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Behnke was emphatic on one point, to which we would call special attention, in his own words: "If there is straining anywhere, it is during the attempt to carry the mechanism of the upper thick beyond its natural limit." According to the same author, "The essential factor in chest production is the long reed, whilst the essential factor in head delivery is the short reed."
It is generally assumed by vocal theorists that the voice cannot be trained by imitation. Browne and Behnke state this belief definitely: "Singing cannot be learned exclusively by imitation." In the first place, no one has ever thought of questioning the existence of an instinct of vocal imitation. On the contrary, this instinct is everywhere recognized.
The most influential published work in popularizing the doctrine of breath-control was probably the book written jointly by Lennox Browne and Emil Behnke, Voice, Song, and Speech, London, 1883. This doctrine is of so much importance in Vocal Science and in modern methods of instruction as to require a detailed explanation. The theory of breath-control may be stated as follows:
By the time he was twenty Chug was manager of the garage and his mother was saying, "You're around that garage sixteen hours a day. When you're home you're everlastingly reading those engineering papers and things. Your pa at your age had a girl for every night in the week and two on Sundays." "Another year or so and I can buy out old Behnke and own the place.
In their introductory chapter, "A Plea for Vocal Physiology," Browne and Behnke attempt to prove that the old masters studied the anatomy of the vocal organs. But even if this could be proved, that would not solve the mystery of the old method. Modern teachers are certainly as well acquainted with the mechanical features of tone-production as the old masters were.
Garcia says there are three mechanisms chest, falsetto, and head, and makes them common to both sexes. Behnke divides the voice into five registers lower and upper thick, lower and upper thin, and small. Dr. Guilmette says that to hold that all of the tones of the voice depend on one mechanism or register is an acknowledgment of ignorance of vocal anatomy.
According to Behnke, the male voice has but two registers, the thick and the thin, but the female voice three, the thick, the thin, and the small. These terms were not original with Behnke, but had been used earlier by Curwen.
Describing the toneless breathing exercises to be practised with the candle flame, Browne and Behnke say, "Let it be observed that the above exercise is quite distinct from the well-known practice of singing before a lighted candle, which is, comparatively speaking, an easy matter."
They are, first, the stroke of the glottis. Third, the approximation of the vocal cords at the precise instant the breath blast strikes them. This latter mode of attack is advocated by Browne and Behnke, who call it the "slide of the glottis."
I recall that in working with Emil Behnke he used an exercise to raise the soft palate and completely close the channel, yet no one can deny that his pupils had head resonance. There are certain facts in connection with this that are hard to side-step.
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