harmony, and rhythm is necessary to the singer, but the orator may, by cultivation, develop a speaking voice of musical quality without being able to distinguish Old Hundred from The Last Rose of Summer.

It is a matter of common observation that American singers, although they may be painstaking in their French and German, are indifferent, even to carelessness, in the clear and finished enunciation of their native tongue. Mr. W.J. Henderson, in his recent work, The Art of the Singer, says: "The typical American singer cannot sing his own language so that an audience can understand him; nine-tenths of the songs we hear are songs without words." Happily this condition is gradually yielding to a better one, stimulated in part by the examples of visiting singers and actors. In story-telling songs and in oratorio, slovenly delivery is reprehensible, but when the words of a song are the lyric flight of a true poet, a careless utterance becomes intolerable.

Beauty of tone is not everything; the singing of mere sounds, however lovely, is but a tickling of the ear. The shortcoming of the Italian school of singing, as of composition, has been too exclusive devotion to sensuous beauty of tone as an end in itself. The singer must never forget that his mission is to vitalize text with tone. The songs of Schubert, Schumann, Franz, Brahms, Grieg, Strauss, and Wolf, as well as the Wagnerian drama, are significant in their inseparable union of text and music. The singer is therefore an interpreter, not of music alone, but of text made potent by music.

Pronunciation, moreover, concerns not only the listener, but the singer and speaker, for pure tone and pure pronunciation cannot be divorced, one cannot exist without the other. In his interesting work, The Singing of the Future, Mr. Ffrangcon-Davies insists that, "the quickest way to fine tone is through fine pronunciation."

We cannot think except in words, nor voice our thought without speech. Vocal utterance is thought articulate. Therefore, instead of prolonged attention to tone itself, training should be concentrated upon the uttered word. The student should aim "to sing a word rather than a tone." Correct pronunciation and beautiful tone are so interdependent as to be inseparable.

The singer and speaker require all sounds in their purity. To seek to develop the voice along the narrow limits of any single vowel or syllable, as for instance the syllable ah, is harmful. Not only is this vowel sound, as Lilli Lehmann says, "the most difficult," but the proper pronunciation of all words within the whole range of the voice is thereby impeded. Diction and tone work should therefore go hand in hand. "The way in which vowel melts into vowel and consonants float into their places largely determines the character of the tone itself." Without finished pronunciation speech and song of emotional power are impossible. Gounod, the composer, says, "Pronunciation creates eloquence." Mr. Forbes-Robertson, the English master of dramatic diction, speaking for his own profession says: "The trouble with contemporary stage elocution springs from the actor's very desire to act well. In his effort