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CHAPTER XI |
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OUTCOMES OF THIS STUDY |
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C
ertain immediate results of this study have been reported seriately in the tables and concluding discussions of Chapters II through X, representing each of nine main areas of, investigation. A conspectus of all the pedagogical viewpoints expressed by authors of texts and articles on the training of the singing voice suggests a predominance of three main schools of thought:
i. First there are the empiricists, who derive their teaching methods largely from trial and error observations. Their techniques are based on symptomatic judgments of the student's performance during the vocal lesson period. Underlying causes are guessed at or else ignored, the main objectives being the attainment of desirable results, by whatever means. Local effort and voluntary controls of the vocal apparatus are common instructional procedures and the chief criterion for evaluating any vocal technique is that the voice must sound better for having used that technique.
2. The second, or scientific group is composed of those who delve into the causes underlying acoustical and physiological vocal phenomena and voice teaching procedures are sought that agree with scientific or experimental findings. This group believes that the teaching of singing can ultimately be reduced to various testing and measuring procedures; that vocal tone can be analyzed objectively and definite standards of vocal production established for all singers.
g. The third or natural method group takes a middle path, disclaiming any detailed knowledge of vocal physiology, but seeking to eliminate local effort so that natural vocal reflexes take their course. "Train the mind, train the ear, but let the vocal organs alone" is the slogan of this last group. Herbert Witherspoon sums it up by saying, "the most difficult thing to do is to leave the voice alone. Voices cannot be pulled, placed or squirted. They perform most effectively when free from conscious effort, mental or physical." [677, p. 15] A basic limitation common to all three |
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