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 COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS 
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 Reference Library 
 
 Given by 
 
The Voice in Singing 
 
THE 
 
 7oice in Singing 
 
 TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN OF 
 
 EMMA SEILER 
 
 Membeb op the American Philosophical Soc»t\ 
 
 A NEW EDITION 
 REVISED AND ENLARGED 
 
 PHILADELPHIA: 
 
 J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY 
 1900 
 

 Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1872, by 
 
 J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO., 
 In the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington. 
 
 tsoo 
 
 Lippincott's Frb(I> 
 Philadelphia. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAQI 
 
 Translator's Preface 7 
 
 Introduction 11 
 
 I Vocal Music 15 
 
 II Physiological so 
 
 III Physical 85 
 
 IV ^Esthetic 143 
 
 Appendix i 185 
 
 1» 5 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2010 with funding from 
 Columbia University Libraries 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/voiceinsingingOOseil 
 
TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE 
 
 The translator of this book, desirous, in com- 
 mon with other friends of its author, that her 
 claims as a lady of rare scientific attainments 
 should be recognized in this country, where she 
 has recently taken up her abode, has obtained her 
 consent to the publication of the following testi- 
 monials to her position in her own country from 
 gentlemen of the highest eminence in science : 
 
 [translated] 
 
 Mad. Emiia Seiler has dwelt for a long time here in 
 Heidelberg, and given instruction in singing. She has 
 won the reputation of a very careful, skilled and learned 
 teacher, possessing a fine ear and cultivated taste. 
 While engaged on my book, u Die Lehre von den 
 Tonempjindungen, cfcc.," I had the honor of becom- 
 ing acquainted with Mad. Seiler, and of being assisted 
 by her in my essay upon the formation of the vowel 
 tones and the registers of the female voice. I have 
 
 r 
 
8 TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE 
 
 thus had an opportunity of knowing the delicacy of 
 her musical ear and her ability to master the more 
 difficult and abstract parts of the theory of music. 
 
 I have pleasure in bearing this testimony to her 
 WDrth, in the hope of securing for her the confidence 
 and the encouragement of those who are interested 
 in the scientific culture of music, and who know how 
 desirable it is that an instructress in the art of singing 
 should be possessed of scientific knowledge, a fine ear, 
 and a cultivated taste. 
 
 (Signed) Dr. H. Helmholtz, 
 
 Prof, of Physiology, Member of the Acade- 
 mies and Royal Societies of London, 
 Edinburgh, Amsterdam, Stockholm, 
 Berlin, Vienna, Munich, Gbttingen. 
 Heidelberg, Aug. 5, 1866 
 
 [translated] 
 
 Mad. E. Seiler has made for herself an honorable 
 name in Germany, not only as a practical teacher of 
 singing, but also by her valuable investigations in regard 
 to the culture of the musical voice. By her own ana- 
 tomical studies she has acquired a thorough knowledge 
 of the vocal organs, and by means of the laryngoscope 
 has advanced, in the way first trodden by Garcia, to the 
 establishment of the conditions of the formation of the 
 voice. We owe to her a more exact knowledge of the po- 
 sition of the larynx, and of its parts in the production of 
 the several registers of the human voice ; and she appears 
 especially to have brought to a final and satisfactory 
 decision the much-vexed question respecting the forma- 
 
TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE 9 
 
 tion of the so-called fistel tones (head tones). She has 
 been associated with the best powers possessed by Ger- 
 many in the department of the theory of music and 
 physiological acoustics, standing by the side of the 
 celebrated physiologist, Helmholtz, while he was engaged 
 in his physiologico-acoustic work upon the generation of 
 the vowels and the nature of harmony. 
 
 (Signed) E. du Bois-Reymond, 
 
 Professor of Physiology in the Royal University of Berlin. 
 Berlin, July 17, 1866 
 
 In a letter, written in English, addressed to 
 the President and Members of the American 
 Philosophical Society, Professor du Bois-Rey- 
 mond introduces Mrs. Seiler (italicizing the 
 words) " as a lady of truly remarkable scientific 
 attainments." "Prompted," he states, "by a 
 spirit of philosophical inquiry, not frequently 
 met with in her sex, she has made herself en- 
 tirely acquainted with all the facts and theories 
 concerning the production of the human voice. 
 She has entered, deeper probably than any one 
 else before her, into the study of the problem of 
 the different registers of the human voice. Most 
 of her results she has published in a pamphlet 
 under the title: Altes und Neues iiber die Aus- 
 
 A* 
 
10 TRANSLATORS PREFACE 
 
 bildung des Gesangorganes (Leipzig, 1861), which 
 has received the approbation of both the physio- 
 logists and the singing masters of this country." 
 
 The translator takes the opportunity to state 
 that, as he makes no pretensions to any know- 
 ledge either of the science or of the art of 
 music, his translation has been carefully revised 
 by persons entirely competent to correct its 
 
 musical phraseology. 
 
 W. H. F. 
 
 Philadelphia, December, 1867 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 In giving to the public these fruits of years of 
 earnest labor, and in attempting to bring into 
 harmony things which have always been treated 
 separately, the Science and the Art of Singing, it 
 seems necessary that I should state the reasons that 
 prompted me to this study. 
 
 As I had for many years the advantage of the 
 best tuition, both German and Italian, in the Art 
 of Singing, and had often sung with favor in con- 
 certs, I was led to believe myself qualified to become 
 a teacher of this art. But hardly had I undertaken 
 the office before I felt that, while I was able to 
 teach my pupils to execute pieces of music with 
 tolerable accuracy and with the appropriate ex- 
 pression, I was wanting in the knowledge of any 
 sure starting-point, any sound principle, from which 
 to proceed in the special culture of any individual 
 voice. In order to obtain the knowledge which thus 
 appeared to be requisite in a teacher of vocal 
 
 music, I examined the best schools of singing; and 
 
 11 
 
1 2 INTB OD UCTION 
 
 when I learned nothing from them that I did not 
 already know, I sought the most celebrated teachers 
 of singing to learn what was wanting. But what 
 one teacher announced to me as a rule was usually 
 rejected by another. Every teacher had his own 
 peculiar system of instruction. No one could give 
 me any definite reasons therefor, and the best 
 assured me that so exact a method as I sought did 
 not exist, and that every teacher must find his own 
 way through his own experience. In such a state 
 of darkness and uncertainty, to undertake to in- 
 struct others appeared to me a manifest wrong, for 
 in no branch of instruction can the ignorance of 
 the teacher do greater injury than in the teaching 
 of vocal music. This I unhappily learned from my 
 own personal experience, when, under the tuition of 
 a most eminent teacher, I entirely lost my voice, 
 whereby the embarrassment I was under, so far 
 from being diminished, was only increased. After 
 this misfortune I studied under Frederick WieJc, 
 in Dresden (the father and instructor of Clara 
 Schumann), in order to become a teacher on the 
 piano. But while I thus devoted myself to this 
 branch of teaching exclusively, it became from that 
 time the aim and effort of my life to obtain such a 
 knowledge of the human voice as is indispensable to 
 a natural and healthy development of its beautiful 
 powers 
 
INTR OD UCTION 13 
 
 I availed myself of every opportunity to hear 
 Jenny Lind, who was then dwelling in Dresden, and 
 to learn all that I could from her. I likewise hoped, 
 by a protracted abode in Italy, the land of song, to 
 attain the fulfilment of my wishes; but, beyond 
 certain practical advantages, I gathered there no 
 sure and radical knowledge. In the French method 
 of instruction, now so popular, I found the same su- 
 perficiality and uncertainty that existed everywhere 
 else. But the more deeply I was impressed with 
 this state of things, and the more fully I became 
 aware of the injurious and trying consequences of 
 the method of teaching followed at the present day, 
 the more earnestly was I impelled to press onward 
 in search of light and clearness in this dim domain. 
 
 Convinced that only by the way of scientific inves- 
 tigation the desired end could be reached, I sought 
 the counsel of Prof. Helmholtz, in Heidelberg. This 
 distinguished man was then engaged in a scientific 
 inquiry into the natural laws lying at the basis of 
 musical sounds. Prof. Helmholtz permitted me to 
 take part in his investigations, and at his kind sug- 
 gestion I attempted by myself, by means of the 
 laryngoscope, to observe the physiological processes 
 that go on in the larynx during the production of 
 different tones. My special thanks are due to him 
 that now, with a more thorough knowledge of the 
 human voice, I can give instruction in singing with- 
 
 2 
 
14 INTR OD TJCTION 
 
 out the fear of doing any injury. My thanks are 
 due in a like manner to Prof, du Bois-Beymond, in 
 Berlin, who, at a later period, also gave me his 
 friendly help in my studies. 
 
 In 1861 I published a part of my investigations in 
 Germany, where they found acknowledgment and 
 favor. That little work is contained in the follow- 
 ing pages, together with some account of the dis- 
 coveries of Professor Helmholtz relating to the human 
 voice, and of their practical application to the edu- 
 cation of the voice in singing. 
 
 The practical sense of the American people enables 
 them, above all others, to appreciate the worth of 
 every discovery and of every advance. And there- 
 fore it is my earnest hope that the publication of 
 these investigations in this country may help to 
 elevate and improve the Art of Singing. 
 
The Voice in Singing 
 
 i 
 
 I 
 
 VOCAL MUSIC 
 
 ITS RISE, DEVELOPMENT AND DECLINE 
 
 T is a matter of complaint among all persons 
 of good taste, who take an intelligent interest 
 in art, and especially in music, that fine singers 
 are becoming more and more rare, while formerly 
 there appears never to have been any lack of 
 men and women eminent in this art. The 
 complaint seems not altogether without reason, 
 when we revert to that rich summer-time of 
 song, not yet lying very far behind us, in the 
 last half of the last century, and compare it 
 with the present. The retrospect shows us 
 plainly that the art of singing has descended 
 from its former high estate, and is now in a 
 condition of decline. When we consider what 
 is told us in the historical works of Forkel, 
 Burney, Kiesewetter, Br&ndel and others, and 
 
 15 
 
16 TEE VOICE IN SINGING 
 
 compare it with our present poverty in good 
 voices and skilful artists, we are struck with 
 the multitude of fine voices then heard, with 
 their remarkable fulness of tone, as well as 
 with the considerable number of singers — male 
 and female — appearing at the same time. 
 
 We first recall to mind the last great artists 
 of that time, whose names are familiar to us be- 
 cause they appeared in public after the beginning 
 of the present century: — Catalani, who preserved 
 to extreme old age the melody and enormous 
 power of her voice; Malibran, Sontag, Vesper- 
 mann, &c. ; the men singers, Rubini, Tamburirvi, 
 Lablache, and others; and, still farther back, 
 Mara, whose voice had a compass, with equal 
 fulness of tone, of three octaves, and who pos- 
 sessed such a power of musical utterance that she 
 imitated within the compass of her voice the 
 most difficult passages of the violin and flute 
 with perfect facility. Then comes the artiste 
 Ajugara Bastardetta, in Parma, who executed 
 with purity and distinctness the most difficult 
 
 passages from si A . to si || , and rou- 
 
 lades with successive trills, with enchanting har- 
 
THE VOICE IN SINGING 17 
 
 mony; and the old Italian singing-masters, who 
 sang and taught with an art which we should 
 scarcely hold possible, were it not for the unani- 
 mous testimony of their contemporaries. There 
 were Porpora and his pupil Perugia, who sang two 
 full octaves, with successive trills up and down 
 id one breath, and executed with perfect exact- 
 ness all the tones of the chromatic scale without 
 an accompaniment ; and Farinelli, who to his lat- 
 est age preserved his wonderfully beautiful voice. 
 Of him it is related, among other things, that on 
 one occasion he competed with a trumpeter, who 
 accompanied him in an aria. After both had 
 several times dwelt on notes in which each 
 sought to excel the other in power and duration, 
 they prolonged a note with a double trill in 
 thirds, which they continued until both seemed 
 to be exhausted. At last the trumpeter gave 
 up, entirely out of breath, while Farinelli, 
 without taking breath, prolonged the note with 
 renewed volume of sound, trilling and ending, 
 finally, with the most difficult of roulades. 
 Pistochi and Bernucchi rivalled Farinelli. The 
 latter, although he had received from nature a 
 refractory voice of little excellence, nevertheless 
 
 succeeded in cultivating it so highly that he 
 2* 
 
18 TEE VOICE IN SINGING 
 
 became one of the most distinguished artists 
 of his day, called by Handel and Graun, " The 
 King of Singers." 
 
 It is impossible to mention by name all the 
 many singers, male and female, who won ap- 
 plause and renown in the beginning and in the 
 middle of the last century. Almost every Eu- 
 ropean state was furnished with most excellent 
 operas, and troops of artists, men and women, 
 with voices of the highest cultivation, nocked 
 thither. Even in the streets and inns and other 
 places in Italy, where elsewhere we are accus- 
 tomed to seek only music of the lowest kind, 
 one could then hear the most artistic vocal 
 music, such as was found in the churches, con- 
 cert-saloons and theatres of Germany and France. 
 
 It appears that far greater demands were made 
 upon singers then than now-a-days. At least, 
 history celebrates, together with the great vocal 
 flexibility of the earlier singers, the measured 
 beauty of their singing, the noble tone, the 
 thoroughly cultivated delivery, by which they 
 showed themselves true artists, and produced 
 upon their hearers effects almost miraculous. 
 
 On the other hand, how sad is the condition 
 of vocal music in our time ! How few artisti- 
 
THE VOICE IN SINGING 19 
 
 cally cultivated voices are there ! And the few 
 that there are, how soon are they used up and 
 lost ! Artists like IAnd, and more recently Tre- 
 bellij are exceptions to be made. 
 
 Mediocre talent is now often sought, and re- 
 warded far beyond its desert. One is often 
 tempted to think that the public at large has 
 wellnigh lost all capacity of judgment, when he 
 witnesses the representation of one of our operas. 
 Let a singer, male or female, only drawl the 
 notes sentimentally one into another, execute a 
 tremulo upon prolonged notes, introduce very 
 often the softest piano and just where it is en- 
 tirely out of place, growl out the lowest notes in 
 the roughest timbre, and scream out the high 
 notes lustily, and he or she may reckon with cer- 
 tainty upon the greatest applause. In fact, we 
 have become so easily pleased that even an im- 
 pure execution is suffered to pass without com- 
 ment. Let the personal appearance of the singer 
 only be handsome and prepossessing, he need 
 trouble himself little about his art in order to 
 win the favor of the public. This decline of the 
 art of singing is usually ascribed to the want of 
 good voices, and this poverty of voices to our 
 altered modes of living. To me it appears as 
 
20 TEE VOICE IN SINGING 
 
 the natural consequence of the whole manner 
 and way in which the art of singing has been 
 historically developed since its earlier high state 
 of perfection. 
 
 The human voice is, of all instruments, the 
 most natural, the most perfect, the most intimate 
 iq its relation to us, as, for the use of it, we have 
 a talent or faculty innate, which, in the case 
 of other instruments, can only be laboriously 
 acquired, to say nothing of the fact that these 
 instruments are first to be invented and put 
 together. Hence vocal music appears to have 
 been almost the only music among the Greeks, 
 and the rude instruments then in use served 
 merely for an accompaniment. The history of 
 our so-called Western music, which dates no far- 
 ther back than the fourth century after Christ, 
 tells us hardly anything else than of vocal musi- 
 cians and of their compositions for concerted and 
 chorus singing. 
 
 Our art, only slowly developing itself from 
 those earliest times, was cherished, mainly in 
 Italy, for the sole purpose of exalting divine 
 worship. We have, at least, no account of any 
 secular art of music in those days. As yet un- 
 acquainted with harmony, the only singing was 
 
THE VOICE IN SINGING 21 
 
 in unison, as was the custom, at an earlier pe- 
 riod, among the Greeks ; for not until the tenth 
 century of the Christian era was it attempted, 
 and then by a Flemish monk (Hukbaldus), to 
 harmonize several and different notes ; thus was 
 invented and founded our harmony, whose ex- 
 ponent was the organ.* 
 
 From that time forward, history makes men- 
 tion of many persons who labored worthily, now 
 more and now less, to create a theory of music, 
 seeking to found a system of harmony upon that 
 rude beginning, and by degrees to improve it. 
 In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries music 
 burst forth into blossom in the Netherlands, 
 and thenceforth rose steadily in excellence, when 
 also it began to branch out into the excesses of 
 counterpoint. The fame of the Netherlands 
 soon spread over all the civilized countries of 
 Europe. The artists of the Netherlands were 
 invited upon the most favorable terms to Italy, 
 France, Spain, and Germany, and thus the pro- 
 gress of music spread over all these countries 
 almost pari passu. For two hundred years the 
 
 * Those who are interested in the history of music are 
 referred to the historical works already mentioned for s 
 fuller account of what is only aRuded to above. 
 
22 THE VOICE IN SINGING 
 
 Netherlands maintained the reputation of the 
 best and highest culture in vocal music, and not 
 until the middle of the sixteenth century did 
 there appear in Italy and Germany artists who 
 attained to a like renown. Up to that time pre- 
 judice denied to the Italians all talent for music, 
 as it has ever since exaggerated their claims in 
 this respect. Kiesewetter remarks, in his History 
 of Music, that, although the Netherlands in Italy 
 no longer had the monopoly, they neverthe- 
 less always maintained the supremacy in music. 
 Climate and language were, however, so favor- 
 able to vocal music in Italy that it soon found 
 there its peculiar home, and though theoretical 
 knowledge of music was advanced by the earlier 
 singers, now richness and power of voice were 
 also attained. As it had previously been with the 
 Netherlander, so it now became with the Italians. 
 They were drawn to all countries in which there 
 was any love of art ; and they soon won that 
 supremacy in music which they maintained until 
 the last century. Until the latter part of 
 the sixteenth century, good musicians were de- 
 voted almost exclusively to church music, and 
 held it beneath their dignity to take part in 
 music of any other kind. All but church music 
 
THE VOICE IN SINGING 23 
 
 they left to the minstrels and strolling singers, 
 who traveled over the country from place to 
 place, and in different lands were styled minstrehy 
 minnesdnger and trovatori. They mostly sung 
 love-songs, which they often extemporized in 
 word and tune, finding place and popularity on 
 all festive occasions. But under the impulse 
 which music began to feel, the desire among the 
 educated class to revive the old Greek drama, 
 which just at that period had come to be well 
 known, became more and more urgent. Imbued 
 with the spirit of that age, the whole tendency 
 of which was to exalt the ancient classic poets, 
 a circle of men of science and culture from the 
 higher classes gave themselves to the task of 
 producing a style of music such as the Greeks 
 must have had in the representation of their 
 dramas. In the mansion of Count Bardi, in 
 Florence, then the centre of union for all who 
 had any claims to cultivation, music was first 
 arranged for a single voice by a dilettante, the 
 father of the renowned Galileo. 
 
 This attempt met with applause and imitation 
 among the most distinguished singers of the 
 time, who thenceforth turned their attention also 
 to secular music. It thus came about that, 
 
24 THE VOICE IN SINGING 
 
 towards the end of the sixteenth century, on 
 festal occasions in Italy, and even earlier in 
 France^ theatrical representations were given 
 with vocal music. This music was, however, 
 always composed in the form of the chorus, and 
 the leading voice alone was represented by a 
 singer; the other voices were represented by 
 instruments. 
 
 Such was the beginning of solo singing, which, 
 growing ever more in public favor, soon came to 
 be introduced into the most solemn church 
 music; dramatic representations, religious and 
 secular, grew very popular, and were the fore- 
 runners of the opera and oratorio, the richest 
 inventions of the sixteenth century. 
 
 Up to this time, a singer of sound musical 
 culture sufficed for chorus singing, but by the in- 
 troduction of solo singing a more complete educa- 
 tion of the organ of singing became a necessity. 
 Indeed, as early as the middle of the fifteenth 
 century there existed in Rome and Milan 
 schools of music and professorships for the 
 education of singers ; but with the introduc- 
 tion and diffusion of solo singing similar con- 
 servatories were established in nearly all the 
 more considerable cities of Italy, and all the 
 
THE VOICE IN SINGING 25 
 
 energies of the musician were devoted to the 
 highest possible culture of the voice. 
 
 But, with solo singing, greater attention was 
 paid to instruments, which were already in those 
 days constructed with the greatest care and skill. 
 With the higher cultivation of single voices, 
 chorus singing also became richer in harmony 
 and embellishment, but as, in vocal music, words 
 accompany the music, the expression of the music 
 becomes more definite and intelligible for the 
 hearer, and thus with the higher cultivation of 
 vocal music, and by means of it, even our whole 
 modern system of harmony has been developed. 
 
 Women were, by ecclesiastical law, excluded 
 from participation in church music, and as the 
 voices of boys could be used only for a few 
 years, they did not suffice to meet the ever- 
 increasing demands of church music. At first 
 it was attempted to supply the place of the so- 
 pranists and contraltists with so-called falsettists. 
 As, however, these substitutes proved insufficient, 
 the soprano and contralto of boys were sought 
 to be preserved in men. And so, in 1625, 
 appeared the first male sopranist in the Papal 
 chapel in Rome. Such sopranists and contralt- 
 ists suon appeared in great numbers, and as their 
 
26 THE VOICE IN SINGING 
 
 organs of singing continued soft and tender as 
 those of women, and their compass was the 
 same, to them the education of female voices 
 was given over exclusively. Thenceforth women 
 became the richest ornament of the opera, then 
 blooming into beauty. But only when the eccle- 
 siastical law forbidding women to take part in 
 church music was annulled, did women begin, 
 in the middle of the last century, to take the 
 place of those male sopranists and contraltists. 
 
 It thus became unnecessary to secure longer 
 duration to the voices of boys, especially as these 
 were never able to attain to the peculiar grace 
 of the female voice, and so this class of singers 
 gradually died out. But still in the first half 
 of the present century there were many of them 
 living and sought for as teachers of singing. 
 To the disappearance of this kind of singers, 
 Rossini thinks the decline of vocal art is to be 
 mainly ascribed. 
 
 The art of singing rose in the course of the 
 seventeenth century to an extraordinary height 
 of cultivation, and was diffused more and more 
 by means of the opera, then blooming, as we have 
 said, into beauty. But in that brilliant spring- 
 time of vocal art, it was not mere externals, 
 
TEE VOICE IN SINGING 27 
 
 such as beauty of tone, flexibility, etc., that were 
 striven for, but, above all, the correct expres- 
 sion of the feeling intended in the composition 
 This rendered necessary to the singer the most 
 thorough aesthetic culture, going hand in hand 
 with the culture of the vocal organ. For oniy 
 thus could he succeed in acting upon the souls 
 of his hearers, in moving them and carrying 
 them along with him in the emotions which 
 the music awakened in his own mind. The 
 dramatic singer was now strongly tempted to 
 neglect the externals of his art for the aesthetic, 
 purely inward conception of the music. Cer- 
 tain, at least, it is that to the neglect of the 
 training of the voice (Tonbildung), and to the 
 style of writing of our modern composers — a 
 style unsuited to the art of singing, and look- 
 ing only to its spiritual element — the decline of 
 this art is in part to be traced. Mannstein says 
 that, with the disappearance of those great mas- 
 ters, power and beauty of tone have fallen more 
 and more into contempt, and at the present day 
 it is scarcely known what is meant by them. 
 True it is, that a beautiful tone of voice (Ge- 
 sangston), which must be considered the foun- 
 dation and first requisition of fine singing, is 
 
28 THE VOICE IN SINGING 
 
 more and more rare among our singers, male 
 and female, and yet it is just as important in 
 music as perfect form in the creations of the 
 sculptor. 
 
 But the complete technical education of the 
 earlier singers misled many of them into various 
 unnatural artifices, in order to obtain notice 
 and distinction. The applause of the public 
 caused such trickeries to become the fashion 
 among artists. The multitude, accustomed to 
 such effects, began to mistake them for art. By 
 the gradual disappearance of the male sopranists, 
 instruction in singing fell into the hands of tenor 
 singers, who usually cultivated the female voice in 
 accordance with their own voices, which could not 
 be otherwise than injurious in the uncertainty ex- 
 isting as to the limits in compass and the difference 
 between the male and female organs of voice. 
 
 Thus it has come to pass that people are now 
 apt to imagine that they know all that is to be 
 known ; and as teaching in singing is generally 
 best paid, the office has been undertaken, without 
 the slightest apparent self-distrust, by many per- 
 sons who have not the slightest idea what thorough 
 acquaintance with the organs of singing, what com- 
 prehensive knowledge of all the departments of 
 
THE VOICE IN SINGING 29 
 
 music and what aesthetic and general culture,, 
 the teacher of singing requires. Very few per- 
 sons indeed clearly understand what is meant by 
 the education of a voice, and what high quali- 
 fications both teacher and pupil always require. 
 The idea, for instance, is very prevalent that 
 every musician, whatever may be the branch of 
 music to which he is devoted, and especially 
 every singer, is qualified to give instruction in 
 singing. And therefore a dilettanteism without 
 precedent has taken the place of all real artistic 
 endeavors. Be this, however, as it may, such is 
 the wide diffusion and popularity of music be- 
 yond all the other arts, that the want of singers 
 artistically educated, and consequently also of a 
 recognized sound method of instruction, becomes 
 more and more urgent; and although we have 
 in these times distinguished singers, male and 
 female, as well as skilful teachers, yet the 
 number is very small and by no means equal 
 to the demand. 
 
 But now, as every evil, as soon as it is felt to 
 be such, calls forth the means of its removal, 
 already in various ways attempts are making 
 in the department of the Art of Singing to restore 
 it as perfectly a~ possible to its former high 
 
 3* 
 
30 THE VOICE IN SINGING. 
 
 position, and if possible to elevate it to a 
 yet higher state. It was natural that the 
 attempt should, first of all, be made to revive 
 the old Italian method of instruction, and that, 
 by strict adherence in everything to what has 
 come down to us by tradition, we should hope 
 for deliverance and salvation; for to the Italians 
 mainly vocal music was indebted for its chief 
 glory. Without considering in what a sadly 
 superficial way music — and vocal music espe- 
 cially — is now treated in Italy, many have given 
 in to the erroneous idea that any Italian who 
 can sing anything must know how to educate 
 a voice. Thus many incompetent Italians have 
 become popular teachers in other countries. 
 
 The old Italian method of instruction, to 
 which vocal music owed its high condition, was 
 purely empirical, i. e. the old singing masters 
 taught only according to a sound and just feel- 
 ing for the beautiful, guided by that faculty of 
 acute observation, which enabled them to dis- 
 tinguish what belongs to nature. Their pupils 
 learned by imitation, as children learn then 
 mother tongue, without troubling themselves 
 about rules. But after the true and natural 
 way has once been forsaken, and for so long a 
 
TEE VOICE IN SINGING 31 
 
 period only the false and the unnatural has 
 been heard and taught, it seems almost impos- 
 sible by empiricism alone to restore the old 
 and proper method of teaching. "With our 
 higher degree of culture, men and things have 
 greatly changed. Our feeling is no longer suf- 
 ficiently simple and natural to distinguish the 
 true without the help of scientific principles. 
 
 But science has already done much to assist 
 the formation of musical forms of art. Mathe- 
 matics and physics have established the princi- 
 pal laws of sound and the processes of sound, 
 in accordance with which our musical instru- 
 ments are now constructed. Philosophical in- 
 quirers have succeeded also in discovering the 
 eternal and impregnable laws of Nature upon 
 which the mutual influences of melody, harmony 
 and rhythm depend, and in thus giving to com- 
 position fixed forms and laws which no one ven- 
 tures to question. And more recently Professor 
 Helmholtz, in his great work, "Die Lehre von 
 den Tonempjindungen," has given to music of 
 all kinds a scientific ground and basis. But for 
 the culture of the human voice in singing 
 science has as yet furnished only a few lights. 
 The well-known experiments of Johannes Mill- 
 
32 THE VOICE IN SINGING 
 
 ler upon the larynx gave us all that was known, 
 until very recently, respecting the functions of 
 the organ of singing. Many singing masters 
 have sought to found their methods of instruc- 
 tion upon these observations on the larynx, at 
 the same time putting forth the boldest conjec- 
 tures in regard to the functions of the organ 
 of singing in the living subject. But they 
 have thus ruined more fine voices than those 
 teachers who, without reference to the formation 
 of the voice, only correct the musical faults of 
 their pupils, and for the rest let them sing as 
 they please. 
 
 This superficial treatment of science, and the 
 unfortunate results of its application, have in- 
 jured the art of singing more than benefited it, 
 and created a prejudice against all scientific 
 investigations in this direction among the most 
 distinguished artists and teachers, as well as 
 among those who take an intelligent interest 
 in this department of music. It is a pretty 
 common opinion that science can do little for 
 the improvement of music, and nothing for the 
 culture and preservation of the voice in sing- 
 ing. And the habit of regarding science and 
 art as opposed to each other renders it extremely 
 
THE VOICE IN SINGING 33 
 
 difficult to secure a hearing for the results of 
 thorough scientific inquiry in this direction. 
 
 Science itself admits that it can neither cre- 
 ate artistic talent, nor supply the place of it, 
 but only furnish it with aids. Besides, with 
 the whole inner nature of music, no forms of 
 thought {reflection) have anything to do. It has 
 " a reason above reason." This art transmits to 
 us in sound the expression of emotions as they 
 rise in the human soul and connect themselves 
 one with another. It is the revelation of our 
 inmost, life in its tenderest and finest processes, 
 and is therefore the most ideal of the arts. It 
 appeals directly to our consciousness. As a 
 sense of the divine dwells in every nation, in 
 every human being, and is impelled to form 
 for itself a religious cultus, so we find among 
 all nations the need of music dwelling as deeply 
 in human nature. The most uncivilized tribes 
 celebrate their festivals with songs as the ex- 
 pression of their devotion or joy, and the culti- 
 vated nations of ancient times, like the Greeks, 
 cherished music as the ethereal vehicle of theii 
 poetry, and regarded it as the chief aid in the 
 culture of the soul. 
 
 But together with its purely internal character, 
 
 B* 
 
34 THE VOICE IN SINGING 
 
 music has yet another and formal side, for if 
 our ail consisted only in the aesthetic feeling, 
 and in representing this feeling, every person 
 of culture, possessing the right feeling, would 
 be able to sing, just as he understands how to 
 read intelligibly. 
 
 Everything spiritual, everything ideal, as soon 
 is it is to be made present to the perceptions 
 of others, requires a form which, in its mate- 
 rial as well as in its structure, may be more 
 or less perfect, but it can never otherwise than 
 submit to those eternal laws to which all that 
 lives, all that comes within the sphere of our 
 perceptions, is subject. To discover and estab- 
 lish the natural laws which lie at the basis of 
 all our forms of art is the office of science ; to 
 fashion and control these forms and animate 
 them with a soul is the task of art. In sing- 
 ing, the art consists in tones beautiful and 
 sonorous, and fitted for the expression of every 
 variation of feeling. To set forth the natural 
 laws by which these tones are produced is the 
 business of physiology and physics. 
 
 Thus is there not only an cesthetical side to 
 the art of singing, but a physiological and a 
 physical side also, without an exact knowledge, 
 
THE VOICE IN SINGING 35 
 
 appreciation, observance, and study of which, 
 what is hurtful cannot be discerned and avoided; 
 and no true culture of art, and consequently no 
 progress in singing, is possible. 
 
 In the physiological view of vocal art, we have 
 to do with the quality and strength of the organ 
 of singing in the act of uttering sound, and 
 under the variations of sound that take place 
 in certain tones (the register being transcended). 
 
 By the physical side is to be understood the 
 correct use and skilful management of the air 
 flowing from the lungs through the windpipe, and 
 brought into vibration by the vocal chords in the 
 larynx. 
 
 But the aesthetics of vocal art, and the spir- 
 itual inspiration of the form (of the sound), 
 comprise the whole domain of music and poetic 
 beauty. 
 
II 
 
 PHYSIOLOGICAL VIEW 
 
 FORMATION OF SOUND BY THE ORGAN OF THE 
 HUMAN VOICE 
 
 THE great physiologist, Johannes Muller, 
 fastened a larynx, which he had cut out 
 with the whole trachea belonging to it, to a 
 board, and, stretching the vocal chords by a weight 
 that could be increased or diminished at pleasure, 
 caused vibrations in it by blowing through the 
 trachea with a pair of bellows, or through a tube 
 with his own breath. In this way he succeeded 
 in producing almost all the tones of the human 
 voice, and even some which are beyond the com- 
 pass of this organ. 
 
 He distinguished two different kinds of tones, 
 to which he gave the names of the chest register 
 and the falsetto register. The chest tones were 
 produced when the vocal ligaments, slackly 
 stretched, were made to vibrate easily in their 
 whole breadth; the falsetto tones came merely 
 
 36 
 
THE VOICE IN SINGING 37 
 
 through the vibration of the fine inner edges 
 of the vocal chords when they were more tightly 
 stretched. At a moderate stretching of the 
 vocal chords, it depended upon the manner 
 of blowing whether a sound corresponding to 
 the chest voice or to the falsetto were produced, 
 or whether it were higher or lower for several 
 tones, often for a whole octave. A series of 
 tones of more than two octaves could thus 
 be produced in the same larynx, with, how- 
 ever, gaps and places at which the vocal chords, 
 instead of being stretched gradually, have to be 
 stretched at once very strongly, in order thai the 
 succeeding higher half tone may be reached. Such 
 a place Miiller indicates from c to c#, or d 
 
 to dj l4\) r r~-i i , with the remark that it 
 
 diners in different larynxes, being in some higher 
 and in some lower. But in order to render 
 practicable the proper stretching of the ex- 
 sected larynx, muscles and membranes have 
 to be cut, which sufficiently proves that the 
 functions of the organ of singing in the liv- 
 ing must be differently carried on. 
 
 Dr. Merhely in Leipzig, has continued these 
 experiments, and by means of a peculiar con- 
 
38 THE VOICE IN SINGING 
 
 trivance has succeeded in producing all the 
 tones in the exsected larynx, without mutilat- 
 ing it. But these investigations, interesting 
 as they are, throw no certain light upon the 
 formation of sound by the vocal organ in the 
 living. 
 
 The celebrated singing master, Manuel Garcia, 
 now living in London, was the first to adopt 
 the right mode of scientific inquiry in this 
 department, with favorable results. He under- 
 took to apply the laryngoscope (previously 
 invented by the Englishman, IAston) to the 
 larynx in the act of singing. The interest- 
 ing results of these observations were pub- 
 lished by him in the Philosophical Mag. and 
 Journal of Science, vol. x. p. 218. While 
 men of science immediately repeated Garcia's 
 experiments and applied them with the great- 
 est advantage to pathological purposes, they 
 were received with distrust, scarcely noticed, 
 and in many instances entirely rejected, by 
 teachers of vocal music. The few who at- 
 tempted to follow the path thus opened soon 
 gave it up, because they lacked either patience 
 or the anatomical knowledge necessary to such 
 investigations. 
 
THE VOICE IN SINGING 39 
 
 The laryngoscope is well known among medi- 
 cal men. It is a small plane mirror of glass or 
 metal, having a long handle. Before it is intro- 
 duced into the throat, it is first warmed, to pre- 
 vent its becoming dimmed. The reflecting sur- 
 face of this instrument is directed downwards 
 and forwards, so that it receives the reflection 
 caught from a concave mirror, and presents to 
 the eye of the observer a picture of the illu- 
 minated larynx. In using it upon oneself, there 
 is need of a second mirror, which must be so 
 held that the image may be seen in the laryn- 
 goscope. 
 
 The use of the laryngoscope requires in the 
 observer a certain adroitness and long-continued 
 practice — almost more in the observer than in 
 the subject of observation. In self-observation 
 one must first learn to overcome the irritation 
 always caused at the first by the contact of the 
 mirror with the back of the throat. Once 
 accustomed to the contact, one soon succeeds in 
 obtaining a sight of the larynx, sufficient for the 
 most part for pathological purposes. But it 
 requires long practice before one can control 
 those organs, usually not immediately submissive 
 to the will, and raise the epiglottis, so as to be 
 
40 THE VOICE IN SINGING 
 
 able to see into the whole larynx. But this 
 is absolutely indispensable, in the observation 
 of the formation of sound, to the attainment of 
 any substantial results. Garcia says himself 
 that one-third of the glottis was always hidden 
 from him by the epiglottis, and to this circum- 
 stance is the unsatisfactory character of his 
 observations to be ascribed. But even when, 
 after long practice, one is able at last to bring 
 the whole glottis into view, this is not by any 
 means enough. Not until observation has been 
 so long continued that all the movements of the 
 vocal organ are normal, notwithstanding the 
 unnatural drawing back of the epiglottis, and 
 not until the process that goes on is found again 
 and again to be always the same, can it be 
 recognized as fact. 
 
 As Garcia is the most eminent of singing 
 masters now living, and as he has sought, 
 solely in the interest of vocal music, to ascer- 
 tain the mechanism by which sound is formed, 
 and as his observations have been confirmed 
 by men of science, I give them here in his 
 own words. 
 
 In order that what follows may be better 
 
TEE VOICE IN SINGING 41 
 
 understood by those unacquainted with anat- 
 omy, a brief anatomical description of the vocal 
 organ will be found in an Appendix to the 
 present work. 
 
 OBSERVATIONS WITH THE LARYNGOSCOPE 
 
 BY MANUEL GARCIA 
 
 "At the moment when the person draws a 
 deep breath, the epiglottis being raised, we are 
 able to see the following series of movements : 
 the arytenoid cartilages become separated by a 
 very free lateral movement; the superior liga- 
 ments are placed against the ventricles; the 
 inferior ligaments are also drawn back, though 
 in a less degree, into the same cavities ; and the 
 glottis, large and wide open, is exhibited, so as 
 to show in part the rings of the trachea. But, 
 unfortunately, however dexterous we may be in 
 disposing these organs, and even when we are 
 most successful, at least the third part of the 
 anterior of the glottis remains concealed by the 
 epiglottis. 
 
 "As soon as we prepare to produce a sound, 
 
 4» 
 
42 TEE VOICE IN SINGING 
 
 the arytenoid cartilages approach each other 
 and press together by their interior surfaces, 
 and by their anterior apophyses without leav- 
 ing any space, or inter-cartilaginous glottis; 
 sometimes, even, they come in contact so closely 
 as to cross each other by the tubercles of San- 
 torini. To this movement of the anterior apo- 
 physes that of the ligaments of the glottis 
 corresponds, which detach themselves from the 
 ventricles, come in contact with different de- 
 grees of energy, and show themselves at the 
 bottom of the larynx, under the form of an 
 ellipse of a yellowish color. The superior liga- 
 ments, together with the aryteno-epiglottidean 
 folds, assist to form the tube which surmounts 
 the glottis; and being the lower and free ex- 
 tremity of that tube, enframe the ellipse, the 
 surface of which they enlarge or diminish ac- 
 cording as they enter more or less into the 
 ventricles. These last scarcely retain a trace 
 of their opening. By anticipation, we might 
 say of these cavities that, as will afterwards 
 appear clearly enough in these pages, they onlv 
 afford to the two pair of ligaments a space in 
 which they may easily range themselves. When 
 the aryteno-epiglottidean folds contract, they 
 
TEE VOICE IN SINGING 43 
 
 lower the epiglottis and make the superior ori- 
 fice of the larynx considerably narrower. 
 
 "The meeting of the lips of the glottis, na- 
 turally proceeding from the front towards the 
 back, if this movement is well managed, will 
 allow, between the apophyses, of the formation 
 of a triangular space or inter-cartilaginous glottis, 
 but one which, however, is closed as soon as 
 the sounds are produced. 
 
 "After some essays we perceive that this in- 
 ternal disposition of the larynx is only visible 
 when the epiglottis remains raised. But neither 
 all the registers of the voice, nor all the de- 
 grees of intensity, are equally fitted for its tak- 
 ing this position. We soon discover that the 
 brilliant and powerful sounds of the chest 
 register contract the cavity of the larynx, and 
 close still more its orifice ; and, on the contrary, 
 that veiled notes, and notes of moderate power, 
 open both, so as to render any observation easy. 
 The falsetto register especially possesses this pre- 
 rogative, as well as the first notes of the head 
 voice. So as to render these facts more precise, 
 we will study in the voice of the tenor the ascend- 
 ing progression of the chest register, and in the 
 soprano that of the falsetto and head registers. 
 
44 THE VOICE IN SINGING 
 
 EMISSION OF THE CHEST VOICE 
 
 " If we emit veiled and feeble sounds, the lar- 
 ynx opens at the notes | <& : J J ^~ , and we see 
 
 do re mi 
 
 the glottis agitated by large and loose vibra- 
 tions throughout its entire extent. Its lips 
 comprehend in their length the anterior apo- 
 physes of the arytenoid cartilages and the vo- 
 cal chords; but, I repeat it, there remains no 
 triangular space. 
 
 "As the sounds ascend, the apophyses, which 
 are slightly rounded on their internal side, by 
 a gradual apposition commencing at the back 
 encroach on the length of the glottis, and as 
 
 soon as we reach the sounds A ,3 they 
 
 si do 
 
 finish by touching each other throughout their 
 whole extent ; but their summits are only solidly 
 
 fixed one against the other at the notes ~ /u , 1 1 . 
 
 do re 
 
 In some organs these summits are a little vacil- 
 lating when they form the posterior end of the 
 glottis, and two or three half-tones which are 
 formed show a certain want of purity and 
 strength, which is very well known to singers. 
 
THE VOICE IN SINGING 45 
 
 From gh | i- the vibrations, having become 
 
 do re 
 
 rounder and purer, are accomplished by the vocal 
 ligaments alone, up to the end of the register. 
 
 " The glottis at this moment presents the as- 
 pect of a line slightly swelled towards its mid- 
 dle, the length of which diminishes still more 
 as the voice ascends. We also see that the 
 cavity of the larynx has become very small, 
 and that the superior ligaments have contracted 
 the extent of the ellipse to less than one-half. 
 
 "Thus the organs act with a double differ- 
 ence: 1. The cavity of the larynx contracts 
 itself more when the voice is intense than when 
 it is feeble. 2. The superior ligaments are con- 
 tracted, so as to reduce the small diameter of 
 the ellipse to a width of two or three lines. But 
 however powerful these contractions may be, 
 neither the cartilages of Wrisberg, nor the 
 superior ligaments themselves, ever close suffi- 
 ciently to prevent the passage of the air, or 
 even to render it difficult. This fact, which is 
 verified also with regard to the falsetto and 
 head registers, suffices to prove that the supe- 
 rior ligaments do not fill a generative part in 
 the formation of the voice. We may draw the 
 
46 THE VOICE IN SINGING 
 
 same conclusion by considering the position oc- 
 cupied by the somewhat feeble muscles which 
 correspond to these ligaments; they cover ex- 
 ternally the extremity of the diverging fibres 
 of the thyro-arytenoid muscles, and take part 
 especially in the contractions of the cavity of 
 the larynx during the formation of the high 
 notes of the chest and head registers. 
 
 PRODUCTION OF THE FALSETTO 
 
 " The low notes of the falsetto show the glottis 
 infinitely better than the unisons of the chest 
 voice, and produce vibrations more extended 
 and more distinct. Its vibrating sides, formed 
 by the anterior apophyses of the arytenoid car- 
 tilages and by the ligaments, become gradually 
 shorter as the voice ascends ; at the notes 
 
 , the apophyses take part only at 
 
 m 
 
 la si 
 
 their summits; and in these notes there results 
 a weakness similar to that which we have re- 
 marked in the chest notes an octave below. At 
 
 the notes X it ^ ^E „ the ligaments alone con- 
 
 *J do re 
 
 tinue to act ; then begins the series of notes called 
 the head voice. The moment in which the action 
 
THE VOICE IN SINGING 47 
 
 of the apophyses ceases exhibits in the female 
 voice a very sensible difference to the ear and 
 in the organ itself. Lastly, we verify that up 
 to the highest sounds of the register the glottis 
 continues to diminish in length and in width. 
 
 "If we compare the two registers in these 
 movements, we shall find some analogies in 
 them; the sides of the glottis formed at first 
 by the apophyses and the ligaments become 
 shorter by degrees, and end by consisting only 
 of the ligaments. The chest register is divided 
 into two parts, corresponding to these two states 
 of the glottis. The register of falsetto-head 
 presents a complete similarity, and in a still 
 more striking manner. 
 
 " On other points, on the contrary, these same 
 registers are very unlike. The length of the 
 glottis necessary to form a falsetto note always 
 exceeds that which produces the unison of the 
 chsst. The movements which agitate the sides 
 of the glottis are also augmented, and keep the 
 vibrating orifice continually half opened, which 
 naturally produces a great waste of air. A last 
 trait of difference is in the increased extent of 
 that elliptic surface. 
 
 "All these circumstances show in the median- 
 
48 TEE VOICE IN SINGING 
 
 ism of the falsetto a state of relaxation which 
 we do not find in the same degree in the chest 
 register. 
 
 MANNER IN WHICH THE SOUNDS AEE FORMED 
 
 "As we have just seen — and what we have seen 
 proves it — the inferior ligaments at the bottom of 
 the larynx form exclusively the voice, whatever 
 may be its register or its intensity; for they 
 alone vibrate at the bottom of the larynx. * * * 
 By the compressions and expansions of the 
 air, or the successive and regular explosions 
 which it produces in passing through the glot- 
 tis, sound is produced." (The London, Edinburgh 
 and Dublin Phil. Mag. and Journal of Science, 
 vol. x. 4th Series, p. 218-221, 1855.) 
 
 Garcia proceeds, in the same paper, to give 
 an elaborate account of his theory of the com- 
 pression, expansion and explosion of the air 
 in expiration, together with his conjectures as 
 to the action of the muscles of the larynx in 
 relation to the different registers. I omit both 
 here, for, since this publication of Garcia's, the 
 movements of the breath generating sound in 
 expiration have been thoroughly investigated 
 
THE VOICE IN SINGING 49 
 
 and determined by Prof. Helmholtz; and in 
 the physical section of the present work all may 
 be found that is of value in the culture of the 
 singing voice. Whatever can be definitely com- 
 municated in regard to the working of the 
 muscles of the larynx may likewise be found 
 in any anatomical work. An acquaintance, 
 however, with the action of these muscles is 
 not directly necessary to our purpose, and is 
 of interest only to the physiologist. 
 
 It is not to be denied that Garcia's observa- 
 tions do not, by any means, lead to satisfactory 
 conclusions as to the functions of the vocal 
 organ. He has, as we shall see in the sequel, 
 attached special importance to much that is 
 unessential and abnormal, and the main facts, 
 the elucidation of which is particularly needed, 
 he has scarcely mentioned. Thus he tells us 
 nothing of that series of tones which he calls 
 the head register. The transition also of the 
 registers he has not carefully examined and 
 observed in different voices : the chest register 
 in the male and the falsetto of the female voice. 
 
 Nevertheless, these investigations possess much 
 that is valuable, and are of special value to the 
 art of singing, because they teach a method 
 
50 THE VOICE IN SINGING 
 
 hitherto unknown of observing the larynx, by 
 which sure and satisfactory results are reached. 
 And when an acquaintance with these results 
 comes to be universally diffused, and the art 
 of singing is thereby led into the right direc- 
 tion, we shall owe it most especially to the 
 excellent experimental observations of Garcia. 
 
 Garcia has accepted the division made by 
 Muller, and universally adopted in science, of the 
 chest, falsetto and head registers. I employ the 
 same distinctions — a fact which it seems worth 
 while to mention, simply because every teacher 
 and school have their own terminology, and in- 
 stead of falsetto we have ftstel, throat, and middle 
 or neck voice, &c. These denominations of the 
 same registers have thus far only increased the 
 obscurity prevailing in the art of singing. 
 
 MY OWN OBSERVATIONS WITH THE LARYN- 
 GOSCOPE 
 
 In giving an account of my own observations 
 with the laryngoscope, I premise that laryngo- 
 scopy has of late attracted much attention 
 among the learned, and that Czermak, Turk, 
 Merkel, Lewin, Bataille, &c, have published a 
 
THE VOICE IN SINGING 51 
 
 series of valuable observations, all of which, 
 however, with the exception of Bataille's, were 
 made in the interest of science, for pathological 
 purposes especially. My aim, in the employment 
 of the laryngoscope, has been directed exclusively 
 to the discovery of the natural limits of the 
 different registers of the human voice; and al- 
 though I have thus been able to observe many 
 other interesting processes, it would not at all 
 accord with the design of this book to commu- 
 nicate observations which have no direct rela- 
 tion to the culture of the voice in singing, and 
 which come better from men of science than 
 from a teacher of vocal music. 
 
 In using the laryngoscope while the breath 
 is quietly drawn, I saw, as Garcia did, the whole 
 larynx wide open, so that one could easily in- 
 troduce a finger into it, and the rings of the 
 trachea were plainly visible. 
 
 * It must be remarked that the diagrams here given are 
 copies of reflected images, and therefore the upper side of the 
 representation shows the front of the larynx, and the lower 
 th* farther side of the larynx. 
 
52 THE VOICE IN SINGING 
 
 When those who had become accustomed to 
 the introduction of the instrument sang, at my 
 request, a, as pronounced in the English word 
 man, in a deep tone, the epiglottis rose, the 
 tongue formed a cavity from within forwards, 
 and thus rendered it easy to see into the lar- 
 ynx. So soon as the a, as in father, was sung, 
 the cover quickly fell, the tongue rose, and 
 prevented all observation of the organ of sing- 
 ing. The other vowels are still less favor- 
 able to observation, because they do not admit 
 of any such wide opening of the mouth. Strong 
 tones also are unfavorable to observation, as 
 Garcia also remarked ; and this is very natural, 
 because strong and sonorous tones require greater 
 exertions of the singing organ, and, above all 
 things, the right position of those parts of the 
 larynx and mouth which serve as a resonance 
 apparatus in the formation of sound. In order 
 to be able to see perfectly the whole glottis, all 
 this resonance apparatus must be drawn back 
 as far as possible, and the rim of the larynx 
 must be tolerably flat. Thus only faint and 
 weak sounds are favorable to observation. 
 
THE VOICE IN SINGING 53 
 
 THE CHEST REGISTER 
 
 When the vowel a, as in man, was sung, I 
 could, after long-continued practice, plainly see 
 how the arytenoid cartilages quickly rose with 
 their summits in their mucous membranous case 
 and approached to mutual contact. In like man- 
 ner, the chordae vocales, or inferior vocal chords, 
 approached each other so closely that scarcely any 
 space between them was observable. The supe- 
 rior or false vocal ligaments formed the ellipse 
 described by Garcia in the upper part of the glottis. 
 
 a. Superior or false vocal 
 
 ligaments, or chords. 
 
 b. Epiglottis. 
 
 c. Inferior or true vocal 
 
 ligaments. 
 
 d. Arytenoid cartilages. 
 
 e. Capitula Santorini. *** &' 
 
 Representation in the mirror of the 
 vocal organ in giving out sound. 
 
 When, in using the laryngoscope upon my- 
 self, I slowly sang the ascending scale, this move- 
 ment of the vocal chords and arytenoid carti- 
 lages was repeated at every tone. They separated 
 and appeared to retreat, in order to close again 
 anew, and to rise somewhat more than before. 
 This movement of the arytenoid cartilages may 
 
 5* 
 
54 THE VOICE IN SINGING 
 
 best be compared to that of a pair of scissors 
 With every higher tone the vocal ligaments 
 seemed more stretched and the glottis somewhat 
 shorter. — [The glottis is a term applied to the 
 space occupied by the vocal chords (the lips of the 
 glottis) : when separated, we say the glottis is open, 
 when they touch, that it is closed.] — At the same 
 lime, when I sang the scale upward, beginning 
 with the lowest tones, the vocal ligaments seemed 
 to be moved in their whole length and breadth 
 by large, loose vibrations, which extended even 
 to all the rest of the interior of the larynx. 
 
 The place at which the arytenoid cartilages, al- 
 most closed together, cease their action and leave 
 the formation of the sound to the vocal ligaments 
 alone, I found in the entire vibration of the glot- 
 tis, or in the chest register of the female voice, 
 
 at do do % 1 X , | , more rarely at si 
 
 In the chest register of the male voice this change 
 
 occurs at la si b [7u • With some effort 
 
 the above-mentioned action of the arytenoid car- 
 tilages may be continued several tones higher. 
 But such tones, especially in the female voice, 
 have that rough and common timbre which 
 
THE VOICE IN SINGING 55 
 
 we are too often compelled to hear in our 
 female singers. The glottis also, in this case, 
 as well as the parts of the larynx near the 
 glottis, betrays the effort very plainly; as the 
 tones ascend, they grow more and more red. 
 Thus, as at this place in the chest register there 
 occurs a visible and sensible straining of the organs, 
 so also is it in all the remaining transitions, as soon 
 as the attempt is made to extend the action by which 
 the lower tones are formed beyond the given limits 
 of the same. These transitions, which cannot be 
 extended without effort, coincide perfectly with 
 the places where J. Midler had to stretch the 
 ligaments of his exsected larynx so powerfully 
 in order to reach the succeeding half-tone. 
 Garcia likewise finds tones thus formed dis- 
 agreeable and imperfect in sound (Jclanglos). 
 
 Usually, therefore, at the note do $ 
 
 f* 
 
 in 
 
 the fpmale voice, and la si b - ~ 7k ^ in the male 
 
 J :st trJ- 
 
 9 
 
 voice, the vocal ligaments alone act in forming 
 the sound, and throughout the register are 
 moved by large, loose, full vibrations (Total- 
 8chwingungen). But the instant the vocal liga- 
 ments are deprived of the assistance of the ary- 
 
56 THE VOICE IN SINGING 
 
 tenoid cartilages, they relax and appear longer 
 than at the last tone produced by that aid. But 
 with every higher tone they appear again to be 
 stretched shorter and more powerfully up to 
 
 fa fa % Vfa— -!-r-H , the natural transition of both 
 
 Opt 
 
 the chest and falsetto registers, as well in the 
 male as in the female. The larynx is perceptibly 
 lower in all the tones of the chest register than 
 in quiet breathiug. 
 
 THE FALSETTO EEGISTER 
 
 All the tones of the falsetto register are pro* 
 duced by vibrations only of the fine, inner, 
 slender edges of the vocal ligaments. In this 
 action the vocal ligaments are not so near to- 
 gether, but allow of a fine linear space between 
 them, and the superior ligaments are pressed 
 farther back than in the production of the 
 tones of the chest register. The rest of the 
 action of the glottis is, however, entirely the 
 same. With the beginning of the falsetto regis- 
 ter at fa # [ (C) it Jj - *^ e wno ^ e glottis appears 
 again longer, and the vocal ligaments are much 
 
THE VOICE IN SINGING 
 
 57 
 
 looser than in the highest tones of the chest 
 register. The united action, already described, 
 of the arytenoid cartilages and the ligaments in 
 forming the deeper tones of the chest register, 
 extends to do do ft 
 
 E 
 
 ^XL 
 
 and in the male voice to mi (?• mi 
 
 in the female voice, 
 
 commonly written thus: mi [7 mi ig 
 
 
 but which only rarely occurs in composition, and 
 then is sung by tenorists as I have given it ; that 
 is, one octave lower. 
 With the do ft 
 
 iSat 
 
 in the female voice and 
 
 the mi 7 mi Eg 
 
 in the male voice, the ary- 
 tenoid cartilages cease again to act, and as before, 
 at the second higher series of tones of the chest 
 register, leave the formation of the sounds to the 
 vocal ligaments alone, which at this change ap- 
 pear again longer and looser, but with every 
 
 higher tone tighten up to fa fa ft \/[ s f~ S in the 
 
 female voice, and in the male voice to sol 
 
 or as 
 
 it is commonly written : I (ft ) 1 . In the 
 
 C* 
 
58 
 
 THE VOICE IN SINGING 
 
 falsetto register the larynx preserves its natural 
 position, as in quiet breathing. 
 
 THE HEAD REGISTER 
 
 When in the observation of the falsetto re- 
 gister I had sung upwards to its highest tones, 
 and then sang still higher, I became aware with 
 
 the fa£ 
 
 of a change in the motions of 
 
 the organ of singing, and the tones thus pro- 
 duced had a different timbre from the falsetto 
 tones. It required long and patient practice 
 before I finally succeeded in drawing back the 
 epiglottis so that I could see the glottis in its 
 whole length. Not until then was I able to 
 observe the following : 
 
 With the fa % ffl)i"l .« the vocal ligaments 
 
 suddenly closed firmly together to their middle, 
 with their fine edges one over the other. 
 
 a. The closing together of 
 
 the vocal ligaments. 
 
 b. Open part of the glottis. 
 
 The oval opening of the anterior por- 
 tion of the glottis is imperfectly shewn, 
 because it is hidden from view by th« 
 epiglottis at the extreme end. 
 
 Representation in the mirror of 
 the organ of singing in the 
 formation of head tones. 
 
THE VOICE IN SINGING 59 
 
 This closing appeared as a fine red line extend- 
 ing from the arytenoid cartilages at the back 
 forward to the middle of the vocal ligaments, 
 and leaving free only a third part of the whole 
 glottis, immediately under the epiglottis, to the 
 front wall of the larynx. 
 
 The foremost part of the glottis formed an 
 oval orifice, which, with each higher tone, 
 seemed to contract more and more, and so became 
 smaller and rounder. The fine edges of the 
 vocal ligaments which formed this orifice were 
 alone vibrating, and the vibrations seemed at first 
 looser, but, with every higher tone, the ligaments 
 were more stretched. The larynx remained in 
 its natural state. 
 
 Only after I had frequently repeated this 
 observation of the head tones in myself and in 
 others, and had always arrived at the same 
 results, did I venture to publish it. The most 
 various conjectures respecting the formation of 
 the head voice had been previously proposed by 
 the learned, and the existence, even, of the head 
 voice had been denied by Bataille. It would 
 lead us too far away to make mention here of 
 all these different views, which, with the excep- 
 tion of those of Dr. Merhel of Leipzig, showed 
 
60 TEE VOICE IN SINGING 
 
 themselves to be really without a sound foun* 
 lation. 
 
 It was objected to the results of niy observa- 
 tions, that such an action of the glottis "was 
 only possible by means of cartilages and muscles, 
 but that such cartilages and muscles as could 
 render an action of that kind possible were not 
 known, nor was there any reference to them to 
 be found in any manual of anatomy." While I 
 fully admitted the soundness of this objection, 
 I was, after repeated observations, more and 
 more convinced of the correctness of my own 
 statements. But as I found nothing to support 
 them in any anatomical work, either German 
 or French, I began anew to study the anatomy 
 of the larynx in dissected subjects. 
 
 My renewed efforts were rewarded by the 
 discovery, within the membranes of the vocal 
 ligaments, of those filaments or fibres of muscle 
 which in the anatomical Appendix to this 
 book I mention as arytenoid-thyroid interna, 
 and which have also been found by other ob- 
 servers. They are found in all larynxes, and 
 consist of muscular fibres, sometimes finer, some- 
 times thicker.* 
 
 * In recent works on laryngoscopy they are often described 
 
TEE VOICE IN SINGING 61 
 
 At the same time I satisfied myself of the 
 existence of a pair of cartilages — the cuneiform 
 cartilages described in the Appendix. I found 
 these always in the female larynx, but only 
 now and then in the male. As these car- 
 tilages, also found within the membranes of 
 the vocal ligaments and reaching from theii 
 junction with the arytenoid cartilages to the 
 middle of the ligaments, are only now and then 
 fully formed in the male larynx, but undeniably 
 work the shutting part of the glottis, it follows 
 plainly that only a few male voices are capable 
 of producing the head tones. 
 
 But observation with the microscope revealed 
 in those larynxes in which the cuneiform carti- 
 lages were wanting, parts of a cartilaginous 
 mass, or the rudiments of a cartilage, in the place 
 indicated. 
 
 For anatomical investigations the male lar- 
 ynx is commonly used, its muscles being more 
 powerful and its cartilages firmer than in the 
 female larynx, and this explains why anatomists 
 in Germany have been reluctant to admit the 
 existence of the cuneiform cartilages. It w r as, 
 
 as continuations or parts of ono of the principal muscles of 
 the laryn c 
 6 
 
62 THE VOICE IN SINGING 
 
 therefore, a great satisfaction to me to find them 
 described under the name of cuneiform cartilages 
 in Wilson's Human Anatomy, with the remark 
 that they are sometimes wanting.* 
 
 The head register possesses a very great ca- 
 pacity of expansion, which, without the slight- 
 est straining, may be gradually extended, with 
 some practice, a whole octave, and often even 
 still farther upwards. When the transition is 
 made from the highest tones of the falsetto re- 
 gister to the head register, there is experienced 
 the same sense of relief in the organs of sing- 
 ing as in passing from the chest to the falsetto 
 register. And this is very easy to be under- 
 stood, because the ligaments by this repeated 
 partial closure of the glottis are much less 
 stretched than in the highest tones of the pre- 
 ceding lower register. The difference in sound 
 between the highest tones of the falsetto and head 
 registers is often slight, on which account these 
 two registers, so different in their mechanism, 
 are easily confounded. Only in entirely healthy 
 vocal organs can the head tones be observed. A 
 
 * In recent French and English works upon laryngoscopy, 
 the cuneiform cartilages are frequently mentioned, and some- 
 times confounded with the cartilages Wrisbergi. 
 
THE VOICE IN SINGING 63 
 
 too great secretion of mucus, or any inflamma- 
 tion of the mucous membrane, embarrasses the 
 formation of head and falsetto tones, while the 
 vibrations of the fine edges of the vocal 
 ligaments are thereby obstructed. The charac- 
 ter of the vocal organ fully explains why in 
 the case of sick or of worn-out voices it is 
 always the high tones that are first lost. When 
 I have observed, in the sick, irritation of the 
 mucous membrane, I have often found the oval 
 orifice which is formed in the production of 1 he 
 head tones entirely covered with mucus. In my 
 own case, when by repeated effort this bubble 
 
 of mucus broke, instead of the a '/, I , which 
 
 I meant to be sounded, there came the a, an 
 octave higher, which in perfect health it was 
 never possible for me to reach. I have observed 
 the same phenomenon sometimes in my pupils. 
 
 "When one sings the scale, note by note down- 
 wards, one can sing with the action of the higher 
 register many of the tones of the lower, without 
 any observable straining of the organ ; indeed, 
 there is a perceptible feeling of relief; only 
 these tones are not so full as when sung in their 
 natural register. 
 
64 TEE VOICE IN SINGING 
 
 ABNORMAL MOVEMENTS OF THE GLOTTIS 
 
 Garcia states, in his observations, that some- 
 times when the rims of the vocal ligaments 
 have come together, there remains between 
 the arytenoid cartilages a triangular space, 
 which does not close until the tone is produced. 
 Czermak likewise describes this process in his 
 pathological investigations, and also a similar 
 one with the laryngoscope. While, namely, the 
 arytenoid cartilages seem to be wholly closed, 
 one sees just before the beginning of the tone 
 the vocal ligaments standing apart in a square- 
 shaped form, and only closing together with the 
 tone. At first, before I had attained to' much 
 practice in observation, I often saw these pro- 
 cesses in myself, and later often in others. 
 
 That these accidental forms of the glottis bear 
 no relation to the generation of sounds, as Funhe 
 truly says, is made evident by an irregularity 
 in the combined action of the muscles of the 
 larynx, by which the coming together of the 
 arytenoid cartilages takes place later than that 
 of the ligaments, or that of the ligaments later 
 than that of the arytenoid cartilages. 
 
THE VOICE IN SINGING 
 
 65 
 
 As recently great importance has often been 
 ascribed to these abnormal movements of the 
 glottis in the generation of sound, I have felt 
 bound to mention them. 
 
 RESULTS OF THE FOREGOING OBSERVATIONS 
 
 In consequence of the observations above de- 
 scribed, the following facts may be established : 
 
 I. We have found five different actions of the 
 vocal organ : 
 
 1. The first series of tones of the chest register, 
 in which the whole glottis is moved by large, 
 loose vibrations, and the arytenoid cartilages 
 with the vocal ligaments are in action. 
 
 2. The second series of the chest register, when 
 the vocal ligaments alone act, and are like- 
 wise moved by large, loose vibrations. 
 
 3. The first series of the falsetto register, where 
 
 again the whole glottis, consisting of the aryte- 
 6* 
 
66 THE VOICE IN SINGING 
 
 noid cartilages and vocal ligaments, is in action, 
 the very fine interior edges of the ligaments, 
 however, being alone in vibrating motion. 
 
 4. The second series of the falsetto register, the 
 (ones of which are generated by the vibrations 
 of the edges alone of the vocal ligaments. 
 
 5. The head register, in the same manner and 
 by the same vibrations, and with a partial clos- 
 ing of the vocal ligaments. 
 
 II. We have learned the transitions of the 
 registers, i. e. those tones where a different 
 action of the vocal organ takes place; and 
 observation has further taught us that these 
 natural limits of the registers cannot be exceeded 
 without a straining that may be both seen and 
 felt ; that is, that we may not preserve the 
 action of a lower series for the tones of a 
 higher. On the other hand, the vocal organs 
 show no straining when the action of a higher 
 series of tones is kept for a lower, only the 
 fulness of the tones is thereby diminishf.d. 
 
 III. We have further seen that only the tran- 
 sition from the chest register to the falsetto is in 
 
 all voices at the same tones, the fa fa % 
 
 but, both in men's and women's voices, the other 
 
THE VOICE IN SINGING 67 
 
 transitions of the registers are different. As the 
 male larynx is about a third larger than the 
 female, it is plain that the registers in the male 
 voice have a greater expansion. The transitions, 
 however, in the tenor, as in the bass, are at the 
 same tones, and only sometimes a half tone 
 higher or lower in one voice than in another. 
 The organs of the man are stronger and harder 
 than those of the woman, and they are not often 
 capable of producing tones with the vibrations 
 of the edges of the vocal ligaments (falsetto 
 tones), but the lower series of tones of the chest 
 register has, in such voices, a much greater 
 extension downwards. The difference between the 
 bass and tenor voices lies in the greater or less ease 
 with which the tones of the higher or lower registers 
 are sung, and in the greater fulness and beauty, 
 always connected therewith, of the higher or lower 
 register, that is, in the timbre of the voice; not, 
 as is commonly thought, in the difference of the 
 transitions of the registers. 
 
 The same is also the case with the female 
 voice ; as well in the contralto as in the soprano 
 voice the transitions of the registers are at the 
 same tones, and the difference of the voices lies 
 only in the timbre, and in the greater facility 
 
68 
 
 THE VOICE IN SINGING 
 
 with which the higher or lower tones are pro- 
 duced, and not in the different compass of the 
 voice. 
 
 The transitions of the registers are : 
 
 IN THE MALE VOICE 
 
 TENOR VOICE 
 First series of the Second series. First series of the 
 chest register. falsetto. 
 
 CDEFGABcdefga 
 
 First series of the chest register. 
 BASS VOICE. 
 
 b c d e f 
 
 Second series, 
 
 a, &c. 
 
 IN THE FEMALE VOICE 
 
 First series of the 
 chest register. 
 
 Second se- 
 ries of the 
 
 chest 
 register. 
 
 First series 
 
 of the falsetto 
 
 register. 
 
 Second 
 series of 
 the fal- 
 setto re- 
 gister. 
 
 Head register. 
 
 
 
 
 e f g a b c 
 
 d e f 
 
 g a b c 
 
 d e f 
 
 g a b c d e f 
 
 The investigation and discovery of the facts 
 here stated have been made with the utmost 
 conscientiousness, repeated by men of science in 
 Germany, and acknowledged as correct. 
 
THE VOICE IN SINGING 69 
 
 PRACTICAL APPLICATION OF THESE OBSERVA- 
 TIONS TO THE CULTIVATION OF THE SING- 
 ING VOICE 
 
 In teaching the art of singing, it is now-a- 
 days very generally the custom to endeavor to 
 raise the lower registers as far as possible toward 
 the higher. This is especially the case with the 
 tenor voice. It is considered a special advan- 
 tage in a tenor voice when it can sing the a 
 
 f commonly written) 
 (correctly written) 
 
 on the first leger line 3£ 
 with the chest register. 
 
 Upwards of a hundred and fifty years ago, 
 when every good tenor was required to sing a 
 with a clear, full chest tone, this note, according 
 to the orchestra pitch then, was not higher than a 
 note between f and f t, according to the present 
 orchestra pitch in England and America. Since 
 that time the orchestra pitch has everywhere 
 gradually risen so imperceptibly that this import- 
 ant fact remained unknown to many singers and 
 teachers, and until recently has been only rarely 
 noticed. And yet it is precisely this much higher 
 pitch and the consequent unnatural extension of 
 the limits of the registers, which is the chief 
 
70 THE VOICE IN SINGING 
 
 cause why most voices now-a-days last so little 
 while. 
 
 That the registers may be forced up beyond 
 their limits is possible, we have seen. But obser- 
 vation teaches us that it cannot be done with- 
 out a straining of the organs which may be both 
 seen and felt, and no organ will bear continued 
 over-straining. It will gradually be weakened 
 thereby, and become at last wholly useless. 
 
 This is a simple fact, scientifically established, 
 universally known. It admits, therefore, of no 
 doubt that the common custom of forcing the 
 registers beyond their natural bounds injures 
 voices, and seriously affects their durability. 
 Even when the organs are so strong that they 
 can bear the unnatural effort for a considerable 
 length of time, they gain nothing in grace and 
 timbre. Like every thing else unnatural, it car- 
 ries with it its own punishment. Our tenor 
 singers are, for the most part, only for a few 
 years in full possession of their voices, while the 
 earlier singers knew how to keep their voices 
 fine and full to their latest age. 
 
 Not until 1858, when the orchestra pitch in 
 Paris had risen for a to 448 vibrations in a 
 second, and tenors were no longer able to reach 
 
THE VOICE IN SINGING 71 
 
 it with the chest register, was general attention 
 turned to this evil. The Academy at that time 
 fixed the orchestra pitch at 435 vibrations a 
 second for a. This pitch is now introduced 
 almost universally in Germany, and it is a full 
 half note lower than our usual orchestra pitch in 
 America. The introduction of the Paris pitch is, 
 however, of no great advantage so long as sing- 
 ers and teachers keep to the same limits of the 
 registers that they had at the beginning of the 
 seventeenth century, when a had 404 vibrations 
 in a second, and was about a third lower than our 
 present a. Musicians are averse to the introduction 
 of this old low pitch, as the instruments are no 
 longer accommodated to it. And besides, it is not 
 at all necessary, if only singers and teachers would 
 observe it better, and either set their pieces a third 
 lower, or sing the notes that are difficult to be 
 reached with a lower register in a natural way 
 and with a higher register. 
 
 The old Italian masters were proud of being 
 able so to educate the falsetto register of a tenor 
 voice that it was difficult to distinguish chest 
 tones and falsetto tones from one another, even 
 for an ear accustomed to observe the finest dis- 
 tinctions of sound. And this art is by no meaii3 
 
72 THE VOICE IN SINGING 
 
 so difficult as is supposed, and is not dependent 
 on the natural strength of the first falsetto tones. 
 "When in the male organ there exists the power 
 of bringing the edges of the vocal ligaments into 
 vibratory motion, and when these tones at the 
 beginning, compared with the chest tones of the 
 same voice, are weak and thin, then they may, 
 with skill and perseverance, be trained to quite 
 similar fulness. 
 
 That the male voice requires far more time 
 and practice than the female to effect an imper- 
 ceptible transition from the chest register to the 
 falsetto, is unquestionable. And while this tran- 
 sition is always so very apparent in the man's 
 voice, it is often scarcely observable to a practiced 
 ear even in uncultivated female voices. Women, 
 in speaking, always use the second chest and the 
 ^rst falsetto register, continually passing from one 
 > the other of these registers without any change 
 in the position of the mouth or of the resonance 
 apparatus of the voice. They are thus all their 
 lives long unconsciously practicing this transition, 
 and because of this equal physical use of the chest 
 and falsetto notes, the great physiological differ- 
 ence of these two registers almost entirely disap- 
 pears. Although men do not use the falsetto 
 
THE VOICE IN SINGING 73 
 
 register in speaking, it is not yet proved to be 
 impossible for the male voice to attain the same 
 results as the female. 
 
 When in the beginning the falsetto tones are 
 sung always piano and very staccato, by long- 
 continued, careful practice, with entirely the same 
 physical treatment of both registers, a smooth and 
 natural transition from one to the other is most 
 easily obtained. Thus the falsetto tones gain 
 more and more in fulness and strength, and 
 sound far more agreeably than the forced-up chest 
 tones of our tenorists, sung with sw T ollen-out 
 throats and blood-red faces. 
 
 The education of men's voices involves manv 
 difficulties which do not exist in the case of the 
 voices of women. Almost all men speak and sing 
 in one register — tenors mostly in the second chest 
 register, bassos mostly in the first, and oftentimes 
 indeed not even in a correct natural manner. 
 With this one register they sing as high and as 
 low as they can, and this they consider the whole 
 compass of their voices. The low chest register 
 is rarely found good and natural (as regards the 
 beauty of sound). In order for the production 
 of these low chest tones, to set the vocal chorda 
 vibrating in their whole length and breadth, it is 
 
74 THE VOICE IN SINGING 
 
 necessary that a fuller column of air from the 
 lungs should press upon the glottis through the 
 windpipe, which is readily of itself enlarged 
 thereby. The easier and the more naturally this 
 takes place, the more beautifully and naturally do 
 these tones sound. Under the delusion that only 
 strong singing is beautiful, and that this can be 
 achieved only by extraordinary exertion, most of 
 our basso singers have a peculiar way of pressing 
 out the windpipe, which is not only very fatigu- 
 ing, but gives to the low tones a rough, disagree- 
 able sound. Among public speakers also this 
 exhausting, faulty way of bringing out the chest 
 tones is not uncommon, frequently rendering their 
 voices quite incapable of use. Merkd represents 
 this way of forming the low tones as a peculiar 
 register, which he calls the Strohbassregister, and 
 through him a quite prevalent bad habit has 
 found in other scientific works a right to existence 
 which by no means belongs to it. 
 
 The female voice is treated in the same un- 
 natural way. Many teachers teach their pupils 
 to sing with the lower series of the chest regis- 
 ter as high up as possible, often to the e f 
 , as far as the organs perjnit, and then 
 
THE VOICE IN SINGING 75 
 
 let them begin the falsetto register. In this way 
 the second series of the chest register is entirely 
 omitted ; but the made tones, as the expression 
 is, thus obtained, sound very disagreeable and 
 coarse, and the falsetto tones, which in this way 
 begin lower than necessary, are on the contrary 
 faint and weak. Of the falsetto register these 
 teachers commonly require only the first series, 
 
 up to d e (7 ^ f 'T : , to be sung, and then 
 
 directly begin the head tones. Thus the second 
 series of the falsetto is not used ; but the tones 
 belonging to it, which are sung with the first 
 series of the falsetto register, are for the most 
 part hard and sharp and seldom pure, while 
 the tones of the head voice, coming in too 
 soon, are thin and unmusical, and the whole 
 voice thus receives an irregular formation. 
 Many teachers, again, allow the lower tones 
 of the chest register to be sung with the 
 higher series of the same, whereby these tones 
 are naturally never as sweet and strong. Then, 
 too, they press the first series of the falsetto up 
 
 to 1 1 e b j^h ~ ^"TJ , and thence, as far as it is 
 
 possible, the voice is to ascend with the second 
 series of the falsetto, without admitting the head 
 
76 THE VOICE IN SINGING 
 
 tones, even in voices with the high soprano 
 timbre. But the tones thus forced up are for the 
 most part sharp and destitute of all grace. And 
 it is just this that is one of the commonest faults 
 of our present mode of singing. 
 
 As it has been customary to cultivate, in the 
 male voice only, the three lower series, because 
 both of the highest sound sweet and graceful 
 only from the soft, delicate organs of the female 
 voice, and as the male voice is rarely capable of 
 compassing the highest series, the erroneous idea 
 has gradually obtained prevalence among teachers 
 of singing, that there are only three different 
 series of tones, and that the female voice has 
 only two transitions. 
 
 In voices fresh and unvitiated the different 
 series are very easily distinguished by their 
 different timbre. One hears this difference of 
 timbre most clearly in the transition of the 
 second series of the chest register into the 
 falsetto in the male voice, and in the female 
 voice at the transition of the first series of the 
 falsetto register into the second. 
 
 As has been observed, the larynx stands lower 
 with the tones of the chest register than with 
 the tones of the other registers, or during quiet 
 breathing. 
 
THE VOICE IN SINGING 77 
 
 In order, in the low chest tones, to bring the 
 whole glottis into full vibration, the air, as it is 
 expired, must press upon it with a larger vol- 
 ume. From all parts of the lungs the air, when 
 expired, presses into the windpipe, the rings of 
 which, widening as much as possible, come 
 somewhat nearer to each other and draw down 
 the larynx. 
 
 One has thus the sensation as if the whole 
 body took part in this formation of sound, and 
 as if the lower tones of the chest register were 
 drawn from the lowest part of the lungs. 
 
 In producing the second series of the chest 
 register, the sensation is as if the tones came 
 from the upper part of the chest, midway be- 
 tween the pit of the stomach and the larynx. 
 
 With regard to the tones of the first series of 
 the falsetto, the feeling is as if they had their 
 origin in the throat. 
 
 In the tones of the second series of the falsetto, 
 we feel as if the throat had nothing to do with 
 them — as if they were formed above, in the 
 mouth. 
 
 With the head tones, one has the feeling that 
 they come from the forehead. 
 
 It is these physical sensations that have given 
 
 7* 
 
78 THE VOICE IN SINGING 
 
 occasion to many erroneous conjectures in regard 
 to the formation of tones, but we are satisfied 
 that they have no direct relation to the genera- 
 tion of sound, and appear so only through the 
 nerves active in the process. 
 
 By directing the attention of one's pupils 
 to these different sensations, it is very easy to 
 make them acquainted with the different regis- 
 ters of the voice — always a very necessary pro- 
 ceeding in the first training of a voice, although 
 it seems to be so only in the case of such voices 
 as have been previously misdirected. 
 
 The culture of the female voice is best begun 
 with the two series of the falsetto register and 
 the second of the chest register; the tones of 
 these three middle registers must be pretty well 
 cultivated before the lowest chest tones and the 
 head voice are begun to be formed. The voice 
 in this way best attains to an equal fulness. It 
 is self-evident also that the teaching should be 
 such that the transitions of the registers should 
 be not at all or scarcely perceptible, consequently 
 that all the tones should sound proportionally 
 strong and full. 
 
 In the soprano voice the falsetto, and in the 
 contralto voice the chest register, have more fill- 
 
THE VOICE IN SINGING 79 
 
 ness and grace, and thus we may distinguish to 
 which kind of voice a voice belongs, for the com- 
 pass of the voice is not always confined within 
 certain limits. There are contraltos that can 
 sing the high head tones with ease, and sopranos 
 that can sing the low chest tones with equal 
 facility — a fact which has often given occasion 
 to an incorrect treatment of a voice. So also 
 with the male voice. A bass voice sings the 
 lower series of the chest register with more 
 ease and sweetness and with more obscure tim- 
 bre. A tenor voice sings the second series of 
 the chest register in a clearer timbre. 
 
 The baritone and mezzo-soprano voices, so 
 called — that is, such voices as have a limited 
 compass, and cannot sing either the highest or 
 the lowest tones — are by no means so numerous 
 as they are thought to be. The best tenor voices, 
 which cannot naturally reach the lowest bass 
 tones, and whose organs do not allow of an un- 
 natural forcing up beyond the higher limits of 
 the chest register, are commonly pronounced 
 baritone voices, for no one now-a-days thinks of 
 cultivating the falsetto register of the male voice. 
 
 Few teachers, likewise, understand how to 
 teach correctly the tones of the head register 
 
80 TEE VOICE IN SINGING 
 
 [f a soprano voice cannot readily and agreeably 
 sing the low contralto tones, and extend the fal- 
 setto scale far enough upwards beyond its limit, 
 it is reckoned among the mezzo-soprano voices. 
 The celebrated singing master ThomaseUi, of 
 Padua, maintained that baritone and mezzo- 
 soprano voices " had no existence in nature, but 
 were only the products of our false methods of 
 instruction." 
 
 I have sometimes found mezzo-soprano and 
 baritone voices, but not in so great number by 
 far as the four chief kinds of voices — bass, tenor, 
 contralto, and soprano. 
 
 Although an exact knowledge of the vocal 
 organ and its various actions must be required 
 of a teacher before the education of a voice can 
 be committed to him, yet it would be unwise to 
 undertake to teach singing by means of scientific 
 explanations without sufficient previous know- 
 ledge ; the pupil would, in this case, understand 
 as little of what he was about and be as little 
 helped as a child learning to read would be 
 assisted by one who merely sought to make 
 intelligible to him the mechanism by which 
 sound is formed. The most natural and the 
 simplest way in singing, as in all things else, is 
 
TEE VOICE IN SINGING 81 
 
 the best. Let the teacher sing correctly every 
 tone to his pupil until the latter knows how 
 to imitate it, and his ear has learned how to 
 distinguish the different timbres.* 
 
 The discovery of the natural transitions of the 
 registers has brought to light one of the greatest 
 evils of our present mode of singing, and shown 
 at the same time how wanting in durability are 
 the voices of those of our artists whose aim and 
 endeavor it is to force the registers upward be- 
 yond their natural limits. Although the concert 
 pitch is so very much higher now than it was 
 in the most flourishing period of the singing art, 
 yet no regard is paid to this fact in the education 
 of a voice, and our tenorists try to reach the a 
 
 * On this account the male voice should be trained by 
 men and the female voice by women. For, as it is impossible 
 for a man to give to a female pupil a correct perception of 
 the tones of the head register and of the second series of the 
 falsetto, with its peculiar female timbre, so is it impossible 
 for a woman to sing and teach correctly the deep, sonorous 
 chest tones of the male voice. Frederick Wiek, that admira- 
 ble teacher, who perceives intuitively what is natural and 
 true in instruction, has an excellent expedient. In his hours 
 of instruction he avails himself of the aid of young women 
 with practised voices, who sing every exercise to his female 
 pupils until the latter are able to imitate them correctly. 
 
82 THE VOICE IN SINGING 
 
 with the chest register, just as they 
 
 did one hundred and fifty years ago. 
 
 In the ignorance existing concerning the na- 
 tural transitions of the registers, and in the un- 
 natural forcing of the voice, is found a chief 
 vause of the decline of the art of singing. And 
 the present inability to preserve the voice is the 
 consequence of a method of teaching unnatural, 
 and therefore imposing too great a strain upon 
 tlie voice.* 
 
 No one who has not made the art of singing 
 a special study, can form any idea of the ob- 
 scure and conflicting views in regard to the 
 transition's of the registers which prevail, among 
 singing teachers and artists. Almost every 
 teacher has a peculiar theory of his own in re- 
 gard to the formation of the voice; every one 
 has his own views, sometimes extremely fanciful, 
 
 * Vdices which by this overstrained and unnatural way of 
 singing have become worn-out and useless may by correct, 
 proper treatment recover, even at an advanced age, their 
 former grace and power ; and even those chronic inflamma- 
 tions of the larynx which are so difficult of treatment may 
 be cured by a natural and moderate exercise of the voice in 
 singing. 
 
THE VOICE IN SINGING 83 
 
 of the formation of tones and of the registers — 
 views to which he tenaciously adheres, summa- 
 rily rejecting all others. Almost as at the build- 
 ing of the tower of Babel, one teacher scarcely 
 understands any longer what another means, 
 and instead of harmonious endeavors to improve 
 the art, teachers of singing are commonly found 
 disputing among themselves. 
 
 To bring light and order into such a chaos 
 can only be accomplished by the most thorough 
 scientific study, and even then it is an under- 
 taking of the greatest difficulty. Custom stands 
 in the way as an antagonist, and there must be 
 a conflict with long-cherished and wide-spread 
 errors and prejudices. It lies also in the nature 
 of the case that teachers of singing are the most 
 determined opponents to be encountered. It is 
 very hard for this class, and it demands of them 
 no common self-denial to acknowledge and re- 
 nounce as errors what they have taught for 
 years and held to be truths. Those teachers, 
 however, who have made the necessary sacrifice, 
 have been compensated with the richest success ; 
 and such, we trust, will in all cases be the result, 
 and so the path be broken for the true and the 
 natural. 
 
84 THE VOICE IN SINGING 
 
 It will be perhaps comparatively easy to ad- 
 vance the art of singing in America; for, as 
 Humboldt says, not entirely without truth, the 
 Germans require for every improvement two 
 centuries — one to find out the need of it, <md 
 another to make it. 
 
Ill 
 
 PHYSICAL VIEW 
 
 FORMATION OF SOUNDS BY THE VOCAL ORGAN 
 
 fOll the artistic culture of the singing voice 
 the knowledge of the physiological processes 
 during the formation of tones does not suffice. 
 This knowledge brings us acquainted only with 
 the instrument, the artistic treatment of which 
 is to be learned. Having, therefore, in the pre- 
 ceding pages stated the most important points in 
 the formation of tones, physiologically considered, 
 we are now to consider more nearly the physical 
 laws relating to the same, especially as the phy- 
 sical view of the subject, through the latest 
 investigations and discoveries of Prof. Helm- 
 holtz, in Heidelberg, has so much import- 
 ance for music in general. In order, however, 
 to present a clear view of this branch of our 
 subject, in so far as the recent advances of 
 science can be practically applied to the im- 
 provement of the art of singing, we must 
 8 85 
 
86 THE VOICE IN SINGING 
 
 recur to those natural laws which are doubt- 
 less well known to most of our readers. 
 
 In order to bring the external world to our 
 consciousness, we are provided with various 
 organs of sense; and as the eye is sensible to 
 the light, the ear is sensible to sound, which 
 comes to our consciousness either as noise (Ge- 
 rdusch) or as tone (Klang). The whistling of 
 the wind, the plashing of water, the rattling 
 of a wagon are noises, but musical instru- 
 ments give us tones. When, however, many 
 untuned instruments sound together, or when 
 all the keys within an octave are struck on the 
 same time, then it is a noise that we hear. 
 Tones are therefore more simple and regular 
 than noises. The ear perceives both by means 
 of the agitation of the air that surrounds 
 us. In the case of noise the agitation of the 
 air is an irregularly changing motion. In musi- 
 cal sounds, on the other hand, there is a move- 
 ment of the air in a continuously regular manner, 
 which must be caused by a similar movement 
 in the body which gives the sound. These so- 
 called periodical movements of the sound in the 
 body, rising, falling and repeated at equal inter- 
 vals, are called vibrations. The length of the 
 
THE VOICE IN SINGING 87 
 
 nterval elapsing between one movement and 
 the next succeeding repetition of the same move- 
 ment is called the duration of vibration (Schwing- 
 ungsdauer), or period of motion. 
 
 TONE, AND ITS LAWS OF VIBRATION 
 
 A tone is produced by a periodical motion of the 
 sounding body — a noise by motions not periodi- 
 cal. We can see and feel the sounding vibra- 
 tions of stationary bodies. The eye can perceive 
 the vibrations of a string, and a person playing 
 on a clarionet, oboe, or any similar instrument, 
 feels the vibration of the reed of the mouth- 
 piece. How the movements of the air, agitated 
 by the vibrations of the stationary body, are felt 
 by the ear as tone (Klang), Helmholtz illus- 
 trates by the motion of waves of water in the 
 following way : Imagine a stone thrown into per- 
 fectly smooth water. Around the point of the 
 surface struck by the stone there is instantly 
 formed a little ring, which, moving outwards 
 equally in all directions, spreads to an ever-en- 
 larging circle. Corresponding to this ring, sound 
 goes out in the air from an agitated point, and 
 enlarges in • all directions as far as the limits of 
 
88 THE VOICE IN SINGING 
 
 the atmosphere permit. What goes on in the 
 air is essentially the same that takes place on 
 the surface of the water ; the chief difference only 
 is that sound spreads out in the spacious sea of 
 air like a sphere, while the waves on the surface 
 of the water can extend only like a circle. At 
 the surface the mass of the water is free to rise 
 upward, where it is compressed and forms bil- 
 lows, or crests. In the interior of the aerial 
 ocean the air must be condensed, because it can- 
 not rise. For, " in fact, the condensation of the 
 sound-wave corresponds to the crest, while the 
 rarefaction of the sound-wave corresponds to 
 the sinus of the water-wave."* 
 
 The water-waves press continually onwards 
 into the distance, but the particles of the water 
 move to and fro periodically within narrow 
 limits. One may easily see these two move- 
 ments by observing a small piece of wood float- 
 ing on water ; the wood moves just as the parti- 
 cles of water in contact with it move. It is not 
 carried along with the rings of the wave, but is 
 tossed up and down, and at last remains in the 
 same place where it was at the first. In a similar 
 way, as the particles of water around the wood 
 
 *TVndalL 
 
THE VOICE IN SINGING 89 
 
 are moved by the ring only in passing, so the 
 waves of sound spread onwards through new 
 strata of air, while the particles of air, tossed to 
 and fro by these waves as they pass, are never 
 really moved by them from their first place. A 
 drop falling upon the surface of the water 
 creates in it only a single agitation ; but when a 
 regular series of drops falls upon it, every drop 
 produces a ring on the water. Every ring passes 
 over the surface just like its predecessor, and is 
 followed by other rings in the same way. In 
 this way there is produced on the water a regu- 
 lar series of rings ever expanding. As many 
 drops as fall into the water in a second, so many 
 waves will in a second strike a floating piece 
 of wood, which will be just so many times tossed 
 up and down, and thus have a periodical motion, 
 the period of which corresponds with the inter- 
 val at which the drops fall. In like manner a 
 sounding body, periodically moved, produces a 
 similar periodic movement, first of the air, and 
 then of the drum in the ear ; the duration of the 
 vibrations constituting the movement must be 
 the same in the ear as in the sounding body. 
 
 8* 
 
90 THE VOICE IN SINGING 
 
 THE PROPERTIES OF TONE (KLANG) 
 
 The sounds produced by such periodic agita- 
 tions of the air have three peculiar properties : 
 1. Strength, 2. Pitch, 3. Timbre. 
 
 The strength of the tone depends on the 
 greater or less breadth of its vibrations, that is, 
 of the waves of sound, the higher or lower 
 pitch of the tones upon the number of the vibra- 
 tions; that is, the tones are always higher the 
 greater the number of the vibrations, or lower 
 the less the number of the vibrations. A second 
 is used as the unit of time, and by number of 
 vibrations is understood the number of vibra- 
 tions which the sounding body gives forth in a 
 second of time. The tones used in music lie 
 between 40 and 4000 vibrations per second, in 
 the extent of seven octaves. The tones which 
 we can perceive lie between 16 and 38,000 vibra- 
 tions to the second, within the compass of eleven 
 octaves. The later pianos usually go as low as 
 
 C 1 with 33, or even to A 11 with 27§ vibrations ; 
 mostly as high as a IV or c v , with 3520 and 
 4224 vibrations. The one lined a, from which 
 all instruments are tuned, has now usually 440 to 
 450 vibrations to the second in England and 
 
THE VOICE IN SINGING 91 
 
 America. The French Academy, however, has 
 recently established for the same note 435 vibra- 
 tions, and this lower tuning has already been 
 universally introduced in Germany.* 
 
 The high octave of a tone has in the same 
 time exactly double the number of vibrations of 
 the tone itself. Suppose, therefore, that a tone 
 has 50 vibrations in a second, its octave has 100 
 in the same time; i. e., twice as many. The 
 octave above this has 200 vibrations, &c. The 
 Pythagoreans knew this acoustic law of the 
 ascending tones, and that the octave of a tone 
 had twice as many vibrations in a second as the 
 tone itself, and that the fifth above the first octave 
 had three times as many ; the second octave, four 
 times; the major third above the second octave, 
 five times as many ; the fifth of the same octave, 
 
 * The concert pitch in different places and at different 
 periods has undergone great changes. The Grand Opera in 
 Paris in the year 1700 established 404 vibrations to a second 
 as the concert pitch of a, which gradually rose higher, as the 
 wind instruments became more perfect and had a more im- 
 portant part assigned them in concerted music, until 185S it 
 had attained the height of 448 vibrations in a second. In 
 this same year (1858) at Berlin and St. Petersburg it reached 
 its greatest height — 451 J vibrations in the second. In Mozart's 
 time, in Vienna, it had only 422 and 428 vibrations. 
 
92 THE VOICE IN SINGING 
 
 six times ; the small seventh of the same octave, 
 seven times. In notation it would be thus, if 
 we take as the lowest note C, for example : 
 
 I 8va. 
 
 ^:23 4«J5 6 7 8916 32 
 
 1 
 
 The figures below the lines denote how many 
 times greater the number of vibrations is than 
 that of the first tone. In the first octave we find 
 only one tone ; in the second, two ; in the third, 
 all the tones of the major chord with the minor 
 seventh. In the fourth octave we find sixteen 
 tones (which, however, we divide in our system 
 of music into twelve). Likewise, we find in the 
 fifth octave thirty-two tones, which number is 
 doubled in the sixth. Hence, the Greeks had 
 quarter and eighth tones, which we in our equal- 
 tempered tuning have done away with.* 
 
 The production of a higher pitch in a tone 
 rests in all sounding bodies upon the uniform 
 law which we may observe in the strings of 
 
 * As long as melody alone was aimed at in music, and was 
 accompanied only by octaves, the tones preserved their nat- 
 ural purity. But with the rise of harmony (the accord of 
 different tones) there was rendered necessary a more regular 
 system, to which the purity of the tones was sacrificed. 
 
TEE VOICE IN SINGING 93 
 
 musical instruments, whose tones ascend either 
 by greater tension, by shortening, or through a 
 diminution of the density of the strings. 
 
 THE TIMBRE (KLANGFARBE) OF TONES 
 
 Strength and pitch were the first two distinc- 
 tions of different tones. The third is the timbre. 
 When we hear one and the same tone sounded 
 successively upon a violin, trumpet, clarionet, 
 oboe, upon a piano, or by a human voice, &c, 
 although it is of the same strength and of the 
 same pitch, yet the tone of all these instruments 
 is different, and we very easily distinguish the 
 instrument from which it comes. The changes 
 of the timbre seem to be infinitely manifold ; 
 for, not to mention the fact that we have a mul- 
 titude of different musical instruments, all which 
 can give the same tone, letting alone also that 
 different instruments of the same kind as well as 
 different voices show certain differences of tim- 
 bre, the very same tone can be given upon one 
 and the same instrument, or by one and the same 
 voice, with manifold differences of timbre.* 
 
 * " It is not possible to sound a stretched string as a whole 
 without at the same time causing to a greater or less extent 
 its subdivision ; that is to say, superposed upon the vibrations 
 
94 THE VOICE IN SINGING 
 
 As now the strength of the tone is determined 
 by the breadth of the vibrations, and the pitch 
 by their number, so the varieties of timbre are 
 ascribed to the different forms of the waves of 
 
 of the string we have always, in a greater or less degree, the 
 vibrations of its aliquot parts. The higher notes produced 
 by these latter vibrations are called the harmonics of the 
 string. And so it is with other sounding bodies ; we have, 
 in all cases, a co-existence of vibrations. Higher tones min- 
 gle with the fundamental tone, and it is their intermixture 
 which determines what, for want of a better term, we call 
 the quality of the sound. The French call it timbre, and the 
 Germans call it Klangfarbe. It is this union of high and low 
 tones that enables us to distinguish one musical instrument 
 from another. A clarionet and a violin, for example, though 
 tuned to the same fundamental note, are not confounded. * * * 
 " All bodies and instruments, then, employed for producing 
 musical sounds, emit, besides their fundamental tones, tone? 
 due to higher order of vibrations. The Germans embrace all 
 such sounds under the general term Obertone. I think it will 
 be an advantage if we, in England, adopt the term over-tones, 
 as the equivalent of the term employed in Germany. One 
 has occasion to envy the power of the German language to 
 adapt itself to requirements of this nature. The term Klang- 
 farbe, for example, employed by Helmholtz, is exceedingly 
 expressive, and we need its equivalent also. You know that 
 color depends upon rapidity of vibrations — that blue light 
 bears to red the same relation that a high tone does to a 
 low one. A simple color has but one rate of vibration, and 
 it may be regarded as the analogue of a simple tone in music. 
 
THE VOICE IN SINGING 95 
 
 vibration. For as the surface of the water is 
 stirred differently by the falling into it of a stone, 
 by the blowing over it of the wind, or the pass- 
 ing through it of a ship, &c, so the movements 
 of the air take different shapes from sounding 
 bodies. The movement proceeding from the 
 string of a violin over which the bow is drawn, 
 is different from those movements caused by the 
 hammer of a piano or by a clarionet. 
 
 OVEE-TOXES (OBERTOKE) 
 
 That timbre is dependent on the form of the 
 vibrations is confirmed by Helmholtz, and ac- 
 
 A tone, then, may be defined as the product of a vibration 
 which cannot be decomposed into more simple ones. A com- 
 pound color, on the contrary, is produced by the admixture 
 of two or more simple ones ; and an assemblage of tones, such 
 as we obtain when the fundamental tone and the harmonics 
 of a string sound together, is called by the Germans a Klang. 
 May we not employ the English word clang to denote the 
 same thing, and thus give the term a precise scientific meaning 
 akin to its popular one? And may we not, like Helmholtz, 
 add the word color or tint to denote the character of the clang, 
 using the term clang-tint as the equivalent of Klangfarbef 
 (Sound : A course of Lectures delivered at the Royal Institution 
 of Great Britain by John Tyndall, LL.D., F. R. S., Professor 
 of Nat. Phil, in the Royal Institution and in the Royal School 
 of Mines. English edition, pp. 116-118.) — Tr. 
 
96 THE VOICE IN SINGING 
 
 know] edged as so far correct that every different 
 timbre requires a different vibratory form, but 
 different forms sometimes correspond to nearly 
 the same timbre. But how far the different forms 
 of vibration correspond with different timbres, 
 Helmholtz shows by a fact which has hitherto 
 escaped the notice of physicists, although it forms 
 the foundation of all music. We have learned 
 by the stereoscope that we have two different 
 views of every object, and compose a third view 
 from those two. Just so the ear perceives different 
 musical tones which come to our consciousness only 
 as one tone. 
 
 It is in general, and especially in the case of the 
 human voice, very difficult to distinguish these 
 single parts of tone, because we are accustomed 
 to take the impressions of the external world 
 without analyzing them, and only with a view to 
 their use. 
 
 But when we are once convinced of the exist- 
 ence of partial tones (Partialtone), if we concen- 
 trate our attention, we can also distinguish them. 
 The ear hears, then, not only that tone, the pitch 
 of which is determined, as we have shown, by the 
 duration of its vibrations, but a whole series of 
 tones besides, which Helmholtz names "the 
 
THE VOICE IN SINGING 97 
 
 harmonic over-tones" of the tone, in opposition to 
 that first tone (fundamental tone) which is the 
 lowest among them all, generally the strongest 
 also, and according to the pitch of which we 
 decide the pitch of the tone. The series of these 
 over-tones is for each musical tone precisely 
 the same; they are, namely, the tones of the 
 so-called acoustic series, arising, as already de- 
 scribed, from the doubling of the vibrations. 
 First, the fundamental tone, then its octave with 
 twice as many vibrations, then the fifth of this 
 octave, &c. 
 
 The different timbre of tones thus depends 
 upon the different forms of the vibrations, whence 
 arise various relations of the fundamental tone to 
 the over-tones as they vary in strength. The 
 most thorough inquiries have led to the follow- 
 ing results, of the first importance in every 
 formation of tone : that the appropriate form of 
 the vibratory waves which is the most agreeable to 
 the ear, as well as the fullest, softest and most beau- 
 tiful timbre ichich cwresponds to that form, is pro- 
 duced when the fundamental tone, and the over-tones 
 following it, so sound that the fundamental tone 
 and the over-tones sound together, the former most 
 
 strongly, while the lattefr are heard fainter and 
 
 E 
 
98 THE VOICE IN SINGING 
 
 > 
 
 fainter in the intervals of the major chord with the 
 minor seventh, so that, with the fundamental tone, 
 still further sound seven over-tones. If the higher 
 harmonic over-tones grow stronger, and even over- 
 power the fundamental tone, the sound grows 
 shriller, but when the discordant over-tones lying 
 close together, higher than the tones just named, 
 overpower the fundamental tone, the timbre be- 
 comes sharp and disagreeable. 
 
 But these over-tones are not to be confounded 
 with the earlier known combination-tones -( Com- 
 binationstb'ne), which arise from the sounding 
 together of two consonant intervals, and likewise 
 have their own over-tones. 
 
 Prof. Helmholtz has by means of his Reso- 
 nance and Electrical apparatus invented aids by 
 which the forms of the vibrations can be per- 
 ceived as well as the over-tones, and the different 
 degrees of strength of the latter in relation to one 
 another and to the fundamental tone can be ex- 
 actly measured. In attempting by means of the 
 above-mentioned apparatus to cause the several 
 over-tones to sound more or less strongly with 
 the fundamental tone, and again entirely to veil 
 others, it became possible to Prof. Helmholtz 
 
THE VOICE IN SINGING 99 
 
 to produce artificially most opposite timbres, as 
 well as all the vowels of speech. 
 
 Even when, in the culture of a voice, we have 
 advanced so far that none of the inharmonic but 
 only the harmonic over-tones sound with the fun- 
 damental tone, we shall always find that every 
 voice has its own peculiar Klangfarbe — i. e., its 
 own characteristic timbre ; and it is not possible so 
 to form the tones of a voice that the over-tones 
 sounding with them shall diminish proportionally 
 according to their height. Every voice has one, 
 mostly two, over-tones, which always predominate 
 in every tone, every register, and give the voice 
 its peculiar quality. When, with the first octave, 
 the fifth above it sounds, the voice is full and 
 mellow. A clear, sympathetic, silvery ring is 
 produced by the sounding of the seventh with the 
 octave immediately above it. One of the most 
 beautiful timbres is a result of the prominence 
 of the third with the seventh, etc. This pecu- 
 liarity appears to be connected with the particu- 
 lar form and structure of the cavity of the mouth. 
 That parts of the cavity of the mouth serve as a 
 sounding-board in the formation of sound, has 
 already been mentioned.* 
 
 * As to the characteristic sounds of the different keys, 
 
100 THE VOICE IN SINGING 
 
 The perfection of a tone at a certain pitch de- 
 pends, in the resonance of the cavity of the 
 mouth, upon the utterance of some vowel, to 
 which the parts of the mouth are adjusted; and 
 this perfection is considerably affected by even a 
 slight variation in the timbre of the vowel, as il 
 occurs in different dialects of the same language. 
 On the other hand, the peculiar tones of the 
 cavity of the mouth are almost wholly independ- 
 ent of age and sex. The peculiar pitch of the 
 resonance apparatus has also an influence upon 
 
 the views of musicians are to the present day divided. Many 
 even of our most eminent theorists, as Hauptmann, for ex- 
 ample, in Leipsig, have maintained that all keys (Tonarten) 
 are only transpositions of one major and minor key, and 
 that like musical effects may be produced with one as well 
 as with the other. The majority of musicians are, however, 
 of the opinion that each key has its peculiar character, and 
 that by transposition into another key the musical effect is 
 changed. My son, Carl Seiler, has discovered that each 
 key has its own peculiar, prominent over-tones, which de- 
 termine its distinctive character. A table of all the keys 
 {Tonarten), in which the prominent over-tones of each are 
 given, shows also that the mutual relation of the keys (Ton- 
 arten) is elucidated by these over-tones. And thus again sci 
 entitle investigation confirms what the founders of the theory 
 of music, with their sound sense for the beautiful, recog- 
 nized as correct. 
 
THE VOICE IN SINGING 101 
 
 the tone. Every one who knows how to play on 
 any instrument knows that some of its tones 
 sound sweeter and are more easily given than 
 others ; these are the tones in which the peculiar 
 tone of the instrument and its over-tones sound 
 together. To describe more particularly the na- 
 tural laws upon which these facts rest would 
 lead us too far away from our present purpose. 
 
 THE VOWELS 
 
 Every tone in singing usually takes the sound 
 of some vowel. By the greater or less distinct- 
 ness of one or another of the over-tones, sounding 
 with the fundamental tone, various timbres of 
 the vowel are produced. But certain vowels in 
 certain parts of the scale can be sung far more 
 easily and sweetly than others. The investiga- 
 tion of this fact has taught us that a tone gains 
 in richness when the tone corresponding to the 
 vowel belongs to the over-tones of the funda- 
 mental tone. In the human voice, however, the 
 tones favorable to the several vowels do not 
 admit of being precisely determined. 
 
 In different languages and dialects the vowels 
 have different shades, and a scarcely perceptible 
 variation, especially in the clearer vowels, is 
 sufficient to ca^se the over-tones to be heard 
 
 9* 
 
102 THE VOICE IN SINGING 
 
 more or less distinctly. After I had learned, 
 with the kind assistance of Professor Helru- 
 holtz, by means of his artificial apparatus for 
 the sharpening of the ear, to find out over-tones 
 and to know their peculiarities, I was soon able, 
 without any artificial help, to discover the vowels 
 favorable to them by the fuller sound of certain 
 tones. In the female voice all tones below the 
 
 /u | I take the character of o. At the 
 , a, pronounced as in the English word 
 
 hall , sounds the best, and at d 5 e \/ L — ^ p] 
 passes into a, as in man, and at f I A J 1 into a, 
 
 as in may. With the g | ^ J — | the a sounds 
 again as in man ; a b b b c 
 
 35=* 
 
 hJ m * 
 
 are 
 
 favorable to all the vowels, while d eb e 
 jj f l f ~| s o un d best with e. After e 
 
 every tone takes the coloring of a, as in father, 
 and sounds well only with this vowel; bb c d 
 
 gE — - E sound again better with e. As thus, 
 
THE VOICE IN SINGING 103 
 
 above e f - /U i i - all the tones take tLe color- 
 
 ing of a in father, so the tones below c /u ■ I 
 
 take the timbre of o, and the most skilful 
 artists are not able to sing all the vowels in 
 these tones with equal clearness and purity. 
 The female voice, therefore, has only a few tones 
 more than an octave, upon which every one of 
 the vowels can be distinctly sung; and again, 
 all these tones do not afford an equally sonorous 
 tone with every vowel. 
 
 As unfortunately our Song composers do not 
 always keep this fact in view, as the old Italians 
 did, and since words with the most unfavorable 
 vowels often underlie the notes, it as often be- 
 comes necessary to mingle with the unfavorable 
 vowel something of the sound (Klang) of the 
 vowel properly belonging to the note; as, for 
 
 example, in the word " ring" upon f (fy i | , to 
 
 %) ring 
 
 sing the i with a mixture of the sound (Klang) of 
 a. Artists do this in a way of which they are for 
 the most part unconscious, and which is always 
 unobserved by the hearer. That in every voice 
 there are several tones upon which every vowe 1 
 sounds well, finds an explanation in an observa 
 
104 THE VOICE IN SINGING 
 
 tion of Professor Helmholtz. Theear is attuned 
 
 to a certain tone, designated as e £ To persons 
 with very susceptible nerves these tones are 
 often insupportable, and we often see dogs, whose 
 sense of hearing is especially acute, run howling 
 
 away when the above e is struck upon a violin, 
 while to other tones they seem wholly insensible. 
 But all the tones which are accompanied by that 
 tone as an over-tone to which the ear is attuned, 
 sound harmonious even with unfavorable vowels. 
 
 PAKTIAL TONES 
 
 But beside the over-tones, which sound with 
 eVery good, simple sound, there are other partial 
 tones, which, like the long-known combination 
 tones, do not usually present themselves to our 
 consciousness. Combination tones were first dis- 
 covered in 1745 by the organ-builder, Sorge. 
 By an act of concentrated attention one hears 
 these tones at the accord of two different tones. 
 They lie always lower than the interval to which 
 they belong, and arise from the meeting of the 
 nodes of vibration of the tones producing the 
 interval. The node of vibration is the name of 
 that place where, after every completed vibra- 
 
THE VOICE IN SINGING 105 
 
 tion, -the sounding body returns to its former 
 position. When, for instance, we give the third 
 c e, we hear the c, lying an octave lower than the 
 third, sounding at the same time as a combina- 
 tion tone. For the tone c a string has two 
 vibrations, while in the same space of time e 
 has three. The vibration node of the c will 
 thus, after two vibrations, coincide with the 
 vibration node of the e. By the coincidence of 
 these nodes of vibration is produced the number 
 of vibrations requisite for the c below. Besides 
 these combination tones there are summation 
 tones, discovered by Helmholtz, which arise from 
 the vibrations collectively (Gesammtzaht) belong- 
 ing to the above interval, and are higher than 
 the interval. Both kinds of partial tones have 
 again their faint over-tones. 
 
 BEATS (DIE SCHWEBUNGEN) 
 
 We have explained the movements of the 
 waves of sound by the movements on the sur- 
 face of water, and we know that, instead of the 
 billows and hollows that we have in the water, 
 the air is condensed and rarefied. We know 
 further that if two different lines of waves run 
 
 along with one another, their crests and hollow* 
 
 E* 
 
106 THE VOICE IN SINGING 
 
 fall together, and their crests become as high 
 again and their hollows as deep again. So two 
 tones from different sources of sound are twice as 
 strong when they are both equally high, and a 
 new tone of the same height added to them will 
 still further increase the sound. But when two 
 agitations of the surface of the water so move 
 that the crests of one fall into the hollows of the 
 other, their movements neutralize each other. 
 The same thing happens in tones when one 
 is not struck until half the vibrations of the 
 preceding tone are concluded. But if the 
 sounding bodies vary in only a small part of a 
 vibration sound, they will be alternately strongei 
 and weaker, and this is termed beats (Schwebun- 
 gen), which are only produced by tones very near 
 to each other. Those intervals whose combina- 
 tion and over-tones so fall together that many 
 beats are produced, sound harsh and disagreeable / 
 and we call them dissonances. 
 
 Those intervals in which few or no beats 
 occur are called consonances. As the combina- 
 tion or interfering tones, as well as the beats, 
 have importance and interest only in harmoniz- 
 ing several voices, in tuning pianos, as well as 
 in composition in general, and as we have in 
 
THE VOICE IN SINGING 107 
 
 view in these pages only the culture of single 
 voices, we cannot further enlarge on these dis- 
 coveries, interesting as they are. According to 
 the purpose of this little work, I introduce only 
 so much of the latest investigations and discove- 
 ries as will help to show the prevailing evils f 
 our mode of teaching singing, and, by their prac- 
 tical application to the business of instruction, 
 serve to improve the vocal art. But whoever has 
 an interest in this branch of science will find in 
 the invaluable work of Helmholtz, "Die Lehre 
 von den Tonempfindungen," an abundance of most 
 interesting observations and of the most tho- 
 roughly scientific illustrations of the theory of 
 music, and of those processes in the domain of 
 tone which we have hitherto always felt, but 
 never understood. 
 
 APPLICATION OF THE NATURAL LAWS LYING 
 AT THE FOUNDATION OF MUSICAL SOUNDS 
 TO THE CULTURE OF THE VOICE IN SINGING 
 
 The parts of the human voice that generate 
 tones are the membranous vocal ligaments or 
 chords, which are subject to the same natural 
 laws as all sounding bodies ; of this we may 
 satisfy ourselves by observing the different regis- 
 
108 THE VOICE IN SINGING 
 
 ters of the voice by means of the laryngoscope. 
 The lower, stronger tones of both series of the 
 chest register show the ligaments in full vibra- 
 tion, and becoming more strongly stretched with 
 every higher tone. In the second series the 
 glottis appears, by the inaction of the arytenoid 
 cartilages, to be shortened. In the falsetto re- 
 gister the vibrating body is diminished, as only 
 the edges vibrate, while the same processes are 
 repeated as in the chest register by the greater 
 stretching of the ligaments and the shorten- 
 ing of the glottis. The head register, likewise, 
 shows the glottis partly closed, and the vibrat- 
 ing ligaments gradually stretched more and more. 
 
 The vocal ligaments are made to vibrate by 
 the air coming from the lungs through the 
 treachea, to which they present resistance. These 
 vibrations are communicated to the air in the 
 mouth and outside, and are felt by the ear as 
 sound. 
 
 As the strength of the tone depends upon the 
 amplitude of the waves of sound, they, in their 
 turn, depend upon the structure of the organ 
 of singing, and of the parts of the mouth serv- 
 ing as a sounding-board or resonant apparatus, 
 but, above all, upon the skilful management of 
 
THE VOICE IN SINGING 109 
 
 the vibrating air. And although a fine timbre 
 of the tones and due skill in increasing the ampli- 
 tude of the vibrations may cause the voice to ap- 
 pear fuller and stronger, yet it is not in our power, 
 when once the vocal organs have been fully de- 
 veloped, tD make a strong voice out of a weak 
 one. 
 
 Always to strike the true pitch fully and 
 clearly requires persevering attention, as well 
 from the teacher as from the pupil. And long 
 practice is often required before the intonations 
 become as pure as is indispensably necessary to 
 good singing. For only upon the basis of a full, 
 pure tone is a beautiful timbre (Klangfarbe) pos- 
 sible. 
 
 But the most important thing in the culture 
 of the voice is the timbre of the tones, for here 
 it is in our power to form out of a sharp, hard and 
 disagreeable voice, a voice sweet and pleasing. 
 
 We have seen that the timbre is dependent on 
 the forms of the vibrating waves, and the differ- 
 ent degrees of strength and number of the over- 
 tones arising from these forms. It has been 
 further shown that the simple round form of the 
 waves of vibration produces the softest, fullest 
 
 timbre. By this fcrm the fundamental tone is 
 10 
 
110 THE VOICE IN SINGING 
 
 the strongest, and the over-tones are heard as- 
 cending to the third octave with decreasing de- 
 grees of strength. Such a tone is natural to cer- 
 tain voices. In most cases it must be more or 
 less acquired. 
 
 A good tone in singing is formed, 
 
 1. By controlling and correctly dividing the 
 air or breath as it is expired ; 
 
 2. By a correct direction of the vibrating 
 column of air ; this is done by the right touch 
 (Tonansatz) ; 
 
 And, 3. By a very distinct, quick and elastic 
 touch. 
 
 THE CONTROL OF THE BREATH 
 
 By a too great pressure of the breath, the form 
 of the waves of sound most favorable to a good 
 tone is disturbed. One then hears the high 
 over-tones sounding strongly up to the sixteenth, 
 while the lower over-tones with the fundamental 
 tone sound weak or not at all. Thus the tone 
 takes a shrill, sharp and disagreeable sound 
 when the form of the vibrating waves is more 
 or less disturbed by too great a pressure of air. 
 Too little breath deprives the tone only of its 
 strength, but not of its agreeable sound. 
 
THE VOICE IN SINGING HI 
 
 Thus every tone requires for its greatest possible, 
 perfection only a certain quantity of breath, which 
 cannot be increased or diminished without injury to 
 its strength in the one case, and its agreeable sound 
 in the other. 
 
 In looking carefully through the histories of 
 music, and studying the old Italian schools, we 
 find that it was upon this point — the control and 
 right division of the breathing — that the old mas- 
 ters in the summer of song laid the greatest 
 stress, and this it was to which in teaching they 
 gave the most time and labor. The rules which 
 they followed in this respect, in order to obtain 
 a fine tone, accord perfectly with the results of 
 the latest scientific investigations. And it would 
 be far better for the art of singing if in this 
 respect we had followed the old Italians more 
 faithfully, and not have forsaken so entirely the 
 right way. 
 
 According to the old Italian method, which 
 must not be confounded with the modern, the 
 pupil was required at first to breathe just as 
 he was wont to breathe in speaking, and care 
 was taken, by frequent resting-points in the ex- 
 ercises, that the breath should always be renewed 
 at the right time. Accordingly, if the crowding, 
 
1 12 TEE VOICE IN SINGING 
 
 or pressure, of his breathing was too great, he 
 was required to learn to hold it back. Until 
 the organs were sufficiently practised in the for- 
 mation of a good tone, and the ear had become 
 familiarized to its sound, pupils were allowed 
 to sing only piano. As soon as the pupil had 
 a feeling for a pure tone awakened in him, and 
 could of himself distinguish the finer variations 
 of timbre, he was taught to fill his lungs more 
 and more. But this was to be done, as much as 
 possible, imperceptibly, noiselessly, slowly, and 
 soon enough for him to be able properly to con- 
 trol the quiet breathing in the beginning of a 
 song. Only the sides of the body were in so 
 doing to expand, and breathing with raised 
 chest was allowed only in exceptional cases, as 
 where long passages were to be sung with special 
 passion. For these places, where breath must 
 be taken, there were certain rules which were 
 strictly observed. 
 
 After we have learned the natural laws which 
 are applicable in music, and which lie at the 
 basis of a full, rich tone in singing, and that a 
 tone is, strictly speaking, only vibrating air, upon 
 the fine and skilful management of which its 
 beauty and fulness depend, and have considered the 
 
THE VOICE IN SINGING 113 
 
 careful way in which the old Italians taught the 
 control of the breathing, we cannot but be struck 
 with the rude and negligent manner of using the 
 breath in our present mode of singing. 
 
 With some distinguished exceptions, it is now 
 almost universally the practice to require the 
 pupil, as the very first thing, to fill the lungs 
 as full as possible, whereby the chest must be 
 raised. Then the tones must be sung in as 
 strong and long-sustained a manner as possible, 
 in order " to bring out the voice," as the phrase 
 is. He is next told to begin the tones with a 
 full chest piano, and slowly swell them to the 
 highest forte, and then descend as slowly, in order 
 to learn " to govern the voice." Thus the pupil 
 is always required to sing as strongly as possi- 
 ble, without any special regard to the timbre 
 of the tones, because the timbre is regarded as 
 a peculiarity of different voices, admitting of no 
 change. According to what has been shown in 
 the preceding pages, the present way of using 
 the breath, by which it is supposed that voices 
 are rendered strong and full, only needlessly 
 fatigues the organs, injures the beauty and 
 
 weakens even the strength of the tones. In 
 10* 
 
114 TEE VOICE IN SINGING 
 
 the same way we find, especially in the case 
 of tenor voices, that the aim is by greater forcing 
 of the breath to extend the registers beyond 
 their limits. Another fault is often taught : 
 the pupil is required to force with the breath to 
 the due pitch those tones whose pitch is usually 
 struck too low. jSo voices can ever endure such 
 treatment, and, although the organs may be 
 strong enough to remain sound while under in- 
 struction, yet the voice will not continue good, 
 and cannot be of long duration. 
 
 We often hear, even in fresh and unsophisti- 
 cated voices, a hoarse breathing accompanying 
 the tones, as in the case of worn-out voices. 
 This breathing arises when the air, which is 
 exhaled and which rushes into the cavity of the 
 mouth, is not all in vibration, and it escapes along 
 with the vibrating columns of air. It some- 
 times happens, also, that in the too great pres- 
 sure of the exhaled air against the glottis, the 
 arytenoid cartilages, near their bases, and some- 
 times the vocal chords leave a small opening 
 through which the air escapes with a hoarse noise. 
 By keeping back the breath in singing these faults 
 may be corrected. Long-continued singing piano 
 
THE VOICE IN SINGING 115 
 
 in exercises is, moreover, beneficial in the form- 
 ing of the voice.* 
 
 A simple expiration does not indeed suffice 
 for the generation of a full sounding singing 
 tone. There is required a certain force by which 
 the air is sent through the narrow and stretched 
 glottis. But so great an expense of force as 
 people are usually at is not necessary. 
 
 The influence of the same stream of air in- 
 creases in proportion as the breadth of the 
 vibrating ligaments decreases. The tones of the 
 falsetto and head registers, therefore, require far 
 less breath than those of the chest register. The 
 less the quantity of breath expended in these 
 tones, and the easier and more quickly they are 
 produced, the clearer and fuller do they sound. 
 The mechanism of the head tones especially is, 
 as we have seen, so delicate that only a slight ex- 
 cess of breath calls forth the inharmonic over- 
 tones which render the tone sharp and unmusical. 
 In wind instruments the tone can be forced up- 
 
 * The position of the body in singing must be such as in 
 no way to interfere with the easy drawing of the breath. 
 One sings most easily standing as erect as possible, quiet and 
 unconstrained, the chest somewhat projected, the body slight.'y 
 drawn in, and the hands folded. 
 
116 THE VOICE IN SINGING 
 
 wards by a greater pressure of air; that is, by 
 more powerful blowing, which appears to be prac- 
 ticable also in those instruments in whose pecu- 
 liar timbre the highest inharmonic over-tones 
 overpower the others.* 
 
 Together with the skill and unintermitted 
 attention which this part of instruction in sing- 
 ing requires of the teacher, there are here yet 
 other and peculiar difficulties which he has to 
 meet. In opposition to the earlier and more 
 correct view, it is no longer beauty of tone, but 
 strength of tone, which is considered the chief 
 excellence of a voice. Accustomed to seek the 
 beauty of the voice in its strength, it is attempted, 
 before the time of instruction begins, to sing as 
 strongly as possible from a full chest with the 
 greatest expulsion of breath. Thence it follows, 
 in the superficial way in which the study of the 
 art of singing is at present conducted, that noth- 
 ing more is commonly required of a teacher than 
 that he should be able to drill his pupil in some 
 
 * It was instruments of this class — trumpets, horns, bugles, 
 etc. — in whose timbre the highest inharmonic over-tones over- 
 power all the rest, that were painfully offensive to the ex- 
 quisite musical organization of Mozart from his earliest child- 
 hood. 
 
THE VOICE IN SINGING 117 
 
 pieces of tolerably well conceived vocal music, 
 which the latter must sing as soon as possible 
 in company. A perfect culture of the voice is 
 scarcely any longer expected of an artist. Peo- 
 ple with a very scanty musical education and 
 voices very poorly trained are regarded as artists 
 if they execute their parts with expression, and 
 trick them out with those clap-traps which 
 never fail to command the applause of the ordi- 
 nary public. 
 
 A conscientious teacher has, therefore, univer- 
 sal opinion against him when he demands a 
 longer time for the education of a voice, and 
 requires of his pupils that they shall practice 
 singing only piano as long as it is necessary. 
 
 THE CORRECT TOUCH OF THE VOICE (TONAN- 
 
 SATZ) * 
 
 Having stated the first condition of a good 
 timbre of the tones, we come now to the second — 
 the right direction of the vibrating columns of 
 air. A correct touch of the voice consists in caus- 
 
 * It is all but impossible to give an idea of what is meant 
 by Tonansatz, without a practical illustration. It is that 
 striking of the note or the air corresponding to the touch in 
 piano-playing. 
 
118 THE VOICE IN SINGING 
 
 ing the air, brought into vibration by the vocal 
 ligaments, to rebound from immediately above 
 the front upper teeth, where it must be concen- 
 trated as much as possible, rebounding thence to 
 form in the mouth continuous vibrations, which 
 are, at the same time, communicated to the exter- 
 nal air. The quicker and the more easily these 
 movements take place, and the farther forward in 
 the mouth the vibrating column of air is reflected, 
 the more beautiful, full and telling is the tone. 
 If the air rebounds farther back in the mouth 
 from any part of the roof of the mouth, then the 
 high inharmonic overtones are prominent, and 
 there arises either one or the other of those hollow, 
 disagreeable colorings of timbre which are known 
 as throat and nasal tones. 
 
 That the voice must be brought forward iu 
 the mouth — that is, that the air expired in sing- 
 ing should have the above described direction — is 
 now acknowledged as necessary and aimed at 
 by the best teachers. But the reasons why the 
 tones thus sound better are not known. The 
 Germans and the English, in consequence of their 
 accustomed modes of forming sounds in speak- 
 ing, have, as we shall see hereafter, more rarely 
 than the Italians, a correct disposition of the 
 
THE VOICE IN SINGING 119 
 
 tones in singing. It is extremely difficult for 
 many persons to accustom themselves to such 
 a direction of the vibrating air-columns. But 
 with the proper means the skilful teacher always 
 gains his end. These means are to let the pupil 
 practice those syllables which he is accustomed, 
 in his own language, to form wholly in front of 
 the mouth. 
 
 The old Italian masters considered the manage- 
 ment or touch of the tone as one of the most im- 
 portant requirements in the perfect cultivation of 
 the voice. Distinctly, lightly, swiftly and elasti- 
 cally must the column of tone, rightly directed, 
 strike the forward part of the mouth, which at the 
 same moment opens widely enough to communi- 
 cate without delay the quick agitation to the air 
 external to it. 
 
 Only by a correct movement of this kind (An- 
 satz) are those forms of the vibrations obtained in 
 ichich all the harmonic over-tones belonging to a 
 'perfect tone sound together. The quicker, lighter 
 and more distinct this movement of the tone is, 
 the more telling it is, and it may be heard quite 
 strongly, even when it is sung piano with a full 
 chorus and orchestra. Upon the occasion of the 
 great Musical Festival in Boston (1869), it was a 
 
120 THE VOICE IN SINGING 
 
 matter of universal wonder that with the power- 
 ful chorus of many thousands of voices, Mad. 
 Parepa-Rosa's tones were heard so distinctly that 
 even at a considerable distance the words were 
 plainly understood. As great artists often find 
 the true and only beautiful unconsciously, so Mad. 
 Parepa-Rosa has a perfectly correct touch, whereby 
 she sets the surrounding air vibrating more rap- 
 idly than it is possible for a chorus to do with so 
 many unschooled voices. The sounding waves 
 of the tones which this distinguished singer pro- 
 duced with the correct touch, naturally reached 
 the ear sooner and were earlier felt and taken into 
 the consciousness of the listener than those of the 
 mighty chorus, and thus it was that the music of 
 a single voice kept its significance even with the 
 accompaniment of a multitude of voices. 
 
 The great influence of the touch upon the ful- 
 ness, and especially upon the extent to which tones 
 reach, is again best illustrated by the movements 
 of water. When we press on the surface of water 
 slowly, though with the greatest force, and at the 
 same time touch it in another place quickly and 
 lightly, it is not only far more strongly moved by 
 the quick, light touch, but the waves which are 
 produced spread themselves out more rapidly 
 
THE VOICE IN SINGING 121 
 
 and run more swiftly over the surface, than those 
 of the slower and more powerful pressure. 
 
 As the form of the vibrations necessary to a 
 perfect tone in singing depends mainly upon a 
 right management of tone, it is self-evident that 
 here the greatest care should be taken in teaching 
 vocal music. Here is one of the most difficult 
 tasks for the teacher, and great perseverance and 
 much practice are required of the pupil. But 
 when once a right production of tone has become 
 a habit, so that with every tone all the harmonic 
 over-tones sound, and more breath is then allowed 
 to stream forth immediately after the quick, light 
 rebound of the vibrating column of tone, the 
 vibrations enlarge without changing their form, 
 and so only the strongest, fullest, most beautiful 
 tone possible is obtained. But a touch can only 
 be learned by imitation. We can no more 
 describe the fine shades of tone than of color. 
 And no art, least of all the art of singing, can be 
 learned from books alone. 
 
 FORMATION OF VOWELS AND CONSONANTS 
 
 The sound of the vowels depends, as we have 
 Keen, upon whether one or another of the over- 
 tones takes precedence in sound. But the condi- 
 11 F 
 
122 THE VOICE IN SINGING 
 
 tions by which the formation of the vowel? is 
 determined lie in the form of the cavity of the 
 mouth, and of the contraction of the same in 
 some one place or another during expiration. 
 These places are different in different languages 
 and dialects. They are among the English, Ger- 
 mans and French farthest back in sounding a, as 
 in father ; farther forward in a, as in may, o, e, 
 in the order in which they are here placed ; and 
 farther front in the German u (oo). 
 
 The length of the cavity of the mouth is the 
 greatest in sounding oo, the least in e, interme- 
 diate in a. In the pure, clear a, as in may, or e 
 of the Germans, the cavity is the narrowest. 
 Hence, to form a tone on this vowel is very 
 difficult, and it is the only vowel whose pure pro- 
 nunciation must be sacrificed to the tone. Good 
 tones can be formed on this vowel when in both 
 series of the chest register there is mingled with it 
 the sound of the German o, pronounced in English 
 nearly like the vowel in bird, and in the higher 
 registers the sound of the e — that is, of the Ger- 
 man i. The cavity of the mouth is thus some- 
 what broadened, and the tone gains more room 
 for its development. 
 
 The Swiss form the o and u like the a in 
 
THE VOICE IN SINGING 123 
 
 father y broadest at the back of the mouth, and 
 the e broadest towards the front. But the 
 Italians form no vowel as far front as their clear 
 sounding beautiful a, as in father ; and probably 
 because the a in the Italian language sounds 
 broadest and most distinctly, Italian wagoners 
 drive their beasts with the shout of a! a! while 
 the Germans use for the same purpose, hil I huo ! 
 and the Swiss, hipp ! One can only approximate 
 an imitation of the Italian a by uttering it in 
 connection with consonants coming rapidly, as in 
 pfa, bra, and in as short and rapid a manner as 
 possible. 
 
 The old Italian masters naturally found their 
 beautiful a most favorable to the formation of 
 a good tone in singing ; and thus it has been 
 adopted by other nations. But here is the very 
 reason why a tone free from badly sounding 
 colorings is so rarely heard. We have blindly 
 imitated the Italians, without considering the 
 different modes of forming the vowels in different 
 languages and nations, and that the Italian a is a 
 vowel entirely different from the German and the 
 similarly sounding English a. Its correct sound 
 is learned by those to whom it is not vernacular 
 only with difficulty. 
 
124 THE VOICE IN SINGING 
 
 As the vowels are differently formed in dif- 
 ferent languages, so is it also with the con- 
 sonants. The North Germans form the letter 
 r with the soft palate, which is made to 
 vibrate by the exhalation of the breath. The 
 South Germans, Russians and Italians form 
 the r by the vibration of the tip of the tongue. 
 It is only this mode of forming the r which 
 is to be used in singing, and must be learned 
 by those who do not usually form it thus. This 
 is sometimes rather difficult, but it can be done 
 by repeating frequently and rapidly, one after 
 the other, the syllables hede, hedo, or ede, edo. 
 In this way the tongue gets accustomed to 
 the right position and motion, which it by- 
 and-by learns rapidly enough for the formation 
 of the rolling r. 
 
 The Italians, likewise, form the I with the tip 
 of the tongue, the Germans and English mostly 
 with the side edges of the tongue. With some 
 attention one can, by feeling, find out in his own 
 organ the place for the formation of the different 
 vowels and consonants, and an ear accustomed 
 to delicate differences of tone will perceive the 
 right place in others. 
 
 But in teaching, the example of the wagonera 
 
THE VOICE IN SINGING 125 
 
 must be follow ed, and as these people have found 
 oat the most appropriate vowels and syllables 
 whereby to make themselves understood by their 
 animals, we must choose what is best fitting to 
 the formation of tone in singing. 
 
 Long before I found the scientific reason of this 
 mode of proceeding, my attention was called by 
 Frederic Wiek, in Dresden, to the fact that a fine 
 tone can be most quickly attained by practising 
 in the beginning upon the syllables sw, soo, or 
 dii, doOj and by not passing to the other vowels 
 until one is accustomed to produce tones in the 
 front of the mouth. These syllables are nat- 
 urally spoken by the Germans and the English 
 in the front part of the mouth. The s is formed 
 with the lips apart, while the air is blown 
 through the upper teeth ; it thus assists one, 
 united with u (oo), to direct the tone forwards. 
 But because in the u the lips are almost closed, 
 care must be taken that, within the lips, the teeth 
 are far enough apart. The cavity of the mouth 
 must be large enough to allow of the largest pos- 
 sible wave of sound, since upon the size of that, 
 as we know, the strength of the tone depends. 
 When the pupil, after some practice, has learned 
 
 to give the right direction to the stream of sound, 
 11* 
 
126 THE VOICE IN SINGING 
 
 he must be required gradually to form th » other 
 vowels like the soo in the front part of the 
 mouth, passing from this syllable immediately 
 to the other vowels, as, for example, soo-a, soo-o, 
 soo-e, soo-o-e-ah, &c. Only care must be taker* 
 that the course of the air preserves its righi 
 direction. 
 
 Solmisation, also, *. e., naming the tones, c, d, 
 e, f, g, a, b, by the syllables do, re, mi, fa, sol, la, 
 si, assists a good touch when the pupil employs 
 it in the more rapid exercises. 
 
 There is no fixed rule that can be laid down 
 in regard to the necessary opening of the mouth 
 and its position. The structure of the palate 
 and the form of the jaw, and the position of 
 the teeth, lips, &c, vary in different persons. 
 The ear of the teacher must alone determine 
 what position of those several parts will best 
 secure a good timbre. But in every case, for the 
 highest tones of the voice the widest possible 
 opening of the mouth is necessary, and even 
 when, in the formation of the vowels, the lips 
 have to be brought nearer to each other, yet the 
 teeth within must be kept apart, that the cavil y 
 of the mouth may remain large enough. 
 
 Wind instruments show the influence which 
 
THE VOICE IN SINGING 127 
 
 the orifice and breadth of the bell has upon the 
 strength of the tone. In the human voice the 
 mouth occupies the place of the bell. 
 
 We have already made the remark, in speaking 
 of the different registers, that in the chest tones 
 the position of the larynx is lowered. The 
 cavity of the mouth, then, is naturally length- 
 ened, and hence a moderate opening of the* 
 mouth, so that, in singing the notes of the low 
 chest register, the teeth are a thumb's breadth 
 apart, suffices for a good tone. The second chest 
 register requires the slightest opening of the 
 mouth. It is enough if one can press a finger 
 between the teeth. With the high falsetto and 
 head tones the cavity of the mouth is always 
 shorter and narrower towards the back, but as the 
 tones ascend, it must be always broader in front. 
 In singing the first falsetto register, the teeth 
 should be about the breadth of the thumb apart ; 
 in the second falsetto register, two fingers apart ' 
 and in the head register, the mouth must be 
 open as far as possible. But precise rules cannot 
 here be given. I have observed, however, that 
 in thin voices a too broad opening of the mouth 
 in the middle tones of the voice favors the high 
 over-tones more than the fundamental tone, 
 
128 THE- VOICE IN SINGING 
 
 and the tones are thus flat and wanting in 
 timbre. 
 
 Lips too thick and stiff sometimes injure the 
 tirabre of the tone ; they are often the cause of a 
 veiled, muffled timbre, acting like dampers and 
 rendering a part of the over-tones inaudible. In 
 such cases, as soon as he has become accustomed 
 to a correct direction of the column of tone, the 
 pupil should keep the lips as close to the teeth as 
 possible, and draw back somewhat the corners of 
 the mouth. 
 
 The tongue also is not infrequently a hindrance 
 to the formation of a good tone, especially when 
 the pupils have not been taught early enough to 
 open their mouths sufficiently wide. When the 
 high tones are to be produced, which require 
 much room in the forward part of the mouth, 
 the tongue is usually drawn back and raised, in 
 order to make the necessary room within the 
 lower front teeth. This, again, is a habit difficult 
 to hi broken, and care must be taken that the 
 lower front teeth are lightly touched by the tip 
 of the tongue in singing, in order that the tongue 
 may be accustomed to a natural position. But 
 this is most easily attained when the tongue is at 
 the first kept occupied as much as possible by 
 
THE VOICE IN SINGING 129 
 
 quick exercises with the syllables of solmisation, 
 or by practising tones in slow time upon sylla- 
 bles beginning with consonants formed by the tip 
 of the tongue. As in pronouncing the German 
 Sch the tongue presses the teeth all around with 
 its outer edge, syllables formed with these conso- 
 nants serve excellently well to accustom the 
 tongue to a quiet, correct position. 
 
 FLEXIBILITY OF VOICE 
 
 We hear it continually said that it requires a 
 special natural gift to acquire a certain ease and 
 flexibility of voice, and that this natural gift is 
 peculiar to the Italians. But the flexibility of 
 the voice depends upon a physiologico-physical 
 process of the organ of tone, which, among the 
 Italians, goes on in their common speech, and 
 hence is more easily transferred by them to their 
 singing. In trills, roulades, turns, and all tones 
 quickly succeeding one another, the breath must 
 set the vocal chords vibrating in quick, short 
 pulses. The little time used by the breath be- 
 tween these rapidly succeeding pulses to retreat. 
 in order to give another pulse, suffices perfectly 
 to produce easily and quickly the position of the 
 glottis requisite for a higher or lower tone. In 
 
 If* 
 
130 THE VOICE IN SINGING 
 
 order, between the pulses, to give room to the 
 retreating breath, the windpipe expands laterally, 
 whereby the larynx is always somewhat drawn 
 down, in order, with the next pulse of the breath, 
 to take again its former place. This rising and 
 lowering of the larynx can be seen plainly out- 
 side the throat, and it can be seen also whether 
 the movement goes on rightly. Upon the degree 
 of rapidity with which this movement goes on 
 depends the greater or less flexibility of the 
 voice. 
 
 But when the breath in exhaling presses in 
 regularly increasing strength against the vocal 
 chords, and one wishes to pass quickly to a higher 
 tone and back again, as is required in trills, while 
 the aerial stream continues to flow on with unin- 
 termitted force, it is evident that the changed 
 mov>ment of the glottis, even within the limits 
 of a register, demands more time and muscular 
 force than a beautiful trill or run admits of. But 
 at the same time the limits of the tones become, 
 by the uninterrupted stream of air, obliterated, 
 and embellishments sung in this way, with un- 
 moved larynx, indistinct. But ornamentation is 
 now practised only in this latter way, and if 
 
THE VOICE IN SINGING 131 
 
 pupils do not naturally move their throats cor- 
 rectly, the gift of flexibility is denied them. 
 
 A quite prevalent and likewise incorrect way 
 of using the throat is moving the epiglottis with 
 the larynx, which renders the formation of a clear, 
 pure tone impossible, and jiorituri sung in this 
 way are limp and indistinct. The only correct 
 movement shows itself very plainly externally, 
 so that with the tolerably strong movement 
 of the larynx up and down, there can be seen 
 also a slighter movement of the windpipe far 
 below in the neck, about the breadth of two 
 fingers above the breast-bone. The mouth and 
 tongue, however, must be perfectly quiet. 
 
 But the cultivation of vocal flexibility in sing- 
 ing is the easiest and most grateful part of the 
 education of the voice, for with ordinary industry 
 on the part of the pupil results are here obtained 
 most speedily. In the very first lessons I teach 
 my pupils the motions of the vocal organ in trills, 
 and if they do not learn them by imitation, I give 
 them simple exercises on the syllable koo to prac- 
 tice for a while. The k is produced by a pulse 
 of the breath, and the oo is, as we have seen, the 
 best vowel sound with which to direct the breath 
 as it is expired. Thus, by singing staccato the 
 
132 THE VOICE IN SINGING 
 
 syllable koo, slowly at first and gradually 
 quicker, with a movement of the larynx and 
 windpipe that is both seen and felt; and with 
 the tongue and lips at rest and motionless, the 
 right movement is given to the organ in trills 
 and all other embellishments, and by continued 
 practice the movement becomes more rapid. 
 Those who need to be taught this movement 
 must never practice continuously for any length 
 of time, for we must avoid fatiguing the organs. 
 When pupils have become accustomed, by rap- 
 idly singing the syllable koo on each tone of 
 the trill, to the movement of the larynx, then 
 they can practice upon another syllable, and in 
 the following way : Let the trill be at first always 
 sung piano, with an accenting of the higher tone 
 every time and a gradual increasing of the 
 
 rapidity thus 
 
 ' J I ' I I 
 
 ; also in half and whole 
 
 tones, and then in minor thirds. But the most 
 beautiful trill will be formed by practising trip- 
 lets in the compass of a whole tone, then of a 
 minor third, major third, fourth, etc., by which 
 
THE VOICE IN SINGING 133 
 
 first the upper, then the lower tone is accented : 
 :^E^ i^=|=E| . The mouth, however, in this 
 
 J Lj Qj 
 
 exercise must continue immovably open, and the 
 tongue also must lie perfectly still, touching the 
 lower front teeth, for only in this way can one be 
 sure of not moving the epiglottis. Although 
 this is difficult at first, yet the syllable ku (koo) 
 may be sung in this way. Thus, with sufficient 
 practice, any one may acquire a perfect flexi- 
 bility of voice. When the pupils can make the 
 trill easily upon the middle tones, in which in the 
 beginning exercises must be practised, let them 
 practice also upon the higher and lower tones of 
 the voice. If the trill takes place at the transi- 
 tion of two registers, then both the tones must 
 be formed upon the higher of the two, as in an 
 exchange of registers the glottis requires more 
 time than a good trill admits of. 
 
 Rapid runs downwards are easily executed cor- 
 rectly when care is taken that with every tone the 
 same movement is made as in the case of trills, 
 and the breath is kept back as much as possible. 
 Voices wanting in flexibility may soon acquire 
 the desired quality by singing every tone piano 
 
 upon the syllable koo. 
 12 
 
134 THE VOICE IN SINGING 
 
 Ascending runs can properly be taught only 
 when the descending have been correctly sung, 
 for, in opposition to the former, every tone of the 
 latter must be formed by a light impulse with 
 increased breath. The softer the piano in which 
 the pupil practises, and the more loose the conse- 
 quent movement of the larynx, the more dis- 
 tinctly and the more purely will the pupil gradu- 
 ally execute these embellishments. 
 
 Intelligible as these movements are in practice, 
 it is difficult to describe them. To be able to 
 make all ornaments in singing beautifully and 
 easily requires long practice, for in a thoroughly 
 artistic piece of vocal music it is essential, as the 
 great artist Schroder-Devrient said, that all the 
 notes of ornamentation (Coloratur) should be 
 like a string of pearls on black velvet, each 
 distinct in itself, round and beautiful, and 
 yet so connected with the rest in one whole 
 that no gap is discernible. Carefully and cor- 
 rectly directed exercises in ornamentation are 
 in the highest degree necessary to the forma- 
 tion of tone; they tire the voice far less than 
 sustained notes, and accustom it to an exact enun- 
 ciation of the tones. But because persevering 
 practice is necessary to the cultivation of vocal 
 
THE VOICE IN SINGING 135 
 
 flexibility, the teaching of this is to be begun 
 at the very first ; and not until later, when the 
 voice is habituated to a right touch and to a 
 perfectly clear tone, is the pupil to be given 
 those favorite exercises with long-sustained notes, 
 which are sung with one continuous breath. 
 That we so rarely meet with clear vocal fluency 
 is again owing to our mode of teaching. We do 
 not seek to cultivate formation of tone and 
 fluency at the same time. Oftentimes it is only 
 after years spent in singing sustained tones that 
 ornaments are allowed to be practised, and then, 
 instead of using as little breath as possible, the 
 flexibility of the larynx is hindered by singing 
 too powerfully with full chest and un intermitted 
 crowding of the breath. Without denying that 
 in regard to vocal flexibility different indi- 
 viduals and nations may be variously gifted, it is 
 nevertheless certain that with due practice every 
 one may acquire more or less of vocal fluency. 
 
 FrederichWiek has composed for his pupils a 
 large number of simple exercises, in which all 
 kinds of ornaments are introduced, and which 
 at the same time are so melodious that they 
 oasily catch the ear. They mostly comprise 
 only a few tones, at the most an octave, and 
 
136 THE VOICE IN SINGING 
 
 are sung in half tones, ascending in different 
 keys. Next to these exercises come, as highly 
 adapted to the culture of vocal flexibility, the 
 solfeggi of Mieksch, Mazzoni, Rossini, Crescen- 
 tini> &c. There is, indeed, no want of excellent 
 exercises and solfeggi. Their use, however, 
 depends upon the way in which the teacher 
 requires them to be practised. Notwithstand- 
 ing the abundance of these exercises, I have 
 always found it necessary to prepare special 
 ones for my pupils, as every voice requires pecu- 
 liar treatment and guidance.* In every pupil 
 peculiar faults are to be overcome and peculiar 
 qualities come into play, and the vocal organ 
 shows as many differences as the human face. 
 But the right way is sure to be found when 
 the irreversible laws of nature, which lie at 
 the foundation of our art, are once recognized. 
 The practica 1 advantages of this knowledge the 
 singer, like every other artist, must endeavor 
 to secure orally, that is, by sound instruction. 
 Ornamentation, however, can become distinct 
 
 * A selection of such exercises, prepared by the present 
 writer, has recently been published by Mr. O. Ditson in Bos- 
 ton, ana also two books of old Italian solfeggi from Mieksch 
 and Mazz^xni, arranged to the present pitch. 
 
TEE VOICE IN SINGING 137 
 
 and clear only by uniting these with a distinct, 
 pure touch, as we have already endeavored to 
 describe, when, with the beginning of the tone, 
 the pitch is struck lightly, quickly, distinctly, 
 elastically, with certainty and perfect correctness. 
 But as it is by no means easy to introduce a 
 tone quickly and correctly, so that it will sound 
 equally pure from the first, this flexibility is 
 extremely rare among our singers. Instead of 
 it, the most hateful mannerisms have stolen into 
 practice; the tone is struck too low, and forced 
 up by an increase of breath, or the tones are so 
 drawled one into another that one cannot tell 
 where they begin or where they cease. Impure 
 intonation is much more disagreeable in the 
 high tones than in the low. This is quite nat- 
 ural ; for when, for example, the low c is sung 
 one-tenth too low or too high, then it will cause 
 an octave higher twice as many vibrations, and 
 two octaves higher four times as many, and 
 these in proportion to their number produce a 
 more intense effect. In the higher registers of 
 the tones little discords (Verstimmungen) call 
 forth a much larger number of beats (which arc 
 not to be confounded with vibrations) than in 
 
 the lower, and thus the impurity of the musical 
 12* 
 
138 THE VOICE IN SINGING 
 
 intervals is felt much more strongly. Purity 
 in the art of singing is, however, such a primal 
 condition of its beauty, that a piece of music 
 purely executed, even by a weak and slightly- 
 cultivated voice, always sounds agreeably, while 
 the most sonorous and practised voice offends 
 the hearer when it is out of tune or forced up- 
 wards. The training of our singers by pianos, 
 as they are now tuned, by equal temperament, 
 is altogether unsatisfactory. The singer who 
 practises with the piano has no safe principle 
 by which he can measure the height of his tones 
 with any exactness. But persons of good musi- 
 cal talent, made aware of this disadvantage by a 
 competent teacher, and practising accordingly, 
 can nevertheless overcome this difficulty caused 
 by our present method of tuning, and learn to 
 sing correctly and purely. 
 
 Until the seventeenth century, singers were 
 drilled by the monochord, for which Zarlino, in 
 the middle of the sixteenth century, re-intro- 
 duced the correct, natural tuning. The drilling 
 of singers was conducted at that time with a 
 care of which we have now no idea. The church 
 music of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries is 
 arranged upon the purest consonant chords, de- 
 
THE VOICE IN SINGING 139 
 
 pending upon this for its whole effect, which 
 would naturally be injured if not executed with 
 perfect purity. Our opera singers now-a-days 
 are seldom able to sing without accompaniment 
 a composition for several voices so purely that 
 its whole beauty is felt ; the accord almost always 
 sounds sharp and somewhat uncertain, and there- 
 fore cannot satisfy a really musical ear. 
 
 SPEECH 
 
 The vowels and consonants are, in speaking, 
 produced by certain noises (Gerausche), which 
 in singing sound together with the tone. These 
 sounds are produced by local diminutions of 
 the cavity of the mouth, or by the opening 
 or closing of the lips and teeth, as well as 
 by movements of the tip of the tongue, &c, 
 while a single pulse of the air passes through 
 the tolerably wide open glottis and through the 
 cavity of the mouth without regular vibrations 
 For the air rushes more directly out of the 
 mouth in speaking than in singing. Of this 
 we may be easily convinced by holding a feather 
 before the mouth; it will show far more mo- 
 tion in speaking than in correct singing. If, 
 in speaking, people would take pains to form 
 
140 THE VOICE IN SINGING 
 
 the vowels in the front of the mouth— a habit 
 so necessary in singing, and which is easily 
 acquired by practice — our common speech would 
 be much more melodious, far-sounding, and less 
 strained. We see the truth of this when we 
 hear words called out from a height and from 
 a distance ; the different consonants then mostly 
 disappear, excepting the m and n, which are 
 formed mostly in the front of the mouth. The 
 vowels, on the other hand, are more or less 
 plainly heard, according to the places in the 
 mouth where they are formed. Certain it is 
 that for the beauty of our common speech, the 
 resonance of the cavity of the mouth peculiar 
 to each vowel may be rendered available. A 
 singing tone in speaking is very disagreeable. 
 Every one who is not used to it, finds the sing- 
 ing dialect of Saxony in the highest degree 
 offensive and unpleasant. Nevertheless, a more 
 attentive observation soon teaches us that be- 
 hind the noise which characterizes the several 
 sounds in language, a timbre is heard similar to 
 the tone in singing, and in various instances 
 there occur regular musical intervals, as at the 
 end of a sentence or in the special accentuation 
 of single words. Thus, at the conclusion of an 
 
THE VOICE IN SINGING 141 
 
 affirmative sentence the voice usually falls about 
 a fourth from the medium pitch, and at the end 
 of an interrogatory sentence rises about a fifth 
 above the usual speaking tone. Words spe- 
 cially accented are usually a tone higher than 
 the rest, &c. In public speaking and in drama- 
 tic representations these variations of sound are 
 more numerous and complicated, and the inven- 
 tor of the modern Eecitative, Jacob Perri, even 
 declares that he formed it by imitating in sing- 
 ing these variations of sound, in order to restore 
 again the declamation of the ancient tragedians.* 
 Tedious and intolerable as it is to hear so 
 much sing-song in common speech, it is equally 
 wearisome when people drone on always in a 
 dry speaking tone at the same pitch, without 
 ever letting the voice rise or fall. The most 
 interesting matter thus delivered will lull the 
 hearer to sleep. It cannot be denied that a rich 
 field is here offered for farther scientific observa- 
 tion, and those natural laws which lie at the 
 foundation of the art of singing may certainly 
 be applied with advantage to the perfecting of 
 
 * According to BoetJiins, the lyra, which was used by the 
 Greeks to accompany declamation, embraced, in the tuning 
 of its strings, the principal intervals used in speaking. 
 
142 THE VOICE IN SINGING 
 
 the mode of speaking, especially in those who 
 have to speak in public. * 
 
 To extend these remarks any farther does not 
 come within our present purpose, which is con- 
 cerned exclusively with the voice in singing and 
 its cultivation. For this reason I leave unno- 
 ticed many most interesting phenomena relating 
 to music in general, but not particularly to the 
 culture of the voice, although they are of the 
 deepest interest to the educated musician. 
 
 * Since the appearance of this book I have often been con- 
 sulted by persons whose calling required them to speak in 
 public, and whose vocal organs were no longer competent 
 thereto. Here also I have found in most cases that there was 
 an incorrect use of the registers, and that men especially 
 form the lowest sounds with that forced enlarging of the 
 windpipe already mentioned (that is, with the so-called 
 Strohbassregister). Many have probably fallen into this un- 
 natural and exhausting manner by attempting to speak or to 
 sing loudly. Together with the incorrect use of the registers, 
 there is also an incorrect management (Leitung) of the vi- 
 brating air, which so often renders speaking so difficult to 
 public speakers. As, when the voice is not wholly directed 
 to the front of the mouth, it does not move the external air 
 quickly enough and so does not reach far, the speaker 
 commonly tries to help himself by a greater expenditure 
 of force. Misled by false views, speakers usually attempt by 
 a great waste of breath and by exertion alone to produce an 
 effect which can be realized only by skilful management of 
 the most delicate and easily moved of all things, the air. 
 
IV 
 
 THE ESTHETIC VIEW 
 
 OF THE ART OF SINGING 
 
 HAVING treated, in the two preceding divi- 
 sions of this book, of the physiological and 
 physical laws lying at the basis of singing tones, 
 and of their practical application to the forma- 
 tion of the voice, we come now to the better 
 known — the aesthetic — part of our task. 
 
 The reader will bear in mind th?t as, in the 
 preceding sections, our attention has been confined 
 to what directly relates to the culture of the voice 
 in singing, notwithstanding the strong temptation 
 to transcend the limits which our present design 
 prescribes, so in this section also the same pui- 
 pose is kept in view, and it is not to be regarded 
 as treating of the aesthetics of music in general. 
 
 Hitherto we have had to do with fixed, irre- 
 versible laws, which are to be implicitly fol- 
 lowed in order to render singing as perfect as 
 possible. We have seen how the decline of the 
 
 143 
 
144 THE VOICE IN SINGING 
 
 art of singing had to follow as a necessary con- 
 sequence the non-observance of these laws. In 
 speaking thus far of the agreeable and the dis- 
 agreeable, of the beautiful and its opposite, we 
 have had no reference to artistic feeling. We 
 have been concerned only with direct sensuous 
 pleasure or pain, not with aesthetic beauty. We 
 have been occupied thus far with the technique 
 of our art — the form. But with the animating 
 spirit of this form, the cesthetic, we enter upon 
 a broader field, which, dependent upon purely 
 psychological reasons (Ilotiven), may undergo a 
 change, either from the general progress of man- 
 kind or from the culture of the practised artist. 
 Thus, although from Aristotle down to Lessing 
 and our own times the principles of beauty in 
 all the arts are the same, yet every period, in 
 which art has flourished, has produced works, 
 various indeed, and corresponding to the spirit 
 of the age, works, which, however, notwithstand- 
 ing all differences, have still conformed to the 
 demands of the principles of beauty. Thus, in 
 architecture, sculpture, painting, music, &c, there 
 are different styles of art, every one of which, 
 however, has its justification and its peculiar 
 beauty. We are not, therefore, to judge these 
 
THE VOICE IN SINGING 145 
 
 different styles of art by the taste and ideas (Auf- 
 fassung) of the present, but by the character of 
 the times that produced them. Although the 
 mode of thinking may vary in accordance with 
 the different stages of culture of individuals and 
 mankind, there are, nevertheless, certain princi- 
 ples of beauty which all nature announces. 
 
 By beauty we understand the highest per- 
 fection of the single parts in a perfectly repre- 
 sented whole, and the most intimate union of 
 the ideal with the material, i. e. y of the spirit- 
 ual with the formal, which must have as its 
 basis a certain proportion and order in the 
 position of the several parts as well as in 
 their relation to the whole work. In the per- 
 ception of the beautiful, everything must tend 
 to awaken the feeling of repose and pleasure; 
 and the more susceptible we are of the impres- 
 sion of the beautiful, the more shall we be dis- 
 turbed by defects, even the least, in any work 
 of art. The pleasure which we take in any 
 work of art, which, however faultless in certain 
 respects, shows any glaring defect, is greatly 
 abridged. The ugly spot will absorb our atten- 
 tion and destroy the pure enjoyment of its beauty, 
 
 and still more disagreeable will be the effect if 
 13 g 
 
146 THE VOICE IN SINGING 
 
 the different parte, otherwise beautifully shaped, 
 are thrown out of their due symmetry and pio- 
 portion. In the successive arts, as music, the 
 dramatic art, &c, proportion (Maassvolle) is an 
 essential condition of beauty, more than in the 
 simultaneous arts ; and an artist whose technique 
 is altogether perfect, and who can succeed in 
 reproducing every emotion of the mind in his 
 work, is a true artist only when he never trans- 
 gresses by an excess of passion the fine bound- 
 ary lines of beauty. 
 
 It is given to only a very few to recognize at 
 once the high and beautiful in art. In most the 
 sense of the beautiful awakens only with a riper 
 spiritual development. It is thus the fruit of a 
 higher stage of culture. To children and per- 
 sons wholly uneducated a brightly painted pic- 
 ture-book is more beautiful than the Dresden 
 Madonna, that great masterpiece of painting. 
 And most people take greater pleasure in a waltz 
 by Strauss or Lanner than in a symphony by 
 Beethoven or Mozart. Beauty depends upon 
 principles, i. e., rules and laws, which are founded 
 in the nature of the human reason. The appre- 
 ciation, therefore, of beauty accompanies the 
 development in man of his reason. 
 
THE VOICE IN SINGING 147 
 
 Music, above all the other arts, finds the ear- 
 liest and most universal recognition, and almost 
 every one listens to it with pleasure. Helmholtz 
 says that music is much more intimately related 
 to our sensations than all the other arts put 
 logether. Tones touch the ear and are instantly 
 lelt to be agreeable or disagreeable, while the 
 impressions of painting, poetry, &c, upon our 
 senses must be brought to our consciousness, and 
 be judged of there by comparison. But it is not 
 only through the direct effect of tones, as it ap- 
 pears to me, but more through the life (Bele- 
 bung) which animates it, that music comes so 
 close to us, and is so natural and near of kin to 
 us. That must needs be the most interior of 
 the arts- whose office it is to express the various 
 moods of the human soul in their tenderest and 
 most secret fluctuations. The incorporeal mate- 
 rial of tone is far better fitted to express these 
 different moods (Stimmungen) than it is possible 
 for poetry to do. Peculiar, definite feelings it 
 cannot, indeed, distinctly denote without the 
 help of poetry. But it is this very indefinite- 
 ness that enables music so to insinuate itself into 
 the soul of the hearer that the tones heard seem 
 to be the expression of his own feelings, and not 
 
148 THE VOICE IN SINGING 
 
 those of another. Hence it is that music, in 
 its whole nature, acts beneficently and sooth- 
 ingly, because its ruling principle is always a 
 striving after repose, after a rest in consonances, 
 just as this is the innermost aim and struggle 
 of our own life. In the other arts this is much 
 less the case. Aristotle, in his twenty-seventh 
 and twenty-ninth problems, distinguishes the in- 
 fluences of music as the expression of tones of 
 feeling (Stimmungen), and not of definite feel- 
 ings. And Brendel, who, in his history of 
 music, holds to the order among the arts re- 
 ceived by the Greeks, by which architecture 
 takes the lowest place, then sculpture, painting, 
 music, and, lastly, as the highest of the arts, 
 poetry, remarks, that " Music, by virtue of its 
 power to express the most delicate shades of 
 sentiment, would certainly take the highest rank 
 were it more definite." It has always been 
 attempted to extend the boundaries of music by 
 calling in the assistance of painting and poetry. 
 Haydn, Mozart, Schubert, etc., have imitated in 
 their compositions the singing of birds, the rip- 
 pling of water, storms, &c. And now our mod- 
 ern musicians of the future endeavor to express 
 in tones definite thoughts and feelings, imagin- 
 
THE VOICE IN SINGING 149 
 
 ing that here a new epoch in art is to open. 
 But these new compositions always require ela- 
 borate explanations. Music until now, at least, 
 has not yet given up its ethereal, indefinite 
 character.* 
 
 * The friends of this style of music (programme music so 
 called) appeal to the authority of Beethoven, who, it is 
 claimed, opened the way for it when he introduced into his 
 Pastoral Symphony interlineations which should suggest the 
 right sentiment to the hearer. But, although Beethoven 
 allowed himself to approach the uttermost limits in this 
 direction, he never overstepped them. It was only in his 
 Pastoral Symphony that he introduced these interlineations, 
 and they do not entirely contradict the peculiar character of 
 the music, as so many of our modern programmes do. 
 
 Programme 
 To Bedhoven's Pastoral Symphony, December 22, 18U8. 
 I. Agreeable sensations upon visiting the country. 
 II. Scene at a brook's side. 
 
 III. Merry gathering of country people! 
 
 IV. Thimder and storm. 
 
 V. Happy and grateful emotions after the storm. 
 More emotional than descriptive. 
 Expression rather than representation of feeling. 
 
 Programme 
 
 To a Prize Symphony, by Joachim Raff, performed in 
 
 Vienna, 1863. 
 
 1. D major. Allegro. 
 
 Portrait of the German character, — its capability of 
 13* 
 
150 THE VCICE IN SINGING 
 
 It is essentia] to the full effect of a work of 
 art that the artist should create it, and the 
 hearer or beholder should enjoy it, without 
 thinking of the rules and laws of beauty. A 
 work of art must act immediately upon the 
 feelings ; it must appear to be spontaneous, and 
 must be felt without reference to any aim oj 
 plan. What is aesthetically beautiful pleases a 
 cultivated taste at once without any reflex con- 
 sideration. But when, by the help of the under- 
 standing, we seek to account for the harmony and 
 perfection of the several parts, and find by more 
 
 elevation, proneness to Eeflection, Gentleness and 
 Valor, as contrasts that blend with and permeate one 
 another in manifold ways — overpowering proneness 
 to meditation. 
 II. D minor. Allegro molto vivace. 
 
 In the open air, in the German grove, with the sound of 
 horns, Away to the fields, with the songs of the people. 
 
 III. D major. Larghetto. 
 
 Gathering round the domestic hearth, transfigured by 
 love and the Muses. 
 
 IV. G minor. Allegro-dramatico. 
 
 Ineffectual struggle to establish the unity of the father- 
 land. 
 V. D minor. Lament. D major. Allegro trionfale. 
 Opening of a new and elevated era. 
 
THE VOICE IN SINGING 151 
 
 searching study that the work is in conformity 
 to the laws of reason, our enjoyment will nat- 
 urally be enhanced. But this study must always 
 come as a consequence of the first effect upon 
 the soul, otherwise all effect is wanting. The 
 unconscious enjoyment of the legitimate in art is 
 the first condition of the influence of the beauti- 
 ful upon the soul. The happy, elevated feeling 
 which all works of art immediately awaken in 
 us is thus only an unconscious recognition of 
 the reasonable, the harmonious, the symmetrical. 
 But this unconscious impression is instantly dis- 
 turbed by any, the least imperfection, before we 
 perceive where and in what it consists, for the 
 human mind is not able fully and at once to ex- 
 amine a production of art in its entirety to its 
 minutest parts. 
 
 An artist must, therefore, be esteemed accord- 
 ing as his works excite and ravish the hearers 
 or beholders without their knowing why, and 
 he stands all the higher the simpler and the 
 more naturally — i. e., the more unconsciously — 
 this takes place. 
 
 In order to reach such a height, and to be 
 able to act upon the souls of men with an elevat- 
 ing and ii\forming power, it is first of all neces- 
 
152 TEE VOICE IN SINGING 
 
 saiy that an artist should cultivate the form, or 
 the technique, of his art to its greatest possible 
 perfection, and have such perfect command of 
 it, that the practical application of it is as nat- 
 ural to him as to breathe. For empty and dead 
 as all technical knowledge is unless it is animated 
 witJi a soul, yet no product of art aesthetically beau- 
 tiful is possible without a perfect technique. 
 
 But the culture of the technique in the art of 
 singing requires a special faculty in the teacher, 
 and, together with the finest power of observa- 
 tion, an ear, which not only perceives the purity 
 of the tone, whether high or low, but feels also 
 the direction of the aerial column, the too much 
 or too little of the breath, the coloring of the 
 timbre, &c. An aesthetically artistic educa- 
 tion demands likewise that the' singer should 
 have the highest general culture. As soon as 
 the technical education has advanced so far that 
 it no longer makes any demand upon the atten- 
 tion of the learner, the infusion of life and soul 
 into the singing must be begun. The teacher 
 must then be so filled with the spirit of his art 
 that he shall be able so to inspire his pupils 
 that, forgetting themselves, they may be ab- 
 
THE VOICE IN SINGING 153 
 
 sorbed in the high ideal work of their art, and 
 regard their well-trained voices simply as ex- 
 pressing the noblest and most varied sentiments 
 (Stimmungen). And on this account a teacher 
 should seek to act upon the souls of his pupils, 
 and awaken in them above all things a feeling for 
 the high and the noble, that they may be able to 
 find the correct mode of expressing it in singing. 
 It is a very hard but not impossible work to 
 educate true artists, who, penetrated with faith 
 in the high worth of their art, shall fulfil its 
 aim by exercising a refreshing and elevating in- 
 fluence upon their fellow-men. But, in order 
 to be able to form true artists, a teacher must 
 be devoted without intermission to his own cul- 
 ture, scientific and general; must strive with 
 pleasure, and love, and inspiration to accomplish 
 the high work of his calling, and make the 
 severest demands upon himself, before he can 
 expect anything great of his pupils. 
 
 Having spoken of those parts of the technique 
 of the art of singing which rest upon impreg- 
 nable natural laws, such as the registers of the 
 voice^ the formation of tones in regard to strength, 
 pitch, and timbre, &c, let us consider more 
 
 closely those other parts of the technique which 
 
 G* 
 
154 THE VOICE IN SINGING 
 
 rest upon psychological, i. e., aesthetic principles 
 (Motiven). To these belong Rhythm, Correct un- 
 derstanding of the Tempo, Composition, Execution, 
 that is, the delivery of the sentiment of the compo- 
 sition, and the aids thereto. 
 
 RHYTHM 
 
 To the principles of beauty belong, above 
 all things, order and regularity. In music this 
 order consists in measures of time. All measure- 
 ment by time, even the scientific, depends upon 
 rhythmic, regularly returning results, as in the 
 revolutions of the earth, of the moon, and in 
 the vibrations of the pendulum, &c. Thus, by 
 the regular interchange of accented and unac- 
 cented sounds in music and poetry, we obtain 
 the rhythm of the work. 
 
 But while in poetry the structure of verse 
 serves only to reduce to artistic order the exter- 
 nal accidents of expression by language, rhythm 
 is not only the external measure of time in music, 
 but it belongs to the innermost nature of its 
 power of expression, giving to music its dis- 
 tinctive character. There is, therefore, a finer 
 and much more various culture of rhythm neces- 
 sary in music than in poetry. Here rhythm 
 
THE VOICE IN SINGING 155 
 
 determines not only the time, how long a note 
 is to be maintained, and how many notes fall 
 within a certain space of time, but it also dis- 
 tinguishes those notes which are to be sung with 
 more or less emphasis. 
 
 We know that in a bar of J time the first beat 
 must be more accented than the second; in a 
 bar of ^ time the rhythmical accent falls upon 
 the first and third beats ; in a bar of ~ and § 
 time only upon the first; and in ^ upon the 
 first and fourth. This rhythmical accentuation 
 must become a second nature to the learner 
 before he can express any particular sentiment 
 in a piece of music, and therefore he must 
 be early practised in it. Rhythmical accen- 
 tuation can always be employed ver^ differently 
 according to the character (Stimmung) of a com- 
 position, and the most different effects in expres- 
 sion are thus produced. One can, by a greater 
 or less degree of strength, or by a sudden im- 
 pulse of the breath, change the accent, as well as 
 by a slight retardation of the note. Also, by 
 transferring the accent to those notes naturally 
 not accented, that is, in the J time to the 
 second beat, or to the second half of the first, 
 by so-called syncopes, the whole character of 
 
156 THE VOICE IN SINGING 
 
 a piece is changed. Iu musical passages in 
 which many notes come upon one beat and the 
 character of which is light and pleasing, a pecu- 
 liar charm is produced when several rhythmical 
 accents are made upon the same beat, and like- 
 wise in slow passages the swelling of the tone 
 upon the accented note is very pleasing. Let 
 the same phrase in a song be sung with different 
 rhythmical accents, and we may easily see how 
 such changes will give the passage quite another 
 character. 
 
 The old Italian singers understood to a re- 
 markable degree the use of rhythm in the exe- 
 cution of vocal music. But the poetical rhythm 
 of the words accompanying the voice gives to 
 the singer a guide, reference to which shows him 
 at least how and where he may employ the nicer 
 shades of musical rhythm. 
 
 CORRECT UNDERSTANDING OF THE TEMPO 
 
 To give the pupil the feeling for the correct 
 tempo of a composition is more difficult than 
 to teach him to understand rhythm. Our best 
 musicians, whose merits deserve the fullest ac- 
 knowledgment, often fail here, making the tempo 
 of a piece of music either too slow or too quick, 
 
TEE VOICE IN SINGING 157 
 
 and so weakening its whole effect. This hap- 
 pens especially with the old compositions which 
 preceded the introduction of the metronome. 
 The old Italian vocal compositions are in this 
 respect treated the worst by our musicians, who 
 belong to the strictly classical school. The 
 character of these pieces is prevailingly senti- 
 mental, and the tempi were not so quick then 
 as now. If a piece thus composed in slow 
 time is set, without reference to its sentiment, 
 to the quickest possible tempo, it becomes ordi- 
 nary and vulgar in character ; the most beauti- 
 ful adagio may in this way be degraded to a 
 street-ballad. The songs of our modern com- 
 posers have to be sung to a quicker tempo than 
 that to which they are set, or they are tedious and 
 wearisome. This is particularly the case with 
 the compositions of Schubert, and the whole 
 effect of his beautiful songs is often ruined by a 
 degree more or less too rapid. Singing too 
 slowly, or in false tempo, is now-a-days a very 
 prevalent fault. And yet the singer has in the 
 words a surer guide than is granted to the in- 
 strumental performer. Therefore, by well con- 
 sidering these and getting them by heart without 
 the music, as if they were the outpouring of his 
 
 14 
 
158 THE VOICE IN SINGING 
 
 own feelings, he will be most likely to strike the 
 correct tempo in singing them. In this way 
 many of our recent favorite songs gain a some- 
 what fresher tempo than that at which they are 
 usually sung. The choice of the time, being 
 dependent upon the taste of the artist, requires 
 special attention and study. 
 
 Although the tempo is usually indicated by 
 some designation, as, for example, allegro, ada- 
 gio, &c, yet the allegro or adagio may be given 
 with different degrees of quickness, and the desig- 
 nations still be perfectly correct. We have no 
 precise designations for the nicer degrees of 
 tempo, and yet a very slight degree has an influ- 
 ence upon the character of the piece. The metro- 
 nome, by which in instrumental music the tempo 
 is defined, is only occasionally used as a guide 
 in vocal compositions, because the singer may 
 be guided by the words and by the sentiment 
 which the words indicate. 
 
 The tempi must be ascertained by a knowledge 
 of the composers, and by reference to the periods 
 in which their compositions first appeared. It 
 would be an error to play an andante by Bach 
 or Haydn like one of Chopin's or Hitter's, or 
 sing the allegro of an aria by Pergolese or Carcjfa 
 
THE VOICE IN SINGING 159 
 
 as quickly as the allegro of one of Meyerbeer's 
 arias. But whether a piece of music be light 
 and ornamental in character, or heavy and 
 labored, weak or powerful, quiet or passionate, 
 depends on rhythm and tempo. 
 
 COMPOSITION 
 
 Classic art sought as the only aim in its works 
 to represent pure beauty. In the compositions 
 of the old masters regard was had only to the 
 sweetness of melody, and everything was ex- 
 cluded from them that did not fall agreeably 
 upon the ear. But in modern music what is even 
 unfavorable to sensuous pleasure is accepted, and 
 we have accustomed ourselves to a more vigor- 
 ous and powerful mode of representation, the 
 aim being to excite by sudden contrasts. 
 
 In so far as music is to represent the most 
 secret life of the soul, and as in art everything 
 natural, so far as it admits of being idealized 
 and represented, is allowable, this tendency of 
 art in music has its justification. But here, as 
 in everything in which the principles of beauty 
 are concerned, the true limit must not be over- 
 stepped. The old masters composed only in 
 consonances, and Helmholtz has shown scientifi- 
 
160 THE VOICE IN SINGING 
 
 cally that consonances alone have an independent 
 right to existence. Dissonances, according to 
 Helmholtz, are only permissible as transition 
 points for consonants, having no right of their 
 own to be. Down to Beethoven we find disso- 
 nances correctly employed by all the old masters. 
 And greater and nobler effects were attained 
 than are possible to our modern musicians with 
 their accumulation of dissonances and sudden 
 contrasts. 
 
 With the two composers in whom our modern 
 classic epoch reached its zenith, begins the gra- 
 dual decline of the art of singing. Mozart held 
 it necessaiy to his musical education to study in 
 Italy the vocal compositions of the old masters, 
 and to make himself thoroughly acquainted with 
 the qualities of the singing voice. Hence the 
 vocal compositions of Mozart will remain beau- 
 tiful and to be held up as models for all time, 
 for they unite the sweetest and loveliest melody 
 with an appreciation of sentiment the noblest 
 and most ideal. 
 
 The giant genius of Beethoven, inspired and 
 artistic, found the material developed to perfec- 
 tion by his predecessors, and with overpowering 
 strength forced it to yield itself to his service. 
 
TEE VOICE IN SINGING 161 
 
 His masterworks of composition, in the grandeur 
 of their style, excel everything that had been 
 produced before him. But he has treated the 
 human voice as a subordinate instrument. 
 
 Because all that Beethoven produced was grand 
 and beautiful, he has been blindly imitated, and 
 it has been wholly forgotten that music has in 
 all times drawn its best nourishment from song, 
 and only by means of song has it risen to its 
 high estate, and that instruments can never 
 reach what is possible to a thoroughly educated 
 human voice. 
 
 A musician, exclusively devoted to the piano, 
 never dreams of writing a concert piece for the 
 violin, because he knows that he is not suffi- 
 ciently acquainted with the peculiarities of that 
 instrument ; but every musician imagines himself 
 able to compose for the human voice, although 
 its peculiar qualities are far more numerous and 
 far more difficult to be rightly dealt with. 
 
 The strictly classical musicians of the present 
 reject all Italian music as bad. The objection 
 made to it is, that the music is never adapted to 
 the words, but often expresses something wholly 
 different and sometimes directly opposite to their 
 meaning, and that it never gives back to us any 
 
162 THE VOICE IN SINGING 
 
 high, poetic sentiment, but aims to bribe us with 
 ornaments only, and accidents. In regard to 
 modern Italian music this judgment may be just. 
 These superficial compositions are a product of 
 Italian music in its decline, and can force for them- 
 selves a certain popularity only by their pleasant 
 and easy melodies. Even the old Italian music 
 seems at first sight to pay little or no regard to 
 the sense of the words, especially when the time, 
 according to the classic German method, is set too 
 quick. Upon closer study, however, we soon per- 
 ceive that, although the music is treated as the 
 chief thing, the meaning of the words is cer- 
 tainly given when the music is rightly performed. 
 Were it not so, our music would hardly ever 
 have been able to form and develop itself upon 
 and through these old vocal compositions. 
 
 As the pictures of Titian, Rubens, and other 
 great painters of that time, who were masters of 
 form as well as of color, will always be con- 
 sidered as works of art and models, so the com- 
 positions of the old Italian singing masters and 
 of those who went from their schools are to be 
 held up as examples for vocal composition. In 
 their works, as in all the works of art of that 
 time, form takes precedence of the spirit, that is/ 
 
THE VOICE IN SINGING 163 
 
 the words and their poetic significance are treated 
 as secondary matters. But all the peculiar pro- 
 perties of the human voice find therein due con- 
 sideration ; everything at variance with them is 
 avoided, and every interval, every vowel, is so 
 introduced that the voice can flow out with the 
 greatest perfection. These ornamented composi- 
 tions can be sung more easily and with less effort 
 than a simple aria of a modern composer. 
 
 The fine tact and the correct feeling with which 
 in those old vocal compositions what nature directs 
 was observed, show that they are the works of 
 singers of the golden age of the art of singing, 
 of artists who with an exact knowledge of the 
 beauties and capabilities of the voice possessed, 
 and in those days were compelled to possess, the 
 most thorough culture in the theory of music. 
 
 In opposition to this old, classic Italian style 
 of composing song, which considered and treated 
 music for its own sake alone, and regarded the 
 words only in so far as they aided the voice 
 and the expression of the music, stands the 
 classic style of Germany. In this latter the first 
 attention is paid to the poetic meaning and ex- 
 pression of the text. Rightly to apprehend the 
 6ense of the words and to give it, by means of 
 
164 THE VOICE IN SINGING 
 
 the music, a deeper, nobler expression — to trans- 
 figure it, as it were — is, according to this style, the 
 purpose of the composer, who commonly has 
 only the slightest reference to the peculiar qual- 
 ities of the voice and the fitness of the compo- 
 sition to be sung. In the classic Italian style the 
 form predominates — in the German, the inspira- 
 tion or soul of the composition. In the Italian the 
 music and the singing capability of the compo- 
 sition are attended to almost exclusively. In the 
 German, the main thing is the poetical expres- 
 sion of the signification of the words. When 
 we now sing the wonderful and exquisite com- 
 positions of Schubert, Schumann, Mendelssohn, 
 etc., we soon feel the impossibility of giv- 
 ing one or another tone as beautifully as it 
 should be given according to the quality of the 
 voice, and as we are able to give it by itself. 
 Or it is hard for us to strike this or that tone 
 with perfect purity or with the requisite force, &c. 
 These songs are not adapted to the voice as the 
 old Italian arias were, but composed without 
 accurate knowledge of the voice, and therefore 
 cannot develop the voice in its highest perfec- 
 tion. Mendelssohn often lays the strongest ex- 
 pression in his soprano songs upon the/#, the 
 
THE VOICE IN SINGING 165 
 
 transition tone from the falsetto register to the 
 head voice. For the expression of the highest 
 passion, which requires strength, the head voice 
 is not adapted, at least not in its transition tone. 
 Accordingly, it is usually sought to sound this 
 tone with the falsetto register, to which it is not 
 natural, and is therefore hard to be sung, and 
 also becomes sharp and offensive in the male voice 
 especially, where this note is formed just upon 
 the transition from the second chest register into 
 the falsetto. Schubert, again, in his songs com- 
 monly so places the words that the favorable 
 vowels seldom come upon the right tones. 
 Schumann also very often uses intervals which 
 come upon the boundary tones of the regis- 
 ter, and can hardly be struck with purity. 
 Thus there are very many hindrances to a fine 
 development of the voice, oftentimes in the most 
 beautiful compositions of our times, hindrances, 
 which many of our composers are more or less 
 chargeable with putting in the way. 
 
 It is evident from what has been said that it 
 is by no means a matter of indifference how the 
 words of a song are translated into another lan- 
 guage. Compositions easily sung naturally lose 
 by translation, for it is generally left entirely to 
 
166 THE VOICE IN SINGING 
 
 chance whether the appropriate vowels fall upon 
 the right tones. A teacher must take great care, 
 especially in beginning instruction, to give his 
 pupils compositions adapted to singing. All the 
 exercises and solfeggi should be expressly 
 arranged for the purpose, and also so arranged 
 that the pupil shall have steadily increasing diffi- 
 culties to encounter, in order that the vocal 
 technique may be fully illustrated. Along with 
 these exercises and solfeggi, arias should be 
 practised, particularly at the beginning. The 
 older Italian compositions are the best adapted to 
 vocal culture, because they were made with spe- 
 cial reference to the qualities of the voice. Arias 
 are preferable to songs, because they usually re- 
 quire more flexibility of voice, and therefore 
 assist the technique. In arias the music is more 
 prominent than in ballads, and the sentiment 
 more marked and consequently more easily ap- 
 prehended. The same words are commonly 
 more often repeated, and must, of course, be 
 sung differently, and thus the pupil is brought 
 acquainted at once with the different externa] 
 aids to a fine execution. 
 
THE VOICE IN SINGING 167 
 
 EXTEKNAL AIDS TO A FINE EXECUTION 
 
 A teacher must see to it at first with the ut- 
 most attention that all the tones according to 
 their pitch are struck with purity, and this can 
 be done only by his repeating them over and 
 over again to his pupil, because, as we have 
 already remarked, our pianos, according to the 
 present method of tuning, are never sufficiently 
 pure to form a singing tone. When the learner 
 has once become familiarized to the fine sound 
 of pure tones, he will hear and distinguish them, 
 and learn to strike them correctly with our 
 pianos. How important to a fine timbre of the 
 tones the right direction of the breath is and its 
 control, as well as the best mode of securing 
 these points, we have already described at some 
 length. The old Italian masters had established 
 distinct rules by which the breath was to be re- 
 newed. 
 
 These were : 
 
 1. Before the beginning of a phrase. 
 
 2. Before trills and passages (fiorituri), 
 
 3. After tied notes : |"(j\) £T"T§ . 
 
168 
 
 THE VOICE IN SINGING 
 
 4. Before syncopes, and especially accented 
 notes : :2 
 
 5. Between two notes of the same pitch and 
 the same value : F^u _ ^ »-y*fH , in slow phrases. 
 
 W^ 
 
 6. After a short (staccato) note : 
 Aj 
 
 # * • - 
 
 = rf^ BE 
 
 7. At all pauses and resting -points. 
 
 8. Before a note, which, by being accented, was 
 to be especially distinguished in the middle of 
 musical passages, usually before the highest note 
 of a musical phrase, in order to give the music a 
 light, graceful character : 
 
 ^£: 
 
 3 = r^s^ 
 
 ^ 
 
 at* 
 
 S 
 
 In light, airy pieces of music, this last mode of 
 taking breath had a charming effect, but was 
 mostly left to the taste of the singer. The earlier 
 singers, moreover, were very skilful in finding 
 those places where, according to the character of 
 the composition, an unusual taking of breath was 
 of special effect. On the other hand, it was consid- 
 ered an advantage in a singer to take breath as 
 rarely as possible, and, as we have intimated in the 
 introduction of this book, it was esteemed a 
 
THE VOICE IN SINGING 169 
 
 great accomplishment to sing long with one in 
 halation. 
 
 In the old Italian music, by which the vocal 
 technique is best illustrated, these rules must be 
 observed. In German music the breathing is 
 governed by aesthetic principles, and is regulated 
 by the words of the song. Accordingly, breath 
 can be taken only at the beginning or end of a 
 sentence, conformably to the punctuation. But 
 if the sentences are too long, then the breath is 
 to be taken at some fitting place in the middle of 
 the sentence, so that a word must not be broken 
 by the breath, nor the article or adjective sepa- 
 rated from the subject. 
 
 An Italian aria, in which the attention is 
 given chiefly to the music and its externals, is 
 executed far more easily and beautifully than a 
 German aria or a German song. Our German 
 ballads, full of deep sentiment and in which 
 the music should give a higher and richer ex- 
 pression to the poetic significance of the words, 
 require in their execution such sterling spiritual 
 culture as only the most extraordinary talent 
 can supply the place of. In the execution of 
 these songs it is, above all things, necessary 
 that the words should be distinctly heard. It 
 
 16 H 
 
170 THE VOICE IN SINGING 
 
 easily happens in singing that the noise (Ger- 
 ausch) of the consonants partly from the stronger 
 sound of the tones is entirely covered, and so 
 words are indistinctly heard. The sound of the 
 consonants must, therefore, be given more pro- 
 minently in singing than in common speech, so 
 that they may be heard along with the tones. 
 It is a good practice to repeat the words, exag- 
 gerating the articulation. Thus, by persevering 
 attention, a distinct articulation in singing may 
 be attained without difficulty. Recitative offers 
 an excellent practice for this purpose, the music 
 here being subordinate to the words, according 
 to the intervals of which the composition is for 
 the most part constructed. Although our reci- 
 tative is formed after the declamation of the 
 Greeks, yet it is not to be sung like this, with 
 pathos, but according to our modern taste, as 
 naturally as possible, just as in a like situation 
 the words would be spoken.* 
 
 * Although our recitative is formed after the recitative of 
 the ancient drama, yet the latter, according to all accounts, 
 appears to have been very different from our opera recitative, 
 and to have had greater resemblance to the monotonous reci- 
 tation of the Romish Liturgy, which seems to be a relic of 
 ancient art. 
 
THE VOICE IN SINGING 171 
 
 To the external aids to expression belongs the 
 swelling of the tones, one of the easiest, most 
 natural, and most graceful of all our helps. It 
 consists in giving a tone, whose time permits it, 
 different degrees of strength. In a contrary way 
 much time is usually spent in singing the scales, 
 beginning -piano and increasing in strength to 
 the greatest possible forte, and then letting the 
 voice grow weaker and weaker. Instead of these 
 exercises, which require exertion, the same thing 
 can be attained far more easily by swelling the 
 tones where it is required in the composition. 
 Tn nitelancholy or mournful compositions, swell- 
 ing upon those tones which the rhythm requires 
 to be accented is very beautiful. But when ex- 
 aggerated, or where a fresh, cheerful character is 
 to be preserved in the composition, this aid to 
 expression easily renders the effect sentimental. 
 Unhappily, our whole music is vitiated by this 
 sickly sentimentalism, the perfect horror of every 
 person of cultivated taste. In these later years 
 the powerful reaction of German aesthetics has 
 had favorable results in regard to instrumental 
 music, but in the execution of vocal music this 
 unhealthy fashion of singing still always com- 
 mands great applause. This sickly sentimental 
 
172 THE VOICE IN SINGING 
 
 style has also naturalized in singing a gross trick 
 unfortunately very prevalent, the tremolo of the 
 notes. When, in rare cases, the greatest passion 
 is to be expressed, to endeavor to deepen the 
 expression by a trembling of the notes is all 
 very well and fully to be justified, but in songs 
 and arias, in which quiet and elevated senti- 
 ments are to be expressed, to tremble as if the 
 whole soul were in an uproar, and not at all 
 in a condition for quiet singing, is unnatural and 
 offensive. 
 
 A very beautiful aid to expression, but now 
 only seldom heard, is the transition from one re- 
 gister to another on the same note. A note begins 
 
 with tolerable strength, for example, d: 
 
 ■m 
 
 with the action belonging to it of the chest regis- 
 ter, and while it grows weaker it passes imper- 
 ceptibly into the action of the falsetto tones. 
 Or the reverse. A note of the chest register is 
 begun with the action of the falsetto, and be- 
 coming stronger changes into the chest register 
 to which it naturally belongs. Correctly em- 
 ployed, the most delightful effects may be pro- 
 duced in this way, especially by a male voice. 
 Ornaments, such as appoggiaturas and turns, 
 
THE VOICE IN SINGING 173 
 
 roulades, trills, &c, are to be used only with taste 
 and care. The old Italian compositions, which 
 were so arranged as to show the voice in its full- 
 est brilliancy, have their ornaments commonly in 
 such phrases as were to be first sung several 
 times in a simpler way. In the frequent repeti- 
 tion of the same melody and words, those places 
 were designated by so-called firniates, thus : 
 
 gp^= , where it was permitted to the artist to 
 
 introduce embellishments according to his own 
 taste. In German arias embellishments are 
 allowed to be introduced according to the taste 
 of the singer, only, however, with the greatest 
 care; but in German ballads not at all. And 
 yet we often hear artists, who have acquired 
 a certain flexibility of voice, introducing their 
 little trickeries in the most inappropriate places. 
 
 But none of these aids to expression are to be 
 used so often as to become mere mannerisms. 
 Only when employed in due measure can they 
 have an aesthetically fine effect. As so much 
 depends upon the taste of the singer, it is 
 necessary that he should, above all things, 
 have a thorough appreciation of the sentiment 
 which is to find expression in the niece, and 
 
 15 * 
 
174 THE VOICE IN SINGING 
 
 seek to make it his own, and then the orna- 
 ment is to be introduced only where it accords 
 with the sentiment, that is, where it is appro- 
 priate. The two greatest artists of the present 
 day, Lind and Stockhausen, whose expression is 
 perfect, take great pains to understand the com- 
 position thoroughly, and in this way to be fully 
 imbued with the sentiment. 
 
 Without the animation of a soul, singing fails 
 of all effect upon the hearer, and is ordinary and 
 wearisome. But this animation must be with 
 understanding and taste — i. e., aesthetically beau- 
 tiful. For the beautiful continues beautiful and 
 true only as long as it is in proportion and not 
 exaggerated — only while those fine lines are not 
 transgressed where it begins to be untrue, that 
 is, affected and ridiculous. 
 
 TIME OF INSTRUCTION 
 
 The old Italians began with quite young 
 pupils, commonly when they were in their ninth 
 or tenth year. The great demands which were 
 then made in regard to the technical culture of 
 the voice required a long time for instruction, 
 usually five or six years. The extraordinary 
 fulness and power of tone possessed by the ear- 
 
THE VOICE IN SINGING 175 
 
 lier artists could be acquired only by persevering 
 and adequate practice of the vocal organ, taken 
 while in the process of growth. Those singers, 
 men and women, whose voices have been cele- 
 brated for their fulness and strength of tone, 
 such as Catalani, Perini, &c, sang in their fifth 
 year, under the careful oversight of persons 
 musically cultivated. In childhood the impulse 
 to imitation is strongest, the vocal organs are 
 more tender and pliant than in adults; and 
 hence, when care is taken to avoid fatiguing and 
 straining the voice, children learn much easier 
 and better than grown persons. They are also 
 preserved by early and correct singing from the 
 many bad habits with which the teacher has to 
 contend in adults. That special skill and care 
 are required in a teacher who has in charge the 
 voices of children, there can be no question. 
 But unhappily, no regard is paid to this con- 
 sideration in the system of teaching singing in 
 the schools, universally introduced in France, 
 Germany, and Switzerland. To any teacher who 
 can sing at all, or play on any instrument, the 
 tender voices of children are entrusted, and he 
 allows them to sing together in chorus, satisfied if 
 the tones are not grossly false and the time is kept, 
 
176 TEE VOICE IN SINGING 
 
 paying do regard to the formation of the voice, 
 Now it is well known that even practised singers 
 avoid singing much in chorus, considering it 
 injurious to the voice. Although schooled and 
 educated voices can endure a much greater strain 
 than children's voices, yet children are often, 
 without any understanding, required to sing 
 loud, in order "to bring out the voice." In 
 such a way of singing it is simply impossible 
 that every separate voice should be attended 
 to, even were the teacher competent to attend 
 to it; while it often happens that at the most 
 critical age, while the vocal organs are being 
 developed, children sing with all the strength 
 they can command. Boys, however, in whom 
 the larynx at a certain period undergoes an en- 
 tire transformation, reach only with difficulty 
 the higher soprano or contralto tones, but are 
 not assigned a lower part until, perceiving 
 themselves the impossibility of singing in this 
 way, they beg the teacher for the change, often 
 too late, unhappily, to prevent an irreparable 
 injury. Moderate singing, without exertion, 
 nnd, above all things, within the natural limits 
 of the voice and its registers, would even dur- 
 ing the period of growth be as little hurtful as 
 
THE VOICE IN SINGING YJ1 
 
 6peaking, laughing, or any other of the exercises 
 which cannot be forbidden to the vocal organs. 
 But it is wiser not to allow boys to sing at all 
 while the larynx is undergoing its change. 
 
 The plan of introducing into schools instruc- 
 tion in singing, so excellent in itself theoreti- 
 cally, tends, by the way in which it is carried 
 out in practice, to lessen the number of voices 
 susceptible of artistic culture, without any com- 
 pensation in an awakened feeling and under- 
 standing of music. In the palmy days of the 
 art of singing there was no instruction given 
 in singing in the schools, but there were instead 
 numerous schools for singing, where children 
 were trained into artists by the most skilful 
 teachers, and whence proceeded good singers, 
 male and female, in great numbers. 
 
 The numerous vocal music Unions and Man- 
 nerchore, as such, contribute as little as school 
 singing to the elevation and improvement of 
 the vocal art, the sole object of which is to cul- 
 tivate the individual voice for artistic singing. 
 Considered as a means of moral culture, the rise 
 and increasing prevalence of chorus singing 
 among all orders of the people merit ommen- 
 
 H» 
 
178 THE VOICE IN SINGING 
 
 dation and aid, but not in the interest of the 
 art of song. 
 
 Apart from this school instruction, now be- 
 coming so popular, people commonly venture to 
 entrust their sons and daughters, but not until 
 they are quite grown, to a singing master to be 
 educated. But then it is expected that he shall, 
 in the shortest time possible, often in the space 
 of a few months, advance them so far that 
 they shall be able to sing with applause before 
 company. 
 
 Such is the case in Germany, and in a much 
 higher degree in America, while in the various 
 conservatories of Europe there is now required a 
 period of from four to seven years for education 
 in the art of singing. In the Conservatory of 
 Milan, which is now held to be the best school 
 for our art, pupils are admitted only upon the 
 condition that they will remain seven years. 
 
 Thus, while every instrument, if anything is 
 to be made out of it, demands years of practice, 
 tc the human voice alone is time denied, simply 
 because, I suppose, almost every one has a some- 
 what natural aptitude for singing. 
 
 The greatest fault, however, is to be found in 
 the present mode of teaching singing, which is sc 
 
THE VOICE IN SINGING 179 
 
 superficial that people have become accustomed to 
 overlook the possibility of changing a voice and 
 rendering it beautiful. For the most part in- 
 struction begins where and with what it should 
 end j the aim is, paying only passing attention to 
 the timbre and the formation of tone (Tonbil- 
 dung), to teach the pupil to sing certain favorite 
 pieces with the due execution, and to see that 
 the breath is taken at the right places and that 
 the tone is not too impure. But the human 
 voice is susceptible of much higher culture 
 than any instrument. And it requires more 
 gifts and far more study to become a true and 
 distinguished artist in singing than are neces- 
 sary to the mastery of other instruments. It 
 would most assuredly contribute to the advance- 
 ment and elevation of the vocal art, if gifted 
 children, as it often happened in former times, 
 were early instructed in singing with the requi- 
 site care and skill. Thus, educated for their art, 
 and giving to it their best powers, they would 
 be able to satisfy far higher demands and attain 
 to quite another and higher artistic perfection 
 than we are wont now-a-days to find anywhere 
 among our vocal artists. Such children would 
 then, at the age at which at present instruction 
 
180 THE VOICE IN SINGING 
 
 in singing begins, have already mastered all 
 technical difficulties and be able to apply them- 
 selves chiefly to the aesthetic cultivation of theii 
 art. With young girls especially, whose vocal 
 organs do not change so much as those of boys, 
 the earliest possible beginning of instruction 
 would be in the highest degree advantageous. 
 It is owing only to the unnatural, overstrained 
 method of studying the art of singing now pre- 
 valent that a principle recognized and applied 
 in the learning of all other arts, and even in all 
 the other branches of music, has universal pre- 
 judice against it. 
 
 CONCLUSION 
 
 An artist can be formed only by his own in- 
 telligence and practice, under the direct guid- 
 ance of a master. But here, more than in any 
 other art, the constant watchfulness of a teacher 
 is a necessity. For, as one gets only an imper- 
 fect idea of his own personal appearance from a 
 mirror, so the singer and dramatic artist can 
 form but a partial judgment of his own per- 
 formances. They are too subjective, and cannot 
 be viewed as an external whole, like the works of 
 the painter and sculptor. It is, moreover, as has 
 
TEE VOICE IN SINGING 181 
 
 already been remarked, simply impossible to ob- 
 tain even a partial knowledge of any art from 
 books alone, even if we were able to describe 
 with precision the fine, delicate differences of 
 tones, colors and forms. 
 
 These pages, therefore, make no claim what- 
 ever to be regarded as a manual of singing. 
 They aim only to communicate and extend a 
 knowledge of the latest discoveries and advances 
 in the domain of vocal art, and to protest against 
 and correct prevailing prejudices and errors in 
 regard to this art, as well as to engage the atten- 
 tion of thos«? to whose care the culture of the 
 voice is entrusted. 
 
 16 
 
APPENDIX 
 
APPENDIX 
 
 STKUCTUEE OF THE VOCAL OKGANS 
 
 The larynx is a sound-giving organ belonging to 
 that class of wind instruments called reed instruments, 
 although it differs in various respects from all arti- 
 ficial arrangements of the kind. The sound or tone- 
 generating apparatus of the larynx consists of tense, 
 elastic membranes, the so-called chordae vocales, which 
 are enclosed in a sounding case composed of movable 
 cartilaginous plates, and may be stretched by a certain 
 apparatus of muscles in very different and exactly 
 measurable degrees. They are made to vibrate audibly 
 by a current of air impelled with various degrees of 
 force and at will by the lungs in expiration through 
 the narrow chink (glottis) formed by the fine edges 
 of the chords. Thus the lungs correspond to the bel- 
 lows of the organ; the trachea, at the top of which 
 the vocal instrument is placed, answers to the conduit 
 ( Windrohr), and the cavity of the throat in front of the 
 instrument with its two avenues, the mouth and the nos- 
 trils, to the resonance pipe {Ansatzrohr). 
 
 16* 185 
 
186 APPENDIX 
 
 THE LUNGS 
 
 The lungs are two cellular, sponge-like elastic organs, 
 largely made up of little cavities of conical shape, which, 
 in the regular alternations of two opposite respiratory 
 movements of air, are at one time expanded, and then 
 again compressed. The two lungs are not of equal size ; 
 the right lung is one-tenth larger in volume than the left. 
 
 THE TRACHEA, OR WINDPIPE, 
 
 Through which the air of the lungs enters and passes 
 out, consists of from sixteen to twenty-six cartilaginous 
 rings, posteriorly incomplete, lying horizontally one 
 above the other. 
 
 These rings are connected by a membrane covering 
 them externally and internally. As they enter the cavity 
 of the chest, they divide into two branches, likewise 
 composed of rings, one entering the right, the other 
 the left lung. Before they join the lungs they divide 
 again into several smaller branches, which again sub- 
 divide fork-like in the lungs, and terminate in number- 
 less little grape-like clusters of hollow vesicles. The 
 diameter of the trachea in adults is from one-half to 
 three-fourths of an inch when at rest. 
 
 THE LARYNX 
 
 The larynx may be regarded as the funnel-shaped 
 termination of the trachea. It enlarges upward and is 
 composed of various cartilages more or less mobile, con- 
 nected by ligaments and moved by muscles. The exte- 
 rior of the larynx is formed by the 
 
APPENDIX. 187 
 
 I. Thyroid cartilage. 
 II. Cricoid cartilage. 
 The cartilages in the interior are : 
 I. The Arytenoid cartilages. 
 II. Cartilages of Wrisberg. 
 
 III. Cartilages of Santorini. 
 
 IV. Cuneiform cartilages. 
 
 To the cartilages of the larynx must be further added 
 the Epiglottis, with the little cartilage at the centre of 
 its inner side. 
 
 1. The thyroid cartilage is the largest cartilage of the 
 larynx, and consists of two four-cornered cartilaginous 
 plates held together in front and diverging behind ; the 
 anterior borders are convex, and cpnsequently where the 
 two plates meet in front they form an upper and a lower 
 notch or slit. The posterior angles of this cartilage ex- 
 tend into the so-called horns of the thyroid cartilage. At 
 the upper horns are ligaments attached, which form the con- 
 nection between the hyoid bone and the larynx, while the 
 lower horns serve to join the thyroid to the cricoid car- 
 tilage. In females and boys the angle formed by the 
 two plates of the thyroid cartilage is obtuse. In the 
 male sex at a certain period the larynx changes its shape, 
 and the plates of the thyroid cartilage then form an 
 acute angle, which is visible on the outside of the throat, 
 and is popularly known as the Adam's apple. At this 
 time the diameter of the male larynx becomes a third 
 larger than that of the female larynx, and in conse- 
 quence the voice is lower, and its different registers are 
 more enlarged in compass. 
 
188 APPENDIX 
 
 2. The cricoid cartilage resembles in shape a seal ring ; 
 its broader side is situated posteriorly between the lower 
 horns of the thyroid cartilage, and it is connected by 
 its lower edges immediately with the upper edge of the 
 first ring of the trachea. From its side at the back part 
 project two rounded surfaces, which give attachment to 
 the arytenoid cartilages. 
 
 3. The arytenoid cartilages are two small but very 
 mobile bodies in the form of three-cornered pyramids. 
 The base of the pyramid rests upon the before-men- 
 tioned rounded surface at the back of the upper border 
 of the cricoid cartilage; one of its sides turns to the 
 front, the two others to the back and outwards. The 
 surfaces between the anterior and postero-interior cor- 
 ners are accordingly turned towards one another. The 
 surface posteriorly is concave, and affords space for 
 a part of the arytenoid muscle; the inner surface is 
 smooth, and forms, during quiet breathing, a part of the 
 lateral wall of the larynx; the anterior surface is 
 rough and irregular, and to it adhere the vocal chords, 
 the thyro-arytenoid muscle, the lateral and posterior 
 crico-arytenoid muscles, and upon these the bases of the 
 cuneiform cartilages. The arytenoid cartilages are length- 
 ened at their summits by two little pear-shaped eleva- 
 tions, the cartilages of Santorini (called apophyses in 
 Garcia' s observations), which are connected with them 
 by ligamentous fibres, and extend with them some dis- 
 tance into the larynx. 
 
 4. The cartilages of Wrisberg are described by Hyrtl 
 as slight elevations upon the front or anterior edge of 
 
APPENDIX 189 
 
 the arytenoid cartilages, inclining towards the interior, 
 and, like all parts of the larynx, covered by the mucous 
 membrane. 
 
 5. The cuneiform cartilages (as Wilson names them) 
 are two long, slender cartilaginous laminae which become 
 somewhat broader at both ends. These cartilages, with 
 their base, rest in the middle of the anterior surface of the 
 arytenoid cartilages, and reach to the middle of the vocal 
 chords, by which they are enveloped. The action of these 
 cartilages renders possible the production of the head 
 tones, but they are not found in every larynx. The fact 
 that they are oftener found in the female larynx than in 
 that of the male, and that the male larynx is mostly 
 used in scientific investigations, as it is larger and more 
 easily dissected, may be the reason why up to the pre- 
 sent time no mention is made of them either in German 
 or French manuals. They are sometimes referred to as 
 cuneiform cartilages, or confounded with the cartilages 
 of Wrisberg, probably because it seemed unaccountable 
 that these important bodies should so long have escaped 
 the attention of anatomists. 
 
 From the anterior surface of the arytenoid cartilages, 
 extending towards the centre of the inner wall of the thy- 
 roid cartilage, running diagonally through the cavity of 
 the larynx, are stretched the two pairs of chords already 
 more than once mentioned — the vocal chords, consisting 
 of folds of the mucous membrane which envelopes the 
 whole larynx. The two lower of these chords, the vocal 
 chords strictly so called, into which the cuneiform carti- 
 lages project and through which the interior thyro-ary- 
 
190 APPENDIX 
 
 tenoid muscles run, have their points of attachment at 
 the arytenoid cartilages, somewhat lower than the upper 
 pair. Each of these parallel pairs of chords form be- 
 tween their lips a slit running antero-posteriorly. The 
 slit of the upper pair is opened in the shape of an ellipse ; 
 that of the lower pair, the glottis, is very narrow. As 
 the upper chords have their point of attachment poste- 
 riorly and higher, they form with the lower chords two 
 lateral cavities, the ventricles. 
 
 The two pairs of chords, therefore, are the free interior 
 edges of the membrane, covering the whole larynx and 
 extending into it to the right and the left. Only the 
 lower vocal chords serve directly for the generation of 
 tones. More or less stretched and presenting resist- 
 ance to the air forcibly expired from the lungs through 
 the trachea, they are thus made to vibrate. The 
 upper or false vocal chords do not co-operate with 
 them to generate tone, but like all the remaining 
 parts of the mouth and throat belong to the reso- 
 nance apparatus of the voice, to which also appertains 
 the back part of the mouth, the pharynx, over the 
 oesophagus, the throat, or gullet. This is separated 
 from the anterior cavity of the mouth by the palate, 
 which is a curtain formed by the mucous membranes 
 of the cavity of the mouth, and the centre of which 
 forms the pendent uvula. 
 
 Above the oesophagus, immediately over the palate, lie 
 close together, and separated only by a very thin osseous 
 partition, the two posterior nasal orifices. These serve as 
 passages for the air during inspiration and expiration; 
 
APPENDIX 191 
 
 they are likewise considered as belonging to the reso- 
 nance apparatus. 
 
 Upon both sides of the cavity of the mouth, between 
 the two wings of the palate, lie the tonsils, two glandu- 
 lar bodies, which separate the sides of the cavity of the 
 mouth from the phai-ynx. The anterior cavity of the 
 mouth, which is separated from the nasal cavities by 
 the palate, requires no description, as every one can 
 acquaint himself with its structure in his own person and 
 in others. Upon its formation, as well as upon the posi- 
 tion of its different parts and upon the character of 
 those parts of the larynx and of the cavity of the mouth 
 which have been described as the resonance apparatus, 
 the difference in the fulness and timbre of tones depends. 
 
 The epiglottis is fixed at the anterior portion of the 
 larynx, at the root of the tongue, within the angle 
 formed by the two surfaces of the thyroid cartilage. It 
 is a very elastic fibro-cartilage, freely moving in a poste- 
 rior direction. Its color is yellowish and its general 
 form that of a spoon; its upper surface is covered 
 with a multitude of little mucous glands set in shal- 
 low cavities. In the downward passage of food the 
 epiglottis covers the upper orifice of the larynx like a 
 valve, over which the food passes into the oesophagus or 
 gullet, without being able to enter the larynx and the 
 trachea. In the centre of its interior side there is a 
 little rounded cartilage, movable in every direction, 
 which has as yet no name. Czermak mentions it first 
 in his observations with the laryngoscope. In the male 
 larynx, after the voice has altered, the cartilages become 
 
192 APPENDIX 
 
 more or less ossified and gradually harden with increas- 
 ing age. The cartilages of the female larynx, with rare 
 exceptions, usually continue with little or no change. 
 The muscles, by which the movements of the larynx 
 are effected, are : 
 
 I. The posterior crico-arytenoid. 
 II. The lateral crico-arytenoid. 
 
 III. The crico-arytenoid. 
 
 IV. The thyro-arytenoid. 
 V. The arytenoid. 
 
 VI. The internal thyro-arytenoid. 
 
 In late works upon laryngoscopy the different mus- 
 cles of the larynx are variously designated and divided. 
 Bataille terms the first three of the above-named mus- 
 cles the exterior muscles of the larynx ; the three others 
 he comprehends under the name of thyro-arytenoid 
 or vocal muscle, which divides into three slips in the 
 interior of the larynx. This, however, as well as the 
 description of the character and action of the different 
 muscles, belongs to the department of science. What I 
 have already stated seems to me to be sufficient for an 
 understanding of the action of these organs in the pro- 
 duction of sound in the different registers. The reader 
 is referred to any good manual of anatomy for a full de- 
 scription of the muscles, ligaments, nerves, vessels and 
 membranes. 
 
 THE END. 
 
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