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184 TRAINING THE SINGING VOICE
produced. At his best, he should be unconscious of his vocal organs. [Greene 209, p. 7]
9. The laryngeal muscles "can only be contracted by thinking of a sound," not by thinking of muscular movements or sensations. [Drew 148; Merritt 389]
10. Mechanical guidance cannot help vocal action since it obstructs the natural spontaneous auditory responses which normally occur in the vocal organs when they are guided by a keen musical ear. [Kling-stedt 320, p. 44]
c) Sensation and sound combined are reliable guides to vocal action. These authors take the attitude that "sensation and hearing always go hand in hand with mental conception in producing a singing tone." [Key 515, p. 65] Greta Stueckgold, in an interview, claims that the only guide to the singer is "the way tones sound and feel/* Therefore, the formative study years should be devoted to constant "listening for tones and feeling their sensations" within the vocal organs. [594; also Wilson 674, I, p. so] The ancients were always successfully guided by feeling and hearing, according to Shaw, in the days when scientific information concerning vocal action was still unknown. [528] Clippinger maintains that, although the "final court of appeal" in judging tone is the ear, nevertheless the ear must often "be supplemented by the sensations" accompanying voice production. [116] Finally, Hall and Brown declare that the student must ieam to judge the quality of his own voice through both auditory and tactile sensations. [227, p. 18]
TECHNICAL APPROACH
Critical listening io vocal models is a technique of ear training recommended by so authors. The term critical listening is often used in discussions of the singing voice. In a pedagogical sense it may be defined as the
process of exercising careful or analytical judgment as to the merits, beauty or techniques revealed by a specific performance. The vocal models used for critical listening should be archetypes of singing artistry which present ideal patterns of performance to the listening ear, and which are worthy of imitation or emulation.
According to Mursell and Glenn, ear training should be carried on through at least three kinds of musical projects: listening, singing songs and improvising. [413, p. 143] The first of these, listening, requires the presence of artist performers either in person or through phonographic recordings. Brew insists that a good demonstration by one who can pro- |
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