IMAGERY56

This is where the greatest expansion of the chest cage or thoracic cavity is possible, and therefore the place to establish deep breathing. Clearing the throat, grunting, crying, squealing, and calling "hey" are examples of imagery to establish indirectly the abdominal press — contrac¬tion of the high abdominal musculature — as a basis of breath support.

Suggestions to put the tone forward to the teeth, to the tip of the nose, and to the back of the eyes - these are examples of imagery to establish forward-in-the-masque resonance, "nasal" resonance, or normal resonance quality, which make possible an open and a flexible throat (pharyngeal) po¬sition and flexibility of the articulators.

Habit 57

Part of the process of teaching singing is to replace bad habits in vocal production with correct habits. This is a matter of repeating consciously controlled actions until they become patterned and conditioned into uncon¬scious actions. Whereas bad habits are usually so definitely established that they seem to be correct naturally, correct habits under voluntary con¬trol seem unnatural and incorrect until they are involuntary.

Techniques of deep breathing, breath support, and breath control should ultimately become unconscious or involuntary actions, as well as techniques of normal resonance quality, pharyngeal vowel production and registration. This makes it possible for a singer to devote himself entirely to the inter¬pretation of the song material.

Even after a student has established a high degree of involuntary and un¬conscious control, something may go wrong with his singing technique. It will then be necessary for him to change to a conscious or voluntary control to correct what is wrong. Since it is difficult for him to analyze what he cannot hear as others hear him, it is preferable to have a teacher who is qualified to listen to his singing objectively and diagnose his difficulty.

Imitation58

The fact that all individuals — male and female, child, adolescent, and adult — are from a vocal standpoint essentially all the same in part, unless defective, and tend to function vocally in the same way, makes imitation a part of the learning process in singing. How well individuals will sing with¬out any formal training, assuming that they are possessed of average vocal talent, will depend upon their singing environment — at home, at school, and at church.

A good singing environment will be reflected through imita¬tion in good singing; a poor singing environment, in poor singing.
The error in imitation is in imitating results instead of causes; that is, a singer should imitate not the tone but how the tone is produced. He should sound like himself instead of an imitation of someone else. Although singers should have basically the same technique, they should have their own identity in normal resonance quality.

Practice59

The length of time that students should practice is dependent upon what they are trying to accomplish and upon their individual differences in age, learning and experience. In the beginning, practice should be limited until a clear idea is established in the student's mind of a definite goal or object¬ive to be reached. Otherwise new errors in production may be established and old ones reinforced.