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a is TRAINING THE SINGING VOICE |
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2. The physical'basis of the diction of the singing voice is the breath.
3. In order to produce articulate phonetic symbols of the language, the expiring current of breath must be modified in the vocal tract, first through a process of phonation, then through a definite configuration of the vocal tract (vowel formation) and finally through the adjustment (valving) of the tongue and other parts of the oral cavity at the place where the phonetic symbols are intelligibly produced.
4. Vowels and consonants are elementary forms of voice that provide basic vehicles of intelligible oral utterance for the singing voice.
5. Vowels and consonants are classified with reference to their physiological or organic formations and also according to their acoustical effects.
6. The basis of vocal training for singing is the vowel, which is also the basic audibility factor in the singing voice.
7. In singing, vowels generally have more vocal value than consonants.
METHODOLOGICAL CONSIDERATIONS
Various techniques of vocal instruction are presented in the 177 methodological statements that have been gathered in this area. Most of them are opinionated assertions, based on haphazard teaching procedures and empirical observations that claim superiority for one particular method
of teaching diction while ignoring the others. Undocumented and untested studio procedures such as these do not always provide the best teaching materials. The inexperienced teacher is often compelled to select for himself, out of this accumulation of ideas, those methods that show promise of meeting his individual requirements, without the possibility of first testing or evaluating them by scientific means. Until all these teaching methods are reported "out of committee" by trained investigators, their true value as haphazard contributions to that large body of information that now constitutes the basic pedagogy of singing is still in question.
Techniques of diction are held to be closely associated with techniques of vocal tone production. To the singer, the vowels are important tonal and rhythmic factors and consonants are anti-vocal elements and interrupters of tone and rhythm. Intelligibility is a prime requisite in singing, but the singer's diction never sacrifices vocal purity for clear enunciation. It is also believed that, although singing and speaking are independent arts, requiring different techniques of instruction, nevertheless, the benefits of training the singing voice accrue to the speaking voice and the |
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