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Updated: September 5, 2025
No one thought of discarding the traditional method, but only of improving it by reducing it to scientific principles. But that could not last. Soon after the attempt began to be made to manage the voice mechanically, tone-production was found to contain a real problem. This was of course due to the introduction of throat stiffness.
The mechanical operation of tone-production comprises the following transformations of energy: First, the energy exerted in the contraction of the expiratory muscles is converted into energy of condensation or elasticity of the air in the lungs and trachea. Second, this energy of condensation of the air is converted into energy of motion of the vocal cords.
It is purely a feature of education in singing, and concerns only teachers and students of the art. Properly speaking, the finished singer should leave the teacher and start on the artistic career, equipped with a voice under perfect control. There should be no problem of tone-production for the trained singer, no thought or worry about the vocal action.
They take up the singer's education from the beginning and seem to assume, as a matter of course, that the training in the art of music is coincident, if not indeed identical, with the cultivation of the voice. But they do not by any means neglect the subject of tone-production. Most modern readers of these early writers overlook the simple directions given for securing a proper use of the voice.
In such a case perfect vocal technique will never be acquired, no matter how many years the practice may continue. What is this peculiar way in which the voice must be handled during the practice of singing? This is the practical problem of tone-production, as it confronts the student of singing. It is important that the exact bearing of the problem be clearly understood.
This definition of the vocal action does not solve the problem of tone-production. It is still to be determined how the involuntary contraction of the throat muscles is caused. Involuntary contractions of the voluntary muscles can occur only as reflex actions.
It is practically helpful to the voice-producer and the teacher to think of the resonance-chambers and the ear as bearing a close relationship to the movements essential to tone-production. The sensations from these parts are of importance above all others in voice-production. They are the chief guides, and the attention may to advantage be concentrated on them.
This was the course adopted by the old masters, and it will serve equally well in our day. One of the evil results of the introduction of the mechanical idea in Voice Culture is that almost the entire lesson time is devoted to the matter of tone-production. To the rudiments of music no attention whatever is usually paid.
This earnest student of the voice sought to carry out, to its logical conclusion, the accepted idea of mechanical vocal control. In this respect he stands practically alone. His is the only method which even pretends to reduce the entire operation of correct tone-production to a set of defined muscular contractions.
Much of modern vocal instruction is dual in character. When, for example, the teacher wishes to correct a marked fault in the pupil's tone-production, he adopts this dual mode of imparting his ideas. For the teacher to sing the correct tone takes but a few seconds and requires almost no thought.
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