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
An exhaustive analysis of the various classes of sensations, commonly
grouped under the general heading of muscular sense, would involve a
mass of technicalities not necessary to the present purpose. It is
sufficient to bear in mind the limitations of this sense, and to notice
what it tells us, and what it does not tell.
Through the exercise of the muscular sense we are informed of the
movements, positions, and conditions of the different parts of the body.
Of specific muscular contractions very little information is conveyed.
Thus, when the arm is bent at the elbow the muscular sensations of the
movement are clear and definite; but, under normal conditions, these
sensations do not inform us that the movement results from the
contraction of the biceps muscle. Knowledge of the muscular structure
of the body is not involved in muscular sense. The muscular sensations
of bending the arm are felt in precisely the same way by the professor
of anatomy and the ignorant child.
Further, no amount of attention paid to muscular sensations will inform
us exactly what muscles are contracted in any complex action. A single
stroke in the game of tennis, returning a swift service for example, may
involve some contraction of every muscle of the entire body. A skilful
player may observe with the utmost care the muscular sensations
accompanying this stroke; he would never be able to learn from these
sensations whether the number of muscles in his forearm is ten or one
hundred.
For the same reason the sympathetic sensations of tone tell us nothing
whatever of the muscular structure of the vocal organs. When listening
to a throaty voice, we feel that the singer's throat is tightened,
stiffened, or contracted. But no matter how keen and vivid this
sensation may be, it leaves us in complete ignorance of the names and
locations of the muscles wrongly contracted. This is true, however
thoroughly we may know the anatomy of the vocal organs.
Much of the prevailing confusion about the voice is due to a
misunderstanding of this point. When, for example, the musical critic
asserted that Mme. T---- sang certain tones with "pinched glottis," he
fell into this error. His sympathetic sensations informed him of some
unnecessary tightening of the singer's throat. From these sensations he
seems to have inferred that the glottis-closing muscles were too
strongly contracted. This assumption was not warranted by any
information conveyed in the sympathetic sensations.
It is not necessary now to determine to what extent the muscular
sensations accompanying the listening to voices are purely imaginative,
and to what extent they result from actual, though unconscious,
contractions of the listener's throat muscles. The psychological process
is the same in either case.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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