The training of the voice for singing is a slow and painstaking process. :\lost of the training is directed toward seenring correct tone for mation. or tone placing as it is usually called. Upon the correctness of the placing depend the strength, carrying power, smoothness, and beauty of the if The acquirement of a perfect method of tone formation is the only road to the strengthening of comparatively weak vocal organs. No teacher can make a big voice out of a little one. Nevertheless it is un deniable that the lungs can be developed by the practice of deep breathing exercises, and the dia phragm and other expulsive muscles developed by systematic use. So, too, the vocal cords and the muscles and ligaments of the larynx can be made stronger by training. but the limit of de velopment is not large. The principal efforts of wise teachers, therefore, are directed to giving their pupils a firm, round, pure tone. which will carry well without undue tax upon the sound producing apparatus. The correct placing of tone includes several elements, of which the gen eral management of the breath is the most im portant. Second only to that is the proper em ployment of the resonating chambers.
Every tone ought to sound to the hearer as if it were sung a little behind the teeth of the singer. Of course it is not sung there, nor would good results be achieved through trying mentally to locate the sound there. But by keeping the tongue depressed, by allowing a part of the air blast free passage through the nasal chambers. and by bringing the main body of it to bear upon the roof of the mouth at the proper point, tones may be made to sound as if formed well forward and may be actually projected into the audi torium more sonorously than when improperly made. The requirements of good tone are that it shall be pure, that is, that all the breath must be turned into tone and none allowed to escape in a hissing sound; that it shall be clear, that is, shall never sound as if there were some obstacle in the singer's mouth; and that it shall be free. that is, not muffled o• squeezed down in the throat. A correct 'attack' is the most important essential of good tone production. The breath must strike the vocal cords at precisely the in stant when they form the tone. neither before nor after. Weak voices are made stronger and good voices better by the mastery of the art of tone formation.
To this must be added the requisites of ex pression. These are a perfect legato. command of the messy di voce. perfect vocalization of the vowels and perfect articulation of the conso nants. Legato means 'hound.' and in singing it is the passage of the voice smoothly and connectedly from one note to the next in succession. With out a command of the legato no flowing melody can be sung properly. Variety is sometimes added to a melody by the use of the portamerito, which is a sliding or carrying of the voice through the infinitesimal degrees of pitch lying between two notes. This is opposed to the legato and is often so rnn•h abused as to preclude all possibility of singing in tune. The legato is the foundation of all good vocal style, and it was in this that the famous singers of the eighteenth century surpassed all their successors. The mesa di voce is the swelling of a tone from a pianissimo to its full power and then diminishing it again to the starting point. This is accomplished entire ly by control of the breath, though some mistaken singers try to reach the result by straining the muscles of their throats. The messy di voce is of the greatest importance in expression, as it enables the singer to vitalize his song with minute dynamic gradations of tone, similar to those employed in speech.
The vowels present many difficulties to the singer. as the position of the throat and tongue in sounding some of them, especially at full voice, is inimical to good tone production. Alneh study is necessary to learn how to give the effect of the vowel sounds to an audience while preserv ing the essentials of good tone. The articulation of the consonant!‘, which is greatly neglected by English singers, and greatly exaggerated by the Wagnerian school of German declaimers, is abso lutely necessary to intelligible delivery of the text. The problem to be solved is how to enunci ate clearly consonants which naturally cut off the flow of vowel sounds, on which alone tones can be made. and yet not interrupt the fluency of a pure legato style. The problem is solved by learning how to separate the articulative appa ratus from the sound-producing mechanism and to operate the two independently without letting them disturb each other. This, like all the rest of singing, requires long and patient self-study under the guidance of a skilled teacher.