One prevailing difficulty with voices which are not perfectly educated is that the wrong quality is given for the pitch. Each interval of the scale requires a different resonant quality, and this necessitates a difference in the sizes of the resounding chambers. This difference is provided for in the graded sizes of the different portions of the nares, and in the pharynx and trachea. However, notwithstanding the freedom of the resonant chambers here mentioned, this proper quality of the voice would be interfered with in the speaking and singing words, or even elements of words, the freest of which are vowels, unless the transient chambers of resonance were perfectly formed. If words seem to interrupt and injure a singing tone, it is because the transient resonant chambers in which they are formed are not properly constructed.

The only way to perfect the forms of the transient resonant chambers is by holding the elements of speech in the mind as distinct objects of thought while speaking or singing them. Such is the natural service of the vocal organs to the mental concepts, that these mental objects will, through the cranial nerves which control the organs of speech, externalize themselves by producing exact molds of resonance. It takes time and practice to develop the power of holding the elements as distinct objects of thought; it takes still more time and practice to develop the power of holding these sounds as mental objects while the mind materializes them in the voice. This power, like all powers, grows in the ratio of repetition guided by continued mental concentration.

One should never attempt to locate the tone in any particular resonant chamber by saying, “Now I will practise for head resonance, or now I will practise for chest resonance.” I have known such attempts to result in much injury to the voice. If the direction of the tone is kept steadily toward the globe of light in front of the nares, while at the same time imagining this globe to move in a forward and downward curve, and if, in addition, the transient molds of resonance are perfectly formed, each interval of the scale will be resounded in its proper resonant chamber. The high notes will be resounded in the front part of the nares, then as the voice descends in pitch it will be resounded farther back in the nares, until the note is so low that the posterior part only can resound it; finally, as the pitch continues to grow lower, the nares cannot resound it at all. At this point the pharynx takes it up until the pitch becomes so low that the trachea, being larger than the pharynx, produces the resonance which is heard in the chest only. After the proper direction has been established, viz., toward the globe of light in front of the anterior portion of the nares, it should never be changed, for this direction keeps the nares, pharynx, and trachea open and free, so that each pitch of the voice will be resounded in that portion of the resonant chambers which by its size is suited to its pitch. What I have thus far said of the resonant chambers in the nares, pharynx, and trachea applies to the fundamental tone; but while the fundamental tone is resounding in the trachea, pharynx, or nares posteri, smaller portions of the nares and transient resonant chambers may be resounding the overtones, so that many resonant chambers may be resounding at the same time, thereby giving the richest possible quality to the tones of voice.

NARES RESONANCE.

Exercise I.—While the lips are closed, give a nares tone represented by the letter m; then opening the mouth, without changing in any degree the character of the tone and not allowing any breath or voice to pass through the mouth, prolong the tone, holding before the mind the ideal concept for direction of tone previously described. The lips should be again closed just before the tone ceases. Repeat this on different intervals of the scale, ranging from a comparatively high pitch to a comparatively low one.

The reason the sound represented by m should be used in securing this freedom and direction of tone is because this letter best represents the tone which proper resonance of the nares produces. In vocal practice, one should begin on a comparatively high pitch and descend to a lower one, because the front of the nares resounds the high notes of the scale, and therefore assists in fixing consciousness of the direction of tone. Then, too, while using the voice, the mind should never hold as an object of thought the idea of going up to a tone, for the reflex action of such an idea upon the vocal organs is to produce a squeezed and strained effect. The mind should develop the consciousness of being higher than the note it would give, so as to feel as if descending upon a note, rather than trying to reach to its height. If this first exercise, which gives direction to the vocalized column of air, is practised on successive intervals of the scale, it will fix this direction as a habit. Hence, it is very important that there should be much repetition in descending and ascending the scale; otherwise, the voice might be open and resonant on some notes, while on others it would be constricted and forced, and consequently bring those false breaks into the voice which have been called registers. Registers are not natural to the voice, but created by its wrong use.