The Boy's Voice Part 2

CHAPTER V.

INFORMATION ON VOICE-TRAINING, COLLECTED BY THE SALISBURY DIOCESAN CHORAL a.s.sOCIATION.

I am indebted to the Rev. W. Miles Barnes, rector of Monkton, Dorchester, for the following information, recently obtained by him on the subject of voice-training. It appears that for the information of choir instructors (some 200 in number) in union with the Salisbury Diocesan Choral a.s.sociation, the advice of precentors and organists of cathedrals was lately sought as to the best way of correcting a very common fault in the singing of country choirs.

The following questions were proposed:

"(I.) It is a common practice in country choirs for boys and tenors to force the lower register to sing notes which should be taken in the higher or head register. The notes thus forced are harsh and unmusical in tone, and generally flat in pitch. How would you correct this fault in boys?"

"(II.) What method is employed in ---- Cathedral for developing and strengthening the higher (head) register in boys' voices?"

The following are extracts from the replies:--

Rev. F. J. HELMORE, Precentor of Canterbury.

I should recommend the practice of the first five notes of the scales of A, B[b], B, and C, _piano_, taken rather slowly, and then of intervals from G to D, G to E[b], G to E, A to E, &c. &c. After that I would try them with the complete scales of E, F, F[#], and G, fast and _forte_, thus:--

[Ill.u.s.tration: musical notation]

If no improvement is perceptible, begin again. Practice is the main thing, after a boy has got to understand his faults.

Rev. W. MANN, M.A., Precentor of Bristol.

(1.) I think it almost impossible to remedy the evil you complain of after the boys have been accustomed to sing upper notes from the chest for some time--say one or two years. Our practice here is to secure boys between the ages of 9 and 11, before they have been singing elsewhere, or certainly before they have acquired any faulty tricks of forcing the voice.

(2.) In training boys' voices never allow them to shout. If they commence singing when young they may be taught by scale practice (always singing quietly) to bridge over the break which exists between the chest and head voice. This is an art, and requires experience.

(3.) Speaking generally, I should say that judicious scale practice is the remedy likely to be of most service in the case specified, teaching boys, by singing quietly, to glide the chest voice into the upper register. I recommend the syllable "la" as generally best for the purpose all through the scale. Boys should keep their tongues down, open mouths well, sing not through teeth, &c. &c. I find that boys acquire the cathedral style of singing (with the well-known flute or bell-like tone) chiefly by example. In singing with boys who have already acquired it the younger ones catch the style, just as birds are taught to sing by trained songsters. The untrained rustic can never naturally produce this tone, but much may be done by (1) careful scale practice; (2) strict enforcement of a quiet easy style, and rigid prohibition of shouting, or forcing the voice; (3) the occasional example of trained singers.

Rev. C. HYLTON STEWART, Precentor of Chester.

The great thing is not to train boys _up_ through break in the voice, but _down_ through it, and so to coach them that the break becomes imperceptible. The top notes ought to be practised very softly until a good round note is procured. This, however, can seldom be done out of a cathedral, as it requires constant attention.

Rev. W. E. d.i.c.kSON, Precentor of Ely.

In this Cathedral, and I suppose in every other, the boys have at least one hour of daily practice under the most favourable circ.u.mstances of quiet music-room and good pianoforte, and an able teacher. The two orderly services follow with the regularity of a clock, and in these the voices of the boys are balanced and supported by those of adult singers--presumably, good vocalists.

I think you will agree that no practical rules, available by instructors of village choirs, can be founded upon arrangements so far beyond their reach. To describe any "Method" of developing voices under such circ.u.mstances would be quite delusive.

A life-long experience in the training of parish choirs would lead me to say that the best approach to true voice production is made when a lady takes charge of the choir, and has the boys to practise at her own house.

To say that all instructors should use unwearied diligence and unfailing patience and kindness in the attempt to get soft singing, is only to repeat a very trite remark.

In schools, the mistake is often made of singing almost all the exercises in the key of C, and commencing all scales with the syllable "Do." In trying candidates for admission to the choir, we constantly find that they have been accustomed to a scale of 13 notes only (one octave) up and down. The scales should begin on all or any of the notes--D[#], B[Symbol: natural], G[b], &c., and the peculiarities of the intervals should be familiarly explained.

A pamphlet might be written. But there is no "Royal road."

J. M. W. YOUNG, Esq., Organist of Lincoln.

The precentor has forwarded your note to me. In answer to your question asking how to prevent the trebles in country choirs from forcing the upper notes, I would suggest that when practising the choir, care should be taken that the trebles are never allowed to sing even the _middle_ notes _loud_, only _mf_, and they should be frequently practised to sing _piano_. If this be attended to, it will, in a great measure, prevent the forcing of the voice on the higher notes, which should never be practised otherwise than softly.

Country choirs nearly always sing twice as loud as they ought to do, consequently the tone becomes harsh and grating, and they invariably sing the upper notes out of tune.

I never allow the Cathedral choristers to practise in a loud tone of voice, yet their voices are rich and mellow, and there is never any want of power when it is required. Any tendency to force the voice is checked at once. It will be found very useful to practise the trebles with the diatonic scale at a moderately quick pace, taking care to sing it _smoothly_ and _piano throughout_, first to "OO," next to "Oh," and finally to "Ah."

[Ill.u.s.tration: Decoration]

CHAPTER VI.

p.r.o.nUNCIATION IN SINGING.

It is impossible to emphasise too strongly the importance of clear p.r.o.nunciation in singing. The English, as a rule, p.r.o.nounce indistinctly. "We carry on our talk," says Mr. H. Deacon, "in mere _smudges_ of sound," a graphic and true way of putting things. The Scotch, Welsh, and Americans p.r.o.nounce better than we do. Indistinctness and bad dialect arise, roughly speaking, from two sources--impure vowels and omitted consonants. The impure vowels are generally due to local habits of speech, such as the London dialect, which makes a colourless mixture of all the vowels. In some parts of Scotland also the vowels are very impure. The voice-training exercises given elsewhere are several of them directed towards the production of good vowel tone, but the danger is lest the power gained in these should not be applied to the actual words encountered in psalm, canticle, anthem, or hymn. A sentence containing all the vowels may be chanted repeatedly on a monotone, but after all the best exercise consists in constant watchfulness against misp.r.o.nunciation in the ordinary weekly practice.

Man, according to Mr. R. G. White, may be defined as a consonant-using animal. He alone of all animals uses consonants. The cries of animals and of infants are inarticulate. So is the speech of a drunken man, who descends, vocally as well as in other ways, to the level of the beasts.

This idea has been expressed in another way, by saying that vowels express the emotional side of speech, and consonants its intellectual side. All these distinctions point to the great importance of a clear enunciation of initial and final consonants, and a clear separation of words. A well-known bishop said to a candidate for ordination, "Before uttering a second word be sure that you have yourself heard the first."

It is of no use to give a list of common errors, because each part of the country has its own bad points of dialect. The choirmaster should take his standard of English from the best preacher and reader he has the chance to hear, and endeavour to conform his boys to it.

But localisms are not the only faults. Boys are very apt to clip their words in chanting, to omit the smaller parts of speech altogether, and to invent new and meaningless sounds of their own. The most familiar parts of the service need frequent and watchful rehearsal to prevent this tendency. Chanting, as a rule, is much too fast, and the eagerness of the boys must be restrained in this direction.

In those rare cases where p.r.o.nunciation and elocutional phrasing reach a high pitch of excellence, the music of the service makes a double appeal to the heart. It bears not only the charm of sweet sounds, but the eloquence of n.o.ble words.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Decoration]

CHAPTER VII.

SINGING BY EAR AND BY NOTE.

Many choirmasters maintain that, considering the short musical life of the choir-boy, it is not worth while to teach him to sing by note. The quickness of boys' ears for music, they say, is astonis.h.i.+ng, while their memories are equally good. Between the two faculties--ear and memory--we are told that all things necessary are supplied. The boys, it is said, don't like theory, and it saves time and patience not to have to teach it to them.

I am altogether at issue with this view. I believe theory can be made interesting to boys, especially if the Tonic Sol-fa system is used, and that if they are taught sight-singing the choirmaster saves himself a vast amount of trouble. The after musical doings of the boys should also be considered, and whether they become tenors and ba.s.ses, or take to an instrument, the power to read music will be a happiness through their whole lives.

The leading anthems, services, and psalters are now published in the Tonic Sol-fa notation, so that boys who have learnt to sing from the letters at school may quickly be put to sing their parts in the church choir. The late Alfred Stone, of Bristol, who used the Tonic Sol-fa notation for his choir boys, found it a great time-saver. So quickly was the service music got through at the weekly practice that there was nearly an hour to spare for singing glees and getting up cantatas. Mr.

Stone arranged his boys in two grades. The upper grade all held a Tonic Sol-fa certificate, and they received higher pay than the lower grade.

The result of this arrangement was that the lower boys got the upper ones to teach them Tonic Sol-fa in their playtime, and thus saved the choirmaster a great deal of trouble.

A serious disadvantage of the ordinary way of learning to sing from the staff notation is that practice usually begins in, and is for several months confined to key C. For boys' voices this is the most trying of all the keys--the one most likely to lead to bad habits in the use of the registers. The keys for boys to begin in are G and F, where you can get a cadence upon the tonic in the thin register. A German choirmaster, whose choir is greatly celebrated, has sent me a little book of exercises which he uses, and I find that, as in most English publications of a similar kind, there are pages of exercises in key C, before any other key is attempted. In Tonic Sol-fa all keys are equally available from the first.

I have had a wide experience of boys taught on all systems, both in this country and abroad. I have been present, by the courtesy of choirmasters, at rehearsals in all parts of the country. And I have noticed that boys taught by ear, or taught the staff notation by the fixed _do_, make mistakes which boys trained by Tonic Sol-fa and singing from it, or applying their knowledge of it to the staff notation, could not make. The cla.s.s of mistake I refer to is that which confuses the place of the semitones in the scale. A sight-singing manual which I picked up the other day says that the whole matter of singing at sight lies in knowing where the semitones come. And from one point of view this is true, but to the Tonic Sol-faist the semitones always come in the same places, _i.e_., between _me_ and _fah_, and between _te_ and _doh_. He has only one scale to learn, and as to modulation, that is accomplished for him by his notation, while the time marks, separating and defining the beats or pulses of the music, make rhythm vividly clear.