E-text prepared by David Newman, Chuck Greif, Barbara Tozier,
and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team
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| Note: | The musical illustrations have been transcribed and are available in twopdf files. The Exercisesfollow the Exercises as numbered in the book in Chapter II. The Head Voice.The remainder of the musical fragments, which are unlabeled in the book, arelabeled Figures A through Q (in the order in which they appear), and canbe found in the Figures pdf. |
THE HEAD VOICE AND
OTHER PROBLEMS
PRACTICAL TALKS
ON SINGING
BY
Author of
Systematic Voice Training
The Elements of Voice Culture
1.00
BOSTON
OLIVER DITSON COMPANY
NEW YORK
Chas. H. Ditson & Co.
CHICAGO
Lyon & Healy
Copyright MCMXVII
By Oliver Ditson Company
International Copyright Secured
To
My Students
Past, Present and Future
INTRODUCTION
The following chapters are the outgrowth of an enthusiasmfor the work of voice training, together with a deep personalinterest in a large number of conscientious young men andwomen who have gone out of my studio into the world to engagein the responsible work of voice teaching.
The desire to be of service to them has prompted me to putin permanent form the principles on which I labored, more orless patiently, to ground them during a course of three, four,or five years. The fact that after having stood the “grind”for that length of time they are still asking, not to say clamoring,for more, may, in a measure, justify the decision to issuethis book. It is not an arraignment of vocal teachers, althoughthere are occasional hints, public and private, which lead meto believe that we are not altogether without sin. But if thisbe true we take refuge in the belief that our iniquity is not inborn,but rather is it the result of the educational methodsof those immediately preceding us. This at least shifts theresponsibility.
Words are dangerous things, and are liable at any moment tostart a verbal conflagration difficult to control. Nowhere isthis more likely to occur than in a discussion of voice training.
From a rather wide acquaintance with what has been saidon this subject in the past hundred years, I feel perfectlysafe in submitting the proposition that the human mind canbelieve anything