A generation ago the speaking voice was even less understood than the singing voice. That the two were intimately connected was but half surmised. Only an occasional person recognized what is now generally conceded, that a good way to improve the speaking voice is to cultivate the singing voice.

In 1887 I published a paper in the Independent Practitioner defining the singing voice and the speaking voice as identical, and contending that the training for each should be the same so far as tone formation is involved, a conclusion at which I had arrived several years before. Subsequent experience has only served to confirm this opinion.

The past has produced many good speakers, among them Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, Edwin Booth, Wm. Charles Macready, and Edward Everett. Of the last Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote: "It is with delight that one who remembers Edward Everett in his robes of rhetorical splendor, recalls his full blown, high colored, double flowered periods; the rich, resonant, grave, far-reaching music of his speech, with just enough of the nasal vibration to give the vocal sounding-board its proper value in the harmonies of utterance." These examples of correct vocalization, however, were exceptions to the general rule; they happened to speak well, but the physiologic action of the vocal organs which produced such results in those individual cases was not understood, and hence the pupil ambitious to imitate them and develop the best of which his voice was capable had no rule by which to proceed. Few could speak with ease, still fewer could be heard by a large assembly, and sore throats seemed to be the rule.

DIFFERENCE BETWEEN SINGING AND SPEAKING

In singing the flow of tone is unbroken between the words, but in speaking it is interrupted. In singing tone is sustained and changed from one pitch to another by definite intervals over a wide compass that includes notes not attempted in speech. In speaking tone is unsustained, not defined in pitch, is limited to a narrow compass, and the length of the tones is not governed by the measure of music.

Notwithstanding these differences, singing and speaking tones are produced by the vocal organs in the same way, are focused precisely alike, have the same resonance, and are delivered in the same manner. It has been said that speech differs from song as walking from dancing. Speech may be called the prose, and song the poetry of vocalization.

During the past decade the knowledge of the speaking voice has been greatly broadened, and the art of cultivating tone has made progress. The identity of the singing and speaking voice is becoming more fully recognized, and methods are being used to develop the latter similar to those in use for the training of the former. As Dr. Morell Mackenzie says: "Singing is a help to good speaking, as the greater includes the less."

The recognition of this truth cannot fail to be a great aid to the progress of singing in the public schools, since every enlargement of exercises common to both speaking and singing helps to solidarity and esprit de corps in teaching and in learning.

An accurate sense of pitch, melody, harmony, and rhythm is necessary to the singer, but the orator may, by cultivation, develop a speaking voice of musical quality without being able to distinguish Old Hundred from The Last Rose of Summer.

PRONUNCIATION

It is a matter of common observation that American singers, although they may be painstaking in their French and German, are indifferent, even to carelessness, in the clear and finished enunciation of their native tongue. Mr. W.J. Henderson, in his recent work, The Art of the Singer, says: "The typical American singer cannot sing his own language so that an audience can understand him; nine-tenths of the songs we hear are songs without words." Happily this condition is gradually yielding to a better one, stimulated in part by the examples of visiting singers and actors. In story-telling songs and in oratorio, slovenly delivery is reprehensible, but when the words of a song are the lyric flight of a true poet, a careless utterance becomes intolerable.

Beauty of tone is not everything; the singing of mere sounds, however lovely, is but a tickling of the ear. The shortcoming of the Italian school of singing, as of composition, has been too exclusive devotion to sensuous beauty of tone as an end in itself. The singer must never forget that his mission is to vitalize text with tone. The songs of Schubert, Schumann, Franz, Brahms, Grieg, Strauss, and Wolf, as well as the Wagnerian drama, are significant in their inseparable union of text and music. The singer is therefore an interpreter, not of music alone, but of text made potent by music.

Pronunciation, moreover, concerns not only the listener, but the singer and speaker, for pure tone and pure pronunciation cannot be divorced, one cannot exist without the other. In his interesting work, The Singing of the Future, Mr. Ffrangcon-Davies insists that, "the quickest way to fine tone is through fine pronunciation."

We cannot think except in words, nor voice our thought without speech. Vocal utterance is thought articulate. Therefore, instead of prolonged attention to tone itself, training should be concentrated upon the uttered word. The student should aim "to sing a word rather than a tone." Correct pronunciation and beautiful tone are so interdependent as to be inseparable.

The singer and speaker require all sounds in their purity. To seek to develop the voice along the narrow limits of any single vowel or syllable, as for instance the syllable ah, is harmful. Not only is this vowel sound, as Lilli Lehmann says, "the most difficult," but the proper pronunciation of all words within the whole range of the voice is thereby impeded. Diction and tone work should therefore go hand in hand. "The way in which vowel melts into vowel and consonants float into their places largely determines the character of the tone itself." Without finished pronunciation speech and song of emotional power are impossible. Gounod, the composer, says, "Pronunciation creates eloquence." Mr. Forbes-Robertson, the English master of dramatic diction, speaking for his own profession says: "The trouble with contemporary stage elocution springs from the actor's very desire to act well. In his effort to be natural he mumbles his words as too many people do in everyday life. Much of this can be corrected by constantly bearing in mind the true value of vowels, the percussive value of consonants, and the importance of keeping up the voice until the last word is spoken. There must be, so to speak, plenty of wind in the bellows. The great thing is to have the sound come from the front of the mouth.... The actor must learn to breathe deeply from the diaphragm and to take his breath at the proper time. Too often the last word is not held up, and that is very often the important word.... Schools for acting are valuable, ... but, after all, the actors, like other folk, must be taught how to speak as children in the home, at school, and in society."

In pronunciation the words should seem to be formed by the upper lip and to come out through it. By this method it will be found easy to pronounce distinctly. The words will thus be formed outside the mouth and be readily heard, as is a person talking in front of, instead of behind, a screen. A single, intelligent trial will be sufficient to show the correctness of the statement. Thinking of the upper lip as the fashioner of the words makes speaking easy and singing a delight.

To smile while talking gives to the words a flat, silly sound, hence the corners of the mouth should be kept well forward.

THE SINGER'S SCALE OF VOWEL SOUNDS

scale

It may fasten this in mind to remember that at one end of the vowel scale is—me, at the other—you.

The teeth and lips are most closed at the extremes of this scale, and gradually open toward ah, with which vowel they are widest apart.

In the series 1-8 the tongue is highest in the centre for ee and gradually descends until it lies flat in the mouth for ah.

The upper pharynx is most closed in 1, most open in 8, and closes more and more in the descending series 7'-1'.

The lower pharynx gradually opens in the descending series 7'-1'.

The researches of Helmholtz, Koenig, Willis, Wheatstone, Appunn, Bell, and others have shown that each vowel sound has its own characteristic pitch. The Scale of Vowel Sounds given above corresponds closely to the order of resonance pitch from the highest ee to the lowest oo. In the natural resonance of the vowels ee is highest in the head, ah is midway in the scale, and oo is lowest in resonance.

LIP POSITION

Figure 2 shows the best position of the lips to give the sound of ee. Hold the under jaw without stiffness and as far from the upper teeth as is consistent with delivery of the pure sound of this vowel.

Figure 2

Figure 2.

Figure 3 shows the best position of the lips to produce the vowel oo.

Figure 3

Figure 3.

Figure 4 shows the position of the lips for the vowel sound of long o. The opening of the lips should be made as round as is the letter o. When preparing the lips to give the sound of o, the inclination is strong to drop the lower jaw; in practice, to develop action of the lips, the under jaw would better be held quite immovable. It will be found possible to produce all of the vowel sounds without any change except in the form of the opening of the lips. The vowel sound of i is an exception; for as a compound of ah and ee, the extremes of the vowel scale, it requires two distinct positions for its utterance with a movement of transition between; it is not, therefore, a good vowel for initial practice.

Figure 4

Figure 4.

Figure 5 shows that the sound aw is produced from o by raising the edge of the upper lip outward and upward, and flattening the raised portion laterally.

Figure 5

Figure 5.

Figure 6 shows the position for producing ah. It differs from the position assumed for aw in that the opening of the lips is larger, the upper lip is raised higher, the flat portion is wider, and the under lip is a little relaxed. The form of the opening to produce aw is oval; the form for ah is more nearly square.

Figure 6

Figure 6.

Figure 7 shows the under jaw relaxed, as it should be in practice, to enlarge the throat and give roundness and largeness to the tone. The use of the word hung will accomplish this end.

Figure 7

Figure 7.

The vowel sounds illustrated above are embodied in a series of vocal exercises to be found in Chapter VIII on Placing the Voice.