Voice production in singing and speaking, based on scientific principles — John Stuart Mill — John Shaqi
Voice production in singing and speaking, based on scientific principles
John Stuart Mill · en
But the artist, and above all the musical artist, must be a citizen of
the world. He deals with those forms of emotion common to all mankind,
and not with the peculiar little combinations of ideas that grow up in
a province, city, or village; though of course he will not neglect
local coloring, so well illustrated in the folk-songs or popular
melodies that have survived for ages in different countries.
Though a vowel can be produced pure only when the resonance-chambers
assume a certain form, this is, of course, only one link in the chain
of production. The breathing apparatus and the larynx are also
concerned, and we are again brought back, as ever, to the triple
combination of the three sets of mechanisms so often alluded to, yet,
we venture to think, very inadequately linked in the minds of
learners, if not also of teachers.
In producing a vowel sound the end aimed at is, on the one hand,
purity, on the other, as a result, the easy and effective use of
mechanisms--_i.e._, the technique. In every case the breath must be
used without waste--just enough, and no more; the laryngeal apparatus,
the vocal bands, must be so adapted as to set the air of the
resonance-chambers into perfect vibration, which only occurs when the
expiratory blast is applied in the correct way and at the right moment
to the properly adjusted vocal bands. This latter we have defined as
the attack. It implies giving a good start to the tone. It is not all,
but it is a large half, in the artist and for the auditor.
RECONSIDERATION OF THE RESONANCE-CHAMBERS
We shall now give further attention to some of the more important
parts of the resonance-chambers, in so far as they bear directly on
voice-production.