VOCAL DEFECTS

The defects most commonly found in untrained voices are breathiness, throatiness, and nasality. The following exercises, if practised persistently, will remedy these defects:

Breathiness. This is caused by allowing breath to escape unvocalized. The remedy lies in applying to the vocal cords just the quantity of breath required to produce a given tone. It should be noted that clear and robust sounds depend upon breathing gently.

1. Inhale deeply. Exhale on singing ah. Apply the air very gently to the vocal cords, hold back the unused breath and aim to increase the purity of tone.

2. Count one to ten in a loud whisper, inhaling after each number. Repeat with half breath and half voice. Repeat with pure tone. Project into the distance.

3. Practise the following in pure, clear-cut voice: hup, he, ha, haw, hah, ho, hoo.

Throatiness. This defect arises from smallness of throat or rigidity. First, relax the throat muscles and practise exercises for depressing the root of the tongue, raising the soft palate and lowering the larynx. Practise the various tongue exercises, keeping the lips perfectly still. Sing 00-oh-ah in well-projected voice. Sing le, la, law, lah, lo, loo.

Nasality. When the vocal current is allowed to escape through the nostrils, a nasal tone is produced. To avoid this, the soft palate must be well raised and the tone projected directly towards the lips.

1. With soft palate raised sing ah and oh in pure projected tone.

2. With the thumb and first finger gently close the nostrils and pronounce several times with the utmost nasality: "O precious hours." Keep the nostrils closed and try to repeat with a pure tone. Repeat with nostrils open.

To secure purity of voice, no particle of breath must be allowed to escape unvocalized. A persistent effort should be made to produce this quality, at first "feeding" the breath very gently to the vocal cords and increasing the volume only after long practise. "He is the best speaker," says Lennox Browne, "who can control the expiration, that the least possible amount of air sufficient to cause vibration is poured with continuous effect upon the vocal organs.

1. Sing oo in gentle, smooth voice, avoiding unnecessary muscular effort.

2. Sing ah, with mouth well opened, aiming at purity, depth and smoothness. Sustain and repeat on various

pitches.

3. Repeat with o.

4. Gradually change singing o to ah, maintaining a uniform quality throughout.

5. Repeat with oo-o-ah.

6. Practise various musical scales.

7. Pronounce ē, ā, aw, äh, ō, ōō, prolonging each ten or more seconds.

8. Repeat with rising, falling, and circumflex inflection. 9. Practise shock of the glottis in gup, ge, ga, gaw, gah,

go, goo.

10. Repeat in hup, he, ha, haw, hah, ho, hoo.

11. Repeat with rising slide and with falling slide, aiming at great clearness.

12. Count very deliberately one to fifty, inhaling after each number.

13. Count to fifty, ten to each breath.

14. Repeat last two exercises in loud whisper.

15. Project by slight waves of sound woo-woo-woo-woo. 16. Toss the sounds e, a, aw, ah, oh, oo.

17. With mouth closed hum a mental maw. The vibration should be felt on the lips and in the facial resonators. 18. Repeat with bright and with sad vibrations.

19. Repeat in very low pitch.

20. Commence a humming tone as before, allow the lower jaw to drop gently, "focus" the voice on the lips and maintain as much facial resonance as possible.

21. Sing le, la, law, lah, lo, loo, singly and in combination.

22. Yawn e, a, aw, ah, o, 00.

FLEXIBILITY AND COMPASS

Flexibility means vocal responsiveness, or the ability to produce any tone or variation that may be required.

1. Sing e, a, aw, ah, o, oo in chromatic scale, from the lowest to the highest pitch. The use of a piano in these exercises is desirable.

2. Repeat with trill.
3. Repeat with tremolo.

4. Repeat in speaking voice, with short, medium, long and very long rising inflection. Repeat in falling and circumflex inflection.

5. Repeat with gradually increasing force, and with gradually diminishing force.

6. Repeat with swell, one pitch at a time, then combined with change of inflection both rising and falling.

7. Commence the following upon a low pitch, reading each successive line in the next highest pitch:

O thou that roll'st above,

Round as the shield of my fathers!
Whence are thy beams, O sun!

Thy everlasting light?

8. Commence the following at lowest pitch, giving to each word a short rising slide on successively higher pitches; aim at smoothness, and gradually increase length of inflections: