Subdivisions Of The Voice
It should be remembered that in the old days, from which traditions of
phenomenally high voices have come down to us, musical pitch was lower
than it is now. In those days a tenor, for example, could carry up his
voice in the adjustment for the middle or in phenomenal cases even for
the chest register, instead of changing to the head register, more
easily than can be done now. In fact, nowadays, when a composer calls
f
r a very high note, it usually is transposed, so that actually the
supposedly high C of Di quella pira nearly always is a B flat.
Probably there has been no general deterioration in voices, popular
opinion to the contrary notwithstanding. Phenomenal voices always have
been rare, and doubtless are no rarer now than at any other period. At
any time any opera house would have been proud of two such tenors as
Caruso and Bonci, or of two such sopranos as Melba and Tetrazzini, while
there is no period in which a Sembrich would not have been a rara
avis. The artist who, seemingly taught by nature, spontaneously
employs the correct registers and sings the most difficult music with
ease and accuracy, always has been an unusually gifted person--a vocal
phenomenon, in fact.
The preceding chapter gave only the main divisions for male and female
voices--alto and soprano for female and baritone and tenor for male.
There are subdivisions of these. Contralto is a subdivision of alto,
mezzo-soprano of soprano; and soprano itself may be dramatic or florid.
Baritone is a division of bass; and tenor is either dramatic or lyric.
Even when one of these subdivisions of voice is able to enter the range
of another, it cannot do the same things with the same ease as the one
which naturally belongs there. An alto of extraordinary range, like
Schumann-Heink, may be able to achieve high soprano in the head
register. It is a valuable accomplishment, insuring ease in singing of
roles that lie in the balance between high alto and mezzo-soprano, but
it does not make the singer a soprano. A dramatic soprano may be able
to sing florid roles, but never with the success of the soprano whose
natural gifts are of the florid order. A Wagner singer rarely succeeds
in the traditional Italian roles, nor a singer of these in Wagner roles.
Lilli Lehmann always insisted that Norma was one of her great roles,
and craved the opportunity to sing it here. At last the opportunity
came, but it is not on record that the public clamored for its
repetition or ranked her Casta diva with her singing of Isolde's
Liebestod. Melba, one of the most exquisite of florid sopranos, once
attempted Bruennhilde in Siegfried. One performance, and her good
judgment came to her rescue. It is to Sembrich's credit that she always
has remained within her genre and for this reason never, so far as I
know, has made a failure. The sign-post that stands at the entrance to
the path leading to vocal success might read as follows: "Find out what
your voice is, and remain strictly within it."
The voice which, because of its great range, best illustrates the
three-register division of the vocal scale, is the soprano. The average
soprano ranges from [Music: C4-A5]; but combining the three types of soprano
voices, the soprano compass is as given in the previous chapter, the
extremes being, of course, exceptional.
Among types of sopranos, the dramatic averages the greatest compass. The
voice is heavier than florid soprano and incapable of being handled with
the same agility. But it contains more low notes and almost as many
high ones, unless in the latter respect one compares it with florid
soprano voices of the phenomenal order. Otherwise, so far as the high
notes are concerned, the difference lies in quality rather than in
compass. The Inflammatus in Rossini's Stabat Mater, which is written
for dramatic soprano, contains the high C, and no one who has heard
Nordica sing it need be told of the noble effect a great dramatic soprano
can produce with it.
It is possible to sing the three highest notes of the chest register of
dramatic soprano with the adjustment for the middle register; and the
higher notes of the middle register with the adjustment for the head
register. This option is not merely a convenience. Its artistic value is
great. In loud phrases those optional notes which naturally lie in the
chest register are delivered most effectively in that register; but in
piano phrases they are more effective when sung with the adjustment of
the middle register. The same thing applies to those optional tones
which naturally lie in the middle register. In loud phrases they are
sung best in their natural register--the middle; in piano phrases, in
the head register. These are two capital illustrations of the value of
the overlapping of registers and the necessity of training a voice to
be equally at home in both registers on all notes that are optional.
Theoretically, the florid soprano produces the three lowest notes of its
range in the chest register; the notes from [Music: F4-F5] in the middle; and
the notes above these in the head register. In practice, however, the
small larynx and the limited cup space found in florid sopranos make it
difficult if not impossible for them to adjust their vocal tracts to the
chest register. The problem is met by bringing the head register as far
down as possible into the middle; and by singing what theoretically
should be chest tones in the middle register. It hardly need be pointed
out that the lower notes of florid sopranos are weak. This accounts for
it. Florid soprano, the voice of the head register, is a voice of
extraordinary agility--the voice of vocal pyrotechnics. To achieve it
Nature appears to have found it necessary to sacrifice the heavier
middle and chest registers which make for dramatic expression; with
dramatic sopranos, on the other hand, to sacrifice the muscular
flexibility which makes for agility. Mezzo-soprano is a voice that lies
within the compass of dramatic soprano, usually extending neither quite
so low nor quite so high, but governed by the same laws.
For altos the ordinary compass is [Music: G3-C5]. A low alto or contralto is
supposed to go down to the E below; while altos of unusual range go
high as [Music: F5]. I even have seen the alto compass in notation run up to
"high" C; but to control this high range an alto would have to be another
Schumann-Heink who has cultivated upper notes in the head register.
The tone-quality of some alto voices approaches so nearly that of the
male voice, especially in the lowest tones of the chest register, that
these altos are known as female baritones. In fact there is no voice in
which register affects tone-quality as plainly as in alto. For in alto
voices the chest register is apt to give tones that are heavy without
corresponding vibrance and sonority, while tones produced in the
adjustment of the head register are apt to be too thin. The middle
register, however, produces in the alto voice a tone that is rich
without being too heavy, so that it avoids undue heaviness on the one
hand and on the other a thinness that is in no way comparable with the
light tones of soprano, but simply a thin and unsatisfactory alto. Alto
tone in the middle register therefore gives the standard tone-quality
for alto voice; and when singing in chest or head register, an alto
should endeavor to relieve the chest notes of their heaviness and the
head notes of their thinness by giving them as much as she can the
quality of tones in the middle register. This can be accomplished by
bringing head tones down to middle and by carrying the middle register
adjustment down into the chest register. But all this is as much a
matter of correct ear and trained will power to make the voice reproduce
the mental audition as it is of physical adjustment.
The great prizes of the operatic stage and concert hall go to the higher
voices--to sopranos, for example, instead of to altos. Yet the proper
training of an alto voice is a most difficult matter because, while the
chest register is the natural singing register of alto, it produces too
"big" a tone--a tone so big as to be heavy and unwieldy. The middle
register in alto really is an assumed position, yet it is the register
in which the standard alto tone is produced. Teachers who either are
ignorant of these facts or disregard them are apt to carry up the
cumbersome chest register until it meets the thin head register,
producing a voice whose low notes are too heavy and tend toward the
uncanny and by no means agreeable female baritone quality, while the
higher notes are thin and undecided in character.
The male voice-range is the same as the female, save that it lies an
octave lower; its mechanism is the same; and its registers are the
result of identical physical functions. Thus, allowing for the octave
difference, the tenor voice and the laws that govern it correspond for
all practical purposes with soprano.
Tenors are lyric and dramatic, a distinction that explains itself. The
lyric tenor is light and flexible. The dramatic tenor is a ringing,
vibrant voice, especially on the high notes. Probably it is the splendor
of these high notes that is responsible for the theory that they are
produced by carrying the chest register upward. In point of fact, a
genuine chest register rarely is employed by tenors. Their easiest,
their natural singing range, is in the middle register, and the tones
which in the notation of the tenor compass are assigned to the chest
register, really are sung in what is more like a downward extension of
the middle register. Just as the larynx of the soprano is not as large
as that of the alto or contralto and is not capable of the open
adjustment required by the chest register, so the larynx of the tenor
is smaller than that of bass or baritone and, like the soprano, less
capable of the open adjustment for chest register. The result is the
same--a perceptible weakness on the lower notes, the great qualities
of the voice lying in the middle and head registers, especially in
the latter.
The lyric tenor is a lighter voice than the dramatic for the same reason
that florid soprano is lighter than dramatic soprano. The cup space
within the larynx is, comparatively speaking, small. Thus, while the
head tones of the dramatic tenor are powerful and vibrant, the lyric
tenor's head tones are lighter and more graceful, but are lacking in
brilliant, resonant dramatic quality. A tenor like Jean de Reszke, who
sang baritone for several years, must have a larynx somewhat larger than
that of a genuine dramatic tenor, and his production of robust tenor
notes in the head register must have required a most artistic series
of adjustments of his voice tract throughout this entire register. But
while it cannot be denied that Jean de Reszke was an artist in the
truest sense of the term, it also cannot be denied that his high voice
just lacked the true vibrant tenor quality and had a suspicion of
baritone in it.
Some tenors who cannot sing unusually high in head register are able to
acquire what is known as falsetto, and even tenors who are not obliged
to resort to falsetto sometimes employ it for special effects. Falsetto
is produced by carrying the adjustment for head register to its extreme
limit. Practically it is the artificial reproduction within the throat
of an adult of the small larynx before the period of mutation. In
singing falsetto the false vocal cords drop down to within a quarter
of an inch of the true cords and even closer, reducing the cup space in
the larynx to its dimensions before mutation. To secure a good quality
of tone in falsetto the singer must have complete control of the cup
space--be able to diminish it not only by allowing the false cords to
drop down almost upon the vocal cords, but also by contracting it
laterally. If he can do this, he can produce some genuinely artistic
effects in falsetto. When a tenor cannot control the muscles that
contract the cup space, his falsetto will be of a poor quality--a
mere "dodge" to add some higher notes to those of his legitimate vocal
range.
There are singers whose control over the registers is so expert that,
when they are called upon to follow a loud, singing, vibrant head tone
with a pp effect on the same note, they can accomplish this by
imperceptibly changing to falsetto. They can glide from head into
falsetto and back again without a break and add the charm of varied
tone-color to natural beauty of voice. This is especially true of
dramatic tenors. If they can vary the naturally full and sonorous
quality of their head tone with an artistic falsetto, they are able to
secure many beautiful effects by an interchange of registers. Whenever
the high tones of a lyric tenor sound thin, it is because high head
tones do not lie naturally within the singer's range and he is obliged
to substitute falsetto for them. "Baritone tenors" usually cannot
achieve their higher notes in head register and are obliged to adopt
falsetto, but as their voices are naturally fuller than those of the
lyric tenor their falsetto is more agreeable.
Falsetto is a remnant of the voice before mutation, the male singer who
can produce falsetto having such control over the larynx that he can
contract the cup space until it reverts to its original boy size. This
accounts for the peculiar quality of the male falsetto--its alloy
of the feminine. Boys sing soprano or alto; and a man's voice must be
naturally high and possess such a genuine tenor quality that nothing can
rob it of its true timbre, to be effective in falsetto. This is why the
average "baritone tenors"--singers who begin as baritones but whose
voices lend themselves to being trained up--rarely are able to penetrate
an ensemble with a clear, ringing high note of genuine tenor quality. A
good tenor falsetto is in fact a reversion to boy-soprano with, however,
the quality of adult high voice predominating to such a degree that it
has the tenor timbre; and in proportion as the high notes of the male
voice result from artificial training instead of from natural capacity,
the boy-soprano timbre will creep in and weaken the tenor quality in
falsetto. Some basses and low baritones can be trained to reach the high
notes of the male vocal compass in falsetto, but as natural facility to
produce these notes is lacking in such voices and their production is
due wholly to artifice, the reversion to the boy quality of voice is so
complete and it predominates to such a degree that these voices are
known as male altos.
Falsetto usually is associated with tenors, but falsetto also can be
employed by women, the results, as with men, depending on whether the
voice is naturally a high one or not. I repeat that with voices which
naturally are high, falsetto is not a "dodge," but a legitimate artistic
effect. Furthermore, singers who in addition to control of the regular
registers have control of falsetto, frequently find physical relief in
passing from head to falsetto and back again.
Basses are of three different kinds. Basso profundo is the lowest bass;
basso cantante is a flexible bass usually unable to sing quite as low
as basso profundo; baritone is the highest bass--a voice midway between
bass and tenor and partaking somewhat of the quality of both. The bass
compass parallels that for contralto and alto at an interval of an
octave and, in their use of the registers, basses and contraltos and
baritones and altos have much in common. As with contralto, the natural
singing register of basses is the chest register. The middle register is
awkward to establish in bass voices, as the size of the larynx gives a
large open cup space which is unsuited to the chest register. Therefore,
with basses, when the capacity of the chest register is exhausted, it
is best for the production of the notes above to make a complete
change of adjustment to head register. Thus in bass the middle register
practically is eliminated.
The high bass or baritone compass is from [Music: G2-F4]. It was seen
that the question of registers with altos and contraltos was a complicated
one, and similar complications exist with baritones. Some baritones can
employ the middle register with ease, so that like certain contraltos
they can sing in three registers--a rather weak chest register, middle
and head (or falsetto) registers. The training of baritones is difficult,
and should be determined by the tendency of the individual baritone
voice--whether it inclines toward bass or toward tenor. For example,
Jean de Reszke was at the beginning of his career the victim of faulty
voice diagnosis. He was pronounced a baritone and trained for baritone
roles, with the result that he suffered from an exaggerated condition
of fatigue after every appearance. Later the probable tenor quality of
his voice was discovered, and when it had been developed along
physiological lines best suited to its real quality, undue fatigue
after using it ceased.
The division of the vocal scale into registers is not an artifice. It
is Nature's method of assisting vocalization, her way of relieving
the strain of the voice. A certain portion of the vocal scale lies
naturally in the chest register. But if this open adjustment is carried
up too far, the tones are strained and eventually ruined. On the other
hand if, at the proper point, the singer passes into the middle
register, the strain is relieved; and the relief experienced is even
greater when passing from middle into head, entirely releasing one set
of muscles and calling an entirely new set into play.
The so-called "breaks" in the voice occur at points where one register
passes into another; and it should be the aim of proper instruction in
voice-culture to eliminate the breaks. They are due to the change in
adjustment which each register calls for. The best method of "blending
the registers"--of smoothing out the breaks--is to bring a higher
register several tones down into the one below and thus bridge over the
passage from one adjustment to another. To do this consciously would
defeat its aim. It must be done in spontaneous response to the mental
conception of the tone or phrase to be emitted. It must become second
nature with the singer, a physiological adjustment in answer to a
psychical concept--a detail, in fact one of the most important details,
in that true physiology of voice-production which also takes psychical
conditions into consideration.