Excerpt from Singing
On inquiring into the causes of the generally admitted and deplored fact that the art of singing has for a long time past shown signs of deterioration, the following questions suggest themselves: -
Are good voices less numerous now than in former years?
Is there any dearth of scientific and practical treatises on the production and training of the voice?
Is there any lack of competent teachers?
I answer that there is no scarcity either of good voices, of excellent printed methods, or of thoroughly capable teachers.
Nevertheless, a highly cultivated and artistic singer is nowadays but rarely found.
What is the cause of this?
I affirm that the principal cause is found in a disposition to curtail the labour and lessen the time which perfected study absolutely demands.
While instrumental performers take it as a matter of course that they must laboriously practise for years in order to gain a complete command over the mechanical difficulties of their respective instruments, would-be singers seldom realise the fact that they must endure a training at least as long, careful, and patient in order that the human voice may be used with skill, judgment, and artistic effect.
To attain this result it is necessary that both professor and student should make up their minds to begin at the beginning, and thoroughly to master each of the difficulties which successively present themselves in a systematic course of study.
The simple, fundamental principles of the only true art of emitting and fixing the voice in singing are most difficult both to teach and to acquire; but they are vitally important, because to neglect them at the. outset is necessarily to impair the beauty, purity, and resonance of the vocal tones.
These primary rules I shall endeavour to explain in concise and intelligible language, purposely avoiding: the use of diagrams and of technical expressions which would require special scientific knowledge on the part of the reader, and be, moreover, incompatible with the modest aims and proportions of a primer.
All who are competent to teach the art of producing the voice must necessarily have an exact knowledge; of the anatomy and physiology of the vocal organs; but such knowledge is not indispensable to the vocalist. To those who may desire to study the scientific side of the subject more profoundly, I recommend a careful! perusal of the "Anatomical Description of the Vocal Organs," by Dr. Louis Mandl, of Paris, a translation of which, by his courteous permission, will be found in the Appendix.
Here my object is simply to lay down a clearly defined system of practice, such as will help to overcome the mechanical difficulties of voice-production and management.
I shall address the student in the plain and practical style which long experience has taught me to adopt with my pupils, and I trust that the title of this little book will be sufficient to absolve me from the need of offering an apology for the simplicity of its language.
At the same time, it must be distinctly understood that no written theories on singing can presume to take the place of oral tuition.
About the Publisher
Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com
This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works. Это и многое другое вы найдете в книге Singing (Classic Reprint)