The modern voice induces and applies resonance by means of a forward produc- tion independent of the pitch of the note to obtain a predetermined ideal resonance not naturally appropriate to the note. Certain exercises stimulate supposed places of resonance, thereby working on the effect and not the cause of sound production, in other words putting the cart before the horse. The result is that you sing with the voice that is predetermined and now in fashionable demand, not, however, your own indi- vidual voice, which was the fashion for several hundreds of years. Blanche Arral illus- trates this very clearly remembering the great voices she heard in her day:
Each of these voices had a color which was peculiar to it. One voice might be said to be golden, another silver, one a brilliant vermilion, one a rich dark purple. There was a wide variety in texture, color, and tone, and I attribute all this to the method of emission of which I have spoken.... To my ears most of the young singers I hear now possess what we would
have called in my youth la voix blanche. This means, as well as I can describe it, a voice lack- ing in musical ring, lacking overtones, as they are called now, in fact having very little true tone of any sort — colorless, flat, artificial, and far from the genuine article, the true natural quality, for few voices are naturally white.1
We see that Arral knows exactly why voices in 1937 sounded different compared to the voices she used to hear from her colleagues when she mentions the “method of emission” as the cause of good or bad vocal sound. A quarter- century later Herbert- Caesari completely agreed with Arral condemning the modern “method of emission” in no uncertain terms: “The so- called ‘forward production’ method is largely respon- sible for the general low standard of singing, technically speaking, and for the ruin of innumerable voices. Its history is inglorious. It is invariably wedded to that obsession: Diaphragmatic drive. The nefarious marriage has wrought untold harm.”2
It is the combination of projecting the voice by means of the downward thrust of the diaphragm that Herbert- Caesari is criticizing here. He maintains that the concept of forward production might well have its origins in the deceptive qualitative impres- sion the singer makes on a lay observer who has no knowledge of vocal technique. Remember even professional observers like Husler and Rodd Marling placed McCor- mack as a singer who used the attack behind the teeth. Herbert- Caesari mentions that looking at the singer might also give the deceptive impression that the tone is produced forward. This impression to the eye of the observer combined with the misinterpreted dictum “Cantare a fior’ di labbra,” suggesting that one should sing “on the edge of the lips,” might have contributed, according to Herbert- Caesari, to the development of the method of forward production. He sums up some of the dangerous consequences of its application:
The forward production is monofocal, that is, it inculcates the principle that all tones, irre- spective of pitch and vowel, should be placed or (shall we say “driven”) “well forward” on the hard palate, preferably “just over the upper teeth.” An extension of this method requires all tones to be placed “in the mask,” and “just between the eyes on the bridge of the nose.”3
If the singer places his voice in the mask, he is unconsciously closing himself off from the world, for he restricts the acoustic manifestation of the sound he produces. The sound of the vowel “ah” produced in the mask is featureless, undistinguished, and very different from that produced in the historical way.
For the emission of the “ah” in the method of the Old Italian School, we can lis- ten to Tagliavini who succeeds to pierce our heart with the repeated “ah” in the open- ing words of the famous aria “Una furtiva lagrima,” catching our undivided attention and setting the mood of the whole aria. We hang on his lips throughout the aria, fol- lowing his every shade of tone from the softest piano to the most powerful forte, amazed by the ease and comfort of his vocal emission adorned by his crystal- clear diction, lift- ing the plainest words to a high level of beauty.4
A major disadvantage, however, of forward production is the fact that the vibra- tor is forced to make the wrong adjustments for the tone to be produced. Every per- fectly produced laryngeal tone has its particular focus in the resonator, so it is obvious
that a predestined focus in a deliberately chosen place of acoustics will exercise undue tension on the vibrator. Could it be possible, therefore, through the discomfort caused by this undue tension on the vibrator, that the sopranos would rather sing in the mezzo- soprano range? One phenomenon of the last fifty years is the increase of singers singing mezzo- soprano.
The high soprano tones attacked in the historical manner travel via the back of the head to their place of acoustical manifestation. If we listen to the historical sopra- nos’ high notes, we notice that they come into existence instantaneously like a flash of lightning. Present- day sopranos tend to slide into the notes resulting in the tendency to stay behind the beat, instead of taking the lead. If the high tones are forced into the mask, they require a lot of extra push to get there and they will be difficult to attain because the laryngeal muscles are not allowed to make the right adjustment for their production. Pushing the tone forwards can lead to shrillness. The mask, or the other preferred places mentioned above by Herbert- Caesari, do not offer the singer enough room for the sound to attain its proper development and the consequence of this cramped setup is that the singer sings slightly flat all the time. The inner ear of the singer plays an important part in his intonation, as will be described further down. If the pupil gets the instruction to place the tone forward, his attention will be focused there and he will drive the tone forward, as Kelsey tells us: “This evokes an instanta- neous response from the muscles of the larynx and windpipe, which abruptly cease to hold the instrument with the requisite degree of firmness against the weight of air pres- sure pressing up against it, and the entire mechanism is unbalanced.”5Remember that
the old masters always instructed the pupil to sing downwards into the concentration of sound and never away from it. Lamperti sums up: “A conscious ‘placing’ of the tone hampers the voice. Each utterance must ‘find its own place.’”6