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Iamindebted 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 Association, 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:
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, and C,piano, taken rather slowly, and then of intervals from G to D, G to E♭, 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 andforte, thus:—
musical notation[Listen]
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 boysupthrough break in the voice, butdownthrough 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. Dickson, 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 circumstances 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 circumstances 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♮, G♭, &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 themiddlenotesloud, onlymf, and they should be frequently practised to singpiano. 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 itsmoothlyandpiano throughout, first to "OO," next to "Oh," and finally to "Ah."
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Itis impossible to emphasise too strongly the importance of clear pronunciation in singing. The English, as a rule, pronounce indistinctly. "We carry on our talk," says Mr. H. Deacon, "in meresmudgesof sound," a graphic and true way of putting things. The Scotch, Welsh, and Americans pronounce 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 mispronunciation 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 clearenunciation 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 pronunciation 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 noble words.
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Manychoirmasters 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 astonishing, 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 basses, 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 fixeddo, 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 class 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., betweenmeandfah, and betweenteanddoh. 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.
If choirmasters wish to save themselves trouble, and get confident attack and good intonation from their boys, they should teach them the Tonic Sol-fa notation, and let them sing from it always. The staff notation they can easily learn later on.
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Thetrainer of adult voices has constantly before him the problem of making his pupils sing in tune. With boys this matter is less of a trouble, for this reason. Many adults have fine voices which, if their intonation can be improved, will do great things. Others have incurably bad voices, but possessing the ambition and the means for studying singing, they come under the hands of the professor. In the case of boys, however, there is a preliminary process of selection by which the teacher rejects at the outset any defective ears and voices. The trainer of boys chooses his pupils; adult students of singing, as a rule, choose their teacher.
Even, however, when a good set of boys has been chosen and trained, every choirmaster is troubled from time to time by the evils which I have named at the head of this paper.
What are their causes? Probably no cause is so fruitful as a misuse of the registers of the voice, a straining upwards of the lower register beyond its proper limits. This may be placed in the front as a perpetual cause of bad intonation and loss of pitch. This straining is usually accompanied with loud singing, but boys who have formed this bad habit will not at once sustain the pitch if told to sing softly. Their voices, under these circumstances, will at first prove weak and husky, and will flatten as much with soft singing as they did with loud. A slow process of voice training can alone set them right. But as boys' voices last so short a time this treatment is not worth the trouble. Boys who have fallen into thoroughly bad habits should therefore be dismissed, and a fresh selection made.
Some choirmasters imagine that practice with the organ or the pianoforte will cure flattening and uncertainty. This, however, is not the case. Probably the effort to keep up the pitch which singers make when unaccompanied keeps their minds and throats tense and active, while the consciousness that the instrument is supporting them makes them careless. An instrument reveals loss of pitch, but does not cure it. No good choirmaster rehearses with the organ. A pianoforte, lightly touched, is commonly used, but the teacher should frequently leave his seat, and accustom the choir to go on alone.
It is a mistake to suppose that boys flatten because the music is too high. This is very rarely the case. They are more likely to flatten because it is too low. Boys attack high notes with greater ease than women.
Nervousness will cause a singer who has sung in perfect tune at home to sing sharp or flat at a concert. But nervousness does not greatly trouble boys.
Carelessness will sometimes cause these troubles. The way to cure this is to increase the interest of the rehearsal, to make the boys feel bright, happy, and comfortable.
To mark the breathing places is a good way of preventing flattening, which is often caused by exhausted lungs.
Singing is a mental as well as a physical act, and unless the boy has a clear conception in his mind of the sound of the note he wants, the intonation will be uncertain. Here comes in the Tonic Sol-fa system with its "Mental Effects," which give a recognisable character to each note of the scale, and guide the voice and ear.
Bad voice production, throaty and rigid, must always go with flattening and wavering pitch. The act of singing should be without effort; the muscles of head, neck, and throat should be relaxed. A boy inclined to these faults should be told to smile while singing. The tone will then become natural.
But in spite of all these hints, flattening occurs from time to time in the best trained choirs, and seems to defy the skill ofthe choirmaster. All agree that a half empty church, a cold church, an ill-ventilated church promotes flattening, and it may be added that certain chants and tunes so hover about the region of the break that they invite false intonation.
Mr. H. A. Donald, headmaster of the Upton Cross Board School, tells me that he has not much flattening, but that when it comes it seems to be beyond control. The discipline of his school is excellent, but on a given day there will come, as it were, a mood over the boys which makes it impossible for them, try as they will, to avoid sinking. Sometimes, but not always, this will happen in warm weather. He has more than once abandoned the singing lesson, and taken up some other study because of it. One day recently the boys were most attentive, and their vexation and disappointment with the flattening was evident. Another day it does not trouble them in the least. This is a school where voice-training is exceptionally well looked after.
Several correspondents have favoured me with experience on this point, and I now proceed to quote their letters. Mr. W. W. Pearson, of Elmham, writes:—
"Ordinary flat singing is the result of want of practice and experience. Chronic flat singing is incurable, as it is due to a defective ear. A new lot of choir boys will be liable to sing flat, and to lower their pitch at any time for the first year or so; but after they have been in training for a considerable time, I never find that there is any inclination to sing flat. The notes most liable to be sung flat are the third and sixth of the scale, or any high note that requires courage and increased effort. One of these, having been sung flat, is taken by the singers as a new departure, and being used as a standard, the pitch is lowered, and all succeeding notes are flat.
"When I first formed my present choir I was very much plagued with flat singing, but I am seldom troubled in that way now, and I think the reason is that a large proportion of the members have been under training for a long time.
"I used to find flattening prevail more in muggy, damp, orcold weather, and in heated rooms. I never allowed the choir to go on in this way, but stopped them at once, making them begin again after singing the scale of the key a few times. This, of course, refers to practice. In church I used to play the organ louder when I heard the pitch going down; or I would put on a powerful solo stop for the melody, and slightly prolong the final note of a cadence, in order that when the choir ceased singing they might hear the difference. When flattening occurred in the concert room I used to stop the accompaniment, which is, I think, about all that can be done under those circumstances. When the choir have been hopelessly bad in a hot practice room I have cured them by bringing them out into a cold room adjoining."
Mr. C. Hibberd, of Bemerton, Salisbury, writes:—
"To prevent flattening I give great attention to the posture, seeing that the boys do not stand carelessly. A careless posture, I think, betokens a careless mind. I am careful not to overtire the children. They sit immediately one piece is finished, and stand immediately I sound the first chord of the next piece. I always start the practice with a few simple voice exercises. When training the choir of a place far away in the country, I spent more time than usual in giving ear exercises (dictation), as well as voice-training exercises. I pay great attention to 'mental effect,' and endeavour to let each boy or girl have a Tonic Sol-fa copy of the music. The syllables recall the mental effect to the mind. There should be no uncertainty as to either time or tune, and both words and notes should be attacked or struck with confidence. I always practise scales downwards, and have as little to do with the harmonium as possible at practice. Boy altos I rarely come across. I tried them once, but found they aided in flattening. We have two men altos here, who sing in a falsetto voice. The boys here have a name for singing well in tune, and they are very willing to do anything to keep up their character."
Mr. Walter Brooks, in a paper in theMonthly Musical Record, expresses the opinion that the 3rd and 7th of the majorscale are often sung flat. To cure this, each boy must tune up separately, then all should be tried together. Minor passages are often sung flat. Loss of pitch during service may, he says, be remedied, not by loud organ stops, but by playing the boys' part an octave higher. Sharp singing, which often arises from naturally defective or badly-trained ears, is cured best by checking those who can only sing loudly, and by insisting onpianosinging. To put on more organ power makes the loud sharp singing worse.
Herr Eglinger, of Basel, whose qualifications I have referred to elsewhere, considers that flattening is generally due to fatigue. The membranes which produce the voice are not yet strong, and they relax, producing flattening. He works on the principle that children are quickly tired, and quickly rested, and gives the singing in small doses. Unfortunately, in church work the length of the dose is not a matter of choice. He notices, what others have noticed, that when the voices are divided into three parts, it is the middle part that flattens most; this is because it plays about the break. To choirmasters whose boys flatten, Herr Eglinger says:—
"Give rest; require a proper use of the registers; get sharp and exact pronunciation, especially of the consonants; and keep up with a strong hand the attention and interest of the choir."
I close this chapter by printing a short paper on the subject kindly written for me by Mr. W. H. Richardson, formerly trainer of the celebrated Swanley Orphans' Choir, which gave concerts in all parts of the country. Mr. Richardson, while he was at Swanley, obtained results of the most remarkable excellence. At Swanley there was no selection of voices: all were made to sing, and all were individually trained, as well as collectively. "My conviction," says Mr. Richardson, "is that there are no more defective voices than there are eyes and ears." The Rev. W. J. Weekes, late Precentor of Rochester Cathedral, said of the Swanley boys:—
"The smaller boys were first tested—some thirty or fortylittle fellows, some of them new arrivals. Here the tone, though of course not strong, was pure and sweet, such as would have done credit to cathedral boys after a couple of years' training, and they 'jumped' their intervals most clearly, lighting as full and fairly on the correct note as a bird does on a bough. Thence we moved into the larger schoolroom, where were assembled some hundred older boys, and such a body of sound, so full and pure, so free from throatiness, and so true in intonation as these hundred throats emitted, I certainly never heard from boys' voices before."
In 1885 I took the late Signor Roberti, teacher of singing in the Normal College at Turin, and an Italian composer of eminence, to hear the Swanley boys, and he afterwards wrote to Mr. Richardson:—
"I do not exaggerate in any way by saying that I found there a true perfection in tune and in rhythm, but above all, in what concerns the pure and correct emission of voices, the careful and judicious training of which confers much honour upon you, and I would be happy to see it even partly imitated by the teachers of the so-called Land of Song."
These facts are enough to prove the weight that attaches to Mr. Richardson's utterances:—
"My experience has been that flattening will give the teacher very little trouble after the pupils have been drilled with voice-training exercises, but until the voices are built and strengthened, he will have unpleasant surprises of all kinds. If he would have a reliable choir he must begin, continue, and end with regular voice training based on an undeniably good system. From the very outset the pupil should be taught to fear flat singing as a demon. With my boys I was for ever laying down the self-evident truth, 'People can endure your singing if it be tuneful, even though all other points of excellence are low, but no one can put up with your singing out of tune, except as martyrs.' The cause of flattening is always lack of culture. In the choirs I have trained it has ceased to trouble me after a few months. The habit of letting the pitch dropfosters itself in a remarkable manner, until at last the ear of the performer is perfectly satisfied with the production of a monstrosity. In proof of this I would mention a case which has come painfully under my own notice. A number of boys known to me have been in the daily habit of singing the tune:—
notation[Listen]
and as they have only had a 'go as you please system' to hold them in, they now commence flattening at once with acrescendowhich culminates in the second line, and creates the effect:—
notation[Listen]
The original quite gone, they quite satisfied! The cause of continued flat singing is allowing thebad habit. I am not, of course, dealing with exceptional cases of natural inaptitude. These are rare, and I say this after having had some years of experience in testing individual voices. I could now with very little difficulty name the few pupils I had at Swanley who were naturally unable to sing tunefully, and I doubt not that nearly all my old scholars could do the same. They were in reality exceptions, numbering, during the whole of the time I was with them, not more than half-a-dozen.
"There is one stage in the voice training where the teacher finds his pupils (boys I am speaking of, my experience with adults not having been so extensive) habituallysharpen. In my own neighbourhood a teacher who has commenced to properly train his boys to sing, in a conversation he had with me told me of this, to him, unexpected difficulty. To get good intonation in part-singing, I found the singing of chords a great help. The class should be divided rapidly, and one note of thechord assigned to each section. Then it should be sung softly. This should be repeated with other chords, and followed by easy phrases. Voices do not at once blend, and until they do the singing should be never loud. I look upon the earlier work as tentative—a feeling for the beauty of perfection of pitch, tunefulness, and intonation. A practice to be condemned is that of learning the parts of a tune separately, and then bringing them together. There are, of course, places where it is absolutely necessary to give special attention to exceptional passages, but it is a mistake to teach each part as though it were an independent tune—to give the direction, which I have often heard, 'Now sing your part, and never mind what the others are doing,' or 'Don't you listen to any other part.' This system is answerable for the most offending cases of want of tunefulness, in which one part will sing on with the greatest of satisfaction in a key a semitone from that in which the part above or below is moving. The ear should be prepared by a symphony, or by thinking of the key before a piece is commenced. My own practice has been to wait after giving the key-note for the pupils to do this. I have recently come across a method of allowing the pupils to find the tonic of a song about to be sung, which in nine cases out of ten will make the opening as 'restless' as the sea waves. The teacher strikes the C fork, and the tonic being F, all the pupils sing C', B, A, G, F—doh. The C', B, A, G, F is, I think, as likely to unsettle the ear as anything that could be imagined. The teacher should give the key-note. He may teach his pupils to use the fork if he will, butnotin a way so exquisitely calculated to unsettle the ear when it should be strongly decided.
"With regard to Registers, I do not know whether the nomenclature I employed with my Swanley choir will be commended by you, but as it was successful I will describe it. The registers we called, perhaps inelegantly, 'Top,' 'Middle,' and 'Bottom,' these terms being handier than Upper Thin, Lower Thin, and Upper Thick. The earliest exercises were in the Top Register—that is, the Upper Thin. Boysuntrained are, taken in bulk, unconscious of the Thin Register. Having got them to sing, say C to koo, I have followed it by singing to the same syllable the tune:—
notation[Listen]
('Now the day is over,'—A. & M.), and the delight has been intense when the pupils have thus discovered how clearly and sweetly they could sing. When this is done great possibilities seem to open, and the pupil is on the road to perfection. B♭and E♭I found most convenient for change. The Small Register must have been used, as my lads sang up to C2with the greatest ease and finish, though one of our foremost teachers, in a conference I had with him on the subject, said he would stake his reputation that the small register was not employed by them. It received no name in our practices after that authoritative statement, and ever afterwards I was in dread of being called over the coals for allowing the Top register to get too high.
"Boy altos can be made to sing without flattening, though they invariably give more trouble than trebles on account of their willingness to let the lower register overlap the one above—to force upward. They should practise with the trebles such exercises as:—
notation[Listen]
so as to strengthen this part of the voice, which may be termed their flattening field."
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ByW. H. Richardson, Formerly Conductor of the Swanley Orphanage Choir.{*}
{*} Mr. Richardson has responded to my request for hints with such fulness and weight that I devote a separate chapter to his essay. In writing, he has specially had in view the difficulties of choir trainers in rural districts.
Allthat a writer on the training of voices can do is to lay down general lines, and give comprehensive suggestions. The teacher, to make any use of them must be indeed ateacher, not a mere mechanically automatic individual of only sufficient calibre to take the directions of a writer, and give them again. He should be both enthusiastic in his work, and willing to spend his strength in patience if he would have a choir of boys to singreliablywell. It is of the greatest importance that work should be set out on right lines, and that a thoughtfully prepared scheme should be arranged before commencing. I would here give my experience of two choirs I had at different times in agricultural districts, and in one of them I was well satisfied with the progress we made, while in the other my work was completely thrown away. The reason for the failure in the second instance (which I foresaw from the outset) will be gathered from the following account of our plan of campaign. The choir was a village one which met for rehearsal once a week. The organist attended and presided at a harmonium, and,nolens volens, I had at the beginning of each practice to take the choir through the whole of the next Sunday's services. The boys' voices were, at the beginning of my connection, uncivilised,and at the end of it—fortunately the question of ways and means not allowing the interval to extend beyond a few months—were as barbarous as at the commencement. There was absolutely no chance of making a name through these youngsters; and as to voice culture! How could it be possible to attempt it after labouring through such a programme as Canticles, Hymns, Psalms, Kyrie, and Amens?
I determined never to take office again unless I could have my own way in fixing the time-table of work. My success in the other case was owing greatly to the fact that I had one night a week entirely devoted to musical training and voice culture. This did not preclude us from relieving the drudgery of work by the singing of songs and hymns,butit allowed me the use of an unfettered judgment in thechoiceof what should be attempted. A teacher is heavily handicapped if after getting his boys for the first time to sing in the upper thin register, he is to follow his delicate work by singing half-a-dozen verses to a tune which will in the very first verse undo all that he has done, simply because its melodic progression encourages forcing. Experienced teachers will appreciate what I say on this point. Take such a tune as:—
notation[Listen]
—a tune which inevitably causes a wrong use of the registers by inexperienced boys. The tunes selected should further the work of the exercises, not undo it, and with diligence the teacher can find suitable tunes and chants for this purpose. My advice to all teachers is that before commencing work they should insist upon conditions that do not preclude success, and that they should not spend their labour in wearying drudgery with the full consciousness that to attain it is impossible.
One suggestion I would make is that the choirmaster, if he be not, as is often the case in villages, also schoolmaster, would do well to enlist the services of the school teachers in thevillage. It is not often practicable to have more than one—or two at the most—meetings of a choir during the week, and the length of the lesson must be, in consequence, at least an hour. For voice training in the earlier stages six lessons a week of fifteen minutes each are preferable to one of an hour and a half, and therefore I would urge thenecessityof getting hold of the sympathies of the school teacher, and putting him on right lines to work out the choirmaster's ideas, if the offices be not united.
Voice work should be begun in the infant school. At Swanley it was my practice to give, I believe, daily lessons in the Infant Department, and the remarks made by visitors will bear out what I am about to say as to the possibility of getting young children to sing, and sing like little angels. I was always as pleased to exhibit my infants' vocal powers as to show those of my more advanced boys, and success was, comparatively speaking, more easily gained with them than with older boys, for inasmuch as the difficulty of registers and breaks does not exist as such with these tiny ones, and unless our plans be artificial or formed of caprice, this is what should be expected.
In the infant school the teacher can take hold of the good that is innate, and mould it; in the higher school he has to spend hours and hours eradicating the bad habits which shouting and untamed license have allowed to grow. By all means begin with the infants, and let their songs and nursery rhymes be written so as to "give them a chance."
But I am asked to say something that may be helpful to the choirmaster having to train the vocal organs of boys who are beyond infantile methods. I will therefore suppose myself for the first time before an ordinary country group of lads with all the vocal faults that now appear indigenous to the locality. I should first get them to find the Upper Thin Register, and my plan is to confine the work to this regionnotation[Listen]and getthe boys to sing "koo" to D, E, or F, making my own "Exercises," which are suggested by present circumstances:—
Koo koo koo koo koo koo koo koo koo[Listen]
Koo koo koo koo koo koo koo koo koo[Listen]
Koo koo koo koo koo koo koo koo koo[Listen]
Koo koo koo koo koo koo koo koo koo[Listen]
As at this stage the boys know nothing of the diatonic scale, I let them imitate. The exercisesmaybe played on a pianoforte, if the teacher cannot sing them, though in the latter case it is preferable that he should adopt the plan of selecting his best pupils for the models.
I once had to commence with some uncultured boys, and knowing the difficulty of getting them to make a start, took with me a few of my own trained lads, who sang the exercises first, after which I added one or two of the beginners to them, and sympathetically they soon sang in the proper register with the others. By continuing the process of addition gradually I soon got the whole class to sing as I wished.
At this first lesson the proper production of "oo" (vowel) should be obtained. I deal with the vowels as they arise,never observing a lack of clearness and purity without endeavouring to correct it. The foregoing exercises can next be used for teaching the intervals of the diatonic scale, for instance:—notation[Listen]
calling the notes by their names, doh soh. Here, again, the proper vowel production must be sought for, and obtained. The difficulties will be varied in this respect with the locality. Often I have met with doh-oo. This, as well as ray-ee, and other faults that need not be specified, can be corrected at once. The beautiful intonation we had at Swanley I attribute in a large measure to the care bestowed on the production of vowel sounds. There must be no division of opinion among the singers as to how any particular vowel sound should be emitted. If there be not unity in this respect the intonation suffers.
The earlier exercises should be sung in unison, a correct division into 1st, 2nd, and 3rd trebles being impossible until the boys have acquired sufficient confidence to showwhatthey are naturally. I have for a long time used with advantage the single chant form for exercises, making them myself.
notation[Listen]
In order to avoid waste of time in learning exercises they should beshort, so that they can be caught up at once.
To get boys to sing in the register below (the Lower Thin) is the next step, the exercises now being confined betweennotation[Listen]and formed in the same way as those in the higher region. The difficulty is greater in getting rough boys to use this part of the vocal score correctly.The best way I have found to get them to discover it, is to singKEY F. s f m r d[Listen]—beginning at C1, to koo. The notes are at first weak, and there is a tendency to "squork," if I may so term it. These exercises must be sung softly at first, and at this stage the schoolmaster can render valuable help if he will get his boys to read from their lesson books in this register instead of in the one below it.
I have to acknowledge a debt of gratitude to one of our best and most painstaking teachers for giving me this hint. The reading will at first be weak, and in a monotone, and there being no flexibility, the boys will have difficulty in forming the usual cadence at the end of sentences, but practice will soon strengthen the weakness, and make this register as strong as the one below it. Between the one above and the one below, this "middle" one is apt to be overlooked altogether, and I have heard some fairly pleasing singing where it has not been recognised at all.
The third register (Upper Thick) should now receive attention, and in order to find it the pupils should cultivate it upwards with such exercises as—