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The problem of tone-production is identical, in the common belief, with the problem of the vocal action. Three sciences, anatomy, mechanics, and acoustics, are believed to hold somewhere among them the secret of the voice. All investigation has therefore been carried on along the lines of these three sciences.
Let us not forget that the violin is a singing instrument and that even Joachim said: 'We must imitate the human voice, This, I think, disposes of the case finally and we must admit that every little boy or girl with a natural vibrato is more correct in that part of his tone-production than many of the great masters of the past. As the Negro pastor said: 'The world do move!
Had scientific investigators turned their attention also to the analysis of the auditory impressions of vocal tones, and to the psychological aspect of tone-production, scientific instruction in singing would probably not have been identified with mechanical management of the voice. All the subsequent difficulties of the vocal profession would almost certainly have been avoided.
Tone-production in singing is a conscious and voluntary muscular operation. The vocal organs consist of a number of sets of voluntary muscles, of the bones and cartilages to which these muscles are attached, and of the nerves and nerve centers governing their actions. The precise nature of the muscular contractions of tone-production, whether correct or incorrect, is not known.
Or on the other hand, the muscles of the entire throat may be so powerfully contracted that the singer has only a very imperfect command of the voice. Between the two extremes, perfect tone-production and exaggerated stiffness, every conceivable shade of difference in degree of undue tension might be illustrated in the case of some prominent singer.
Considered strictly in its bearing on tone-production, the resonance of the mouth-pharynx cavity does not receive much attention from theoretical observers of the voice. The form assumed by this cavity is of necessity determined by the vowel to be sung.
Muscular sense may under certain conditions supplement the sense of hearing, but under no circumstances can muscular sense assume full command. The net result of the application of psychological principles to the problem of tone-production is simply this, that the voice is guided directly by the ear. It is thus seen that the idea of mechanical vocal management is utterly erroneous.
As for the particular fallacy contained in the theory of ventricular breath-control, that must be reserved for a later chapter. Suffice it to say here that this theory disregards the two basic mechanical principles of tone-production, Pascal's law, and the law of the conservation of energy.
Training the voice is supposed to involve the leading of the vocal organs to abandon their natural and instinctive manner of operating, and to adopt some other form of activity. Further, the assumption is made that the student of singing must cause the vocal organs to adopt a supposedly correct manner of operating by paying direct attention to the mechanical movements of tone-production.
The trouble caused by throat stiffness led the teachers to seek new means for imparting the correct vocal action, always along mechanical lines. In this way the progress of the mechanical idea was accelerated, and the problem of tone-production received ever more attention. Faith in the imitative faculty was gradually undermined by the progress of the mechanical idea.
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