The Psychology of Singing: A Rational Method of Voice Culture Based on a Scientific Analysis of All Systems, Ancient and ModernTaylor, David C. (David Clark)
Science
The Psychology of Singing: A Rational Method of Voice Culture Based on a Scientific Analysis of All Systems, Ancient and Modern
Taylor, David C. (David Clark)
Singing; Voice culture
Example 1: The student takes a few preliminary toneless breaths. Then
follow, in the order given, a few short tones for practice on attack,
some sustained tones on the vowel _ah_, exercises on three, four, and
five notes, ascending and descending, a single tone followed by the
octave jump up and descending scale, this last rising by semitones
through several keys. In these exercises the student's attention is
directed at random to the correct use of the registers, to nasal
resonance, forward emission, etc. This consumes ten or twelve minutes of
the lesson time. More elaborate exercises on scale passages are then
sung, lasting another five minutes. These are followed by a vocalise or
two, and a couple of songs or arias, which fill out the thirty minutes.
Example 2: A few breathing exercises are practised, followed by single
tones and short scale passages, the whole lasting about five minutes.
Then the student is drilled for some ten minutes on "placing the head
tones," in the manner described in the section on special vowel and
consonant drills. These exercises are varied by swelling the high tone,
by changing the vowels, and by elaborating the descending scale
passages. The remaining fifteen minutes are devoted to vocalises and
songs.
Example 3: This is an advanced pupil, whose voice is supposed to be
fairly well "placed." Technical exercises of some difficulty are sung,
covering a range of an octave and a half, or a little more. The teacher
interrupts occasionally to say "Sing those lower notes more in the chest
voice," "Place the upper notes higher in the head," "Don't let your
vocal cords open on that ah," "Sing that again and make the tones
cleaner," etc. One or two arias are then sung, interspersed with
instructions of the same sort, and also with suggestions regarding
style, delivery, and expression.
For daily practice between lessons, the student sings usually the same
exercises and studies included in the previous lesson, and also commits
to memory compositions assigned for future study.
Examples of this kind might be multiplied indefinitely, but the main
points have been fairly well brought out. Most important to be noticed
is the fact that the voice is trained by practice in actual singing. In
the whole scheme of modern Voice Culture, toneless muscular drills
consume only an insignificant proportion of the time devoted to lessons.
Further, the number of exercises and musical compositions embraced in a
single half-hour lesson is very small. On the other hand, no limit can
be set to the number of topics of vocal control touched on in any one
lesson. These latter are used, throughout the whole range of
instruction, without any systematic sequence. Whatever fault of
production the pupil's tones indicate, the teacher calls attention to
the fault, and gives the supposedly appropriate rule for its
correction.
Part II
A CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF MODERN METHODS
CHAPTER I
MECHANICAL VOCAL MANAGEMENT AS THE BASIS OF VOICE CULTURE
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account