TRIAL AND ERROR54

Trial and error methods are necessary in almost every phase of train¬ing the singing voice. After each trial, or series of trials, an appraisal should be made of the success of the response in relation to the goal. This process has been termed learning by "approximation and correction,"55 until a successful response has been established. To establish an even scale of normal resonance quality may require only a limited number of trials. Usually it requires a great many to estab¬lish an open tone or open vowel production as a basis for a flexible enuncia¬tion of the vowel sounds.

The tendency of most beginning students is to hold on to their speech habits and carry into their singing a combination of open and closed tone or vowel production. The ah vowel is usually sung open, the vowel sounds oh and oo are sung with the lips and mouth closed, muffling the sound, and the vowel sounds ee and ay, also with lips and mouth closed, tend to be nasal. What has been established through speech habits can only be corrected by establishing new habits in singing by repeated trials. The development of the high voice range in male changed voices usually calls for many trials and corrections.

The problem is to teach students how to establish and maintain a particular adjustment of the vocal cords called the high voice mechanism. This can be accomplished by holding on to the basic vowel tension in normal resonance quality, and making a change in resonance placement more to the mouth in the high voice. This brings about a change in the quality, in the vowel sound, or in the feeling or sensation of placement.

The average student is usually reluctant to accept any one of these changes as being correct, since he believes that any changes that are so obvious to him will be particularly noticeable to the listeners. The teacher now has an added problem of convincing the student that this is the correct approach, and that what is so obvious to him is not ob¬vious to others.

This usually can be proved by making a tape recording of the student's voice, which will show, if the transition is reasonably good, that the covering or closing process is very difficult to hear. This is also true when listening to records of outstanding male artists. The changes to the high voice mechanism are there, but difficult to hear unless the listener knows what to listen for. Vocalization may be considered as a trial and error method to establish agility, loud and soft singing, deep breathing, breath support, and breath control.

Imagery56

Vocal imagery may be defined as an indirect approach through the imag¬ination to a physiological or an acoustical result. Through its indirectness it tends to eliminate conscious action, and to co-ordinate the physical fac¬tors involved. Its use should be based upon an understanding of the physio¬logical and acoustical principles involved.

The use of panting as after running, sniffing the imaginery fragrance of a beautiful flower, sighing deeply and then inhaling deeply, are examples of imagery to establish deep breathing below the breastbone and above the waist line.