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CONCEPTS OF PRONATION |
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4. The tongue has little, if any, effect on the quality o£ the singing voice. [Dacy 126]
5. Do not try to flatten the tongue locally. [Witherspoon 677, p. 15]
6. Tongue control is effected through the mind, "not through voluntary effort or physical force." [Skiles 559]
7. Mere mention of the tongue to a vocal student induces unconscious muscular tension in it. [Samoiloff 484, p. 121; Henderson 243, p. 46]
8. "There are no tongue exercises of value to the singer/' [Ryan 480,
P-95]
9. Great flexibility, freedom and facility of action are called for in the lingual organ. [Wilcox 666]
Palatal controls. The soft palate or velum is a membranous and muscular extension of the hard palate, forming a continuous surface with the latter in the roof of the mouth and serving as a partition which separates the mouth cavity from the nasal cavity. The posterior border of the velum ends in a centrally located pendant fleshy lobe which is called the uvula. (W)
The role of the soft palate in voice production is not clearly established. According to Russell, it was commonly believed that, to prevent nasality during phonation, the soft palate had to be raised in a valve-like action, closing off the posterior entrance into the nasal cavity. But X-ray studies show that the velar opening into the nose is not closed by the raising of the soft palate but by a "sphincter-like action from front to back." Russell reports that the velar passage always remained closed during phonation, in all the X-ray photographs taken. [479] Evetts and Worthington also used radiograms to demonstrate the fact that the soft palate "remains in exactly the same position" (i.e., passive) during normal phonation as during quiet respiration. This position is not altered by vocalization at any pitch. [167, p. 44] Conklin maintains that the soft palate rises "naturally" with ascending pitch and therefore does not require any conscious regulation. [121, p. 20] Savage also favors non-interference in palatal action and claims that these movements must be controlled "mentally," i.e., not consciously. [490, p. 92]
The typical opinions favoring conscious palatal control in voice training are those of Lissfelt, who believes that the palate must be raised consciously to prevent a faulty attack in phonation [348, p. 19]; and Mackenzie, who advises that "the uvula must be carefully trained" to remain at a high level for good voice production. [364, p. 117] |
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