spatulum

Updated: May 20, 2025

There is to-day that which is known as "The New Movement in the Vocal Art" a movement based upon natural laws and common sense and opposed to the ideas of the local-effort school; movement in the direction of freedom of action, spontaneity and flexible strength as opposed to rigidity and direct effort; a movement which advocates vitalized energy instead of muscular effort; a movement which had its origin in the belief that no man ever learned to sing because he locally fixed or puckered his lips; because he held down his tongue with a spatulum or a spoon; because he locally lowered or raised his soft palate; because he consciously moved or locally fixed his larynx; because he consciously, rigidly set or firmly pulled in one direction or another, his breathing muscles; because he carried an unnaturally high chest at the sacrifice of form, position and strength in every other way; because he sang with a stick or a pencil or a cork in his mouth; or because he did a hundred other unnatural things too foolish to mention.

Edmund Myer - The Renaissance of the Vocal Art