



Produced by David Newman, PB, Linda Cantoni, Chuck Greif
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
http://www.pgdp.net









Transcriber's Note

Music notation in this ebook is rendered using scientific pitch
notation, in which, for example, middle C is rendered as C4,
C below middle C is rendered as C3, and C above middle C is rendered
as C5, etc. For more information on this notation method, see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_pitch_notation




  THE VOICE

  Its Production, Care and
  Preservation


  _By_
  FRANK E. MILLER, M. D.


  _With a Note by_
  GUSTAV KOBBE

  _SIXTH EDITION_


  NEW YORK: G. SCHIRMER
  BOSTON: BOSTON MUSIC CO.




  COPYRIGHT, 1910
  BY G. SCHIRMER




NOTE


Dr. Frank E. Miller, the author of this book, is one of the leading New
York specialists on throat, nose and ear. He numbers many singers among
his patients and is physician to the Manhattan Opera House, Mr. Oscar
Hammerstein's company.

To expert knowledge of the physiology of the vocal organs he adds
practical experience as a vocalist. Before and during his student years
he was a singer and held, among other positions, that of tenor in one of
the large New York churches. This experience has been of great value to
him in his practice among singers. He understands them temperamentally
as well as physically. Moreover, it has led him, in writing this book,
to consider questions of temperament as well as principles of physiology.
Great as is the importance that he attaches to a correct physiological
method of voice-production, he makes full allowance for what may be
called the psychological factors involved therein--mentality, artistic
temperament, correct concept on the part of the singer of the pitch and
quality of the tone to be produced, etc.

Above all, Dr. Miller, while convinced that the tones of the vocal scale
require, for their correct emission, subtly corresponding changes of
adjustment in the vocal organs, utterly rejects anything like a
deliberate or conscious attempt on the singer's part to bring about
these adjustments. He holds that they should occur automatically (or
subconsciously) as the result, in very rare instances, of supreme
natural gifts, in others as a spontaneous sequence to properly developed
artistry.

In fact, while based on accurate scientific knowledge, Dr. Miller's book
also is the outcome of long observation and experience, so that it might
well be entitled "The Common Sense of Singing."

GUSTAV KOBBE.




CONTENTS


                                                        PAGE

    NOTE                                                   v

    CHAPTER     I.   A RATIONAL VOCAL METHOD               1

    CHAPTER    II.   THE CHOICE OF A TEACHER              15

    CHAPTER   III.   ON BREATHING: INSPIRATION            27

    CHAPTER    IV.   ON BREATHING: EXPIRATION             49

    CHAPTER     V.   THE PHYSIOLOGY AND PSYCHOLOGY
                     OF VOICE-PRODUCTION                  67

    CHAPTER    VI.   PITCH AND SYMPATHETIC VIBRATION      89

    CHAPTER   VII.   REGISTERS OF THE VOICE              103

    CHAPTER  VIII.   SUBDIVISIONS OF THE VOICE           117

    CHAPTER    IX.   THE STROKE OF THE GLOTTIS           132

    CHAPTER     X.   HYGIENE OF THE VOICE                147

    CHAPTER    XI.   MORE VOCAL HYGIENE                  169

    CHAPTER   XII.   NODES AND THEIR CURE                182




[Illustration: FIG. 1. THE THROAT AND ADJOINING STRUCTURES

1, Larynx. 2, Epiglottis. 3, Lower Pharynx. 4, Lips. 5, Teeth. 6,
Tongue. 7, Mouth (Oral Cavity). 8, Uvula and Soft Palate. 9, Hard
Palate. 10, Upper Pharynx. 11, Nasal Cavities. 12, Nose.

A, Arytenoid Cartilage. C, Cricoid Cartilage. T, Thyroid Cartilage.
W, Windpipe. X, Adam's Apple.]




CHAPTER I

A RATIONAL VOCAL METHOD


Song, so far as voice-production is concerned, is the result of
physiological action, and as voice-production is the basis of all song,
it follows that a singing method, to be correct, must be based on the
correct physiological use of the vocal organs. The physiology of
voice-production lies, therefore, at the very foundation of artistic
singing.

The proper physiological basis for a singing method having been laid,
something else, something highly important, remains to be superimposed.
Voice is physical. But everything that colors voice, charging it with
emotion, giving it its peculiar quality and making it different from
other voices, is largely, although not wholly, the result of a psychical
control--a control not exercised mysteriously from without, like
Svengali's over Trilby, but by the singer himself from within. Every
singer is his own mesmerist, or he has mistaken his vocation. For while
voice is a physical manifestation, its "atmosphere," its emotional
thrill and charm, is a psychical one--the result of the individual's
thought and feeling, acting unconsciously or, better still,
subconsciously, on that physical thing, the voice.

Between the two, however, between mind and body, there lies, like a
borderland of fancy, yet most real, the nervous system, crossed and
recrossed by the most delicate, the most sensitive filaments ever
spun, filaments that touch, caress, or permeate each and every muscle
concerned in voice-production, calling them into play with the rapidity
of mental telegraphy. Over this network of nerves the mind, or--if you
prefer to call it so--the artistic sense, sends its messages, and it
is the nerves and muscles working in harmony that results in a correct
production of the voice. So important, indeed, is the cooperation of
the nervous system, that it is a question whether the whole psychology
of song may not be referred to it--whether the degree of emotional
thrill, in different voices, may not be the result of greater or less
sensitiveness in the nervous system of different singers. This might
explain why some very beautiful voices lack emotional quality. In such
singers the physical action of the vocal organs and of all the resonance
cavities of the head may be perfect, but the nerves are not sufficiently
sensitive to the emotion which the song is intended to express, and so
fail to carry it to the voice.

Immense progress has been made in anatomical research, and in no other
branch more than in the study of the throat and of the larynx, which is
the voice-box of the human body. There also has been a great advance in
the study of metaphysics. It would seem high time, therefore, that both
the results of modern anatomical study and the deductions of advanced
psychological research, should be recognized in the use of that subtle
and beautiful thing, the human voice, which in its ultimate quality is
a combination of physiological and psychological phenomena--the physical,
voice-producing organs acting within and for themselves, but also being
acted upon by a series of suggestive impulses from the mind and soul,
