a�ected the vocal teachers and students who came under her sway

or who read her books, because these individuals knew nothing of

science themselves and had no means of gauging the actual merit

of her theories. Her success was overwhelming. Hundreds of voice

students �ocked to her studio from all over the world. Everyone

who studied with her was more or less injured vocally by her work.

Every voice which she trained deteriorated. Every great artist

who fell into her hands was forced to retire from the stage while

he or she was still relatively young. Many victims of this teaching

are today living in retirement, and these artists would still be sing-

ing if they had been trained properly. Despite all this, Lilli Leh-

mann liked a big tone and she wanted her pupils to be heard

when they sang in an auditorium. For this reason several of her

artist pupils did succeed; despite the fact that their careers were so

pitifully curtailed.

Singing in the Masque

The two teachers just discussed did a great deal of harm, but it re-

mained for Jean De Reszke—the great French tenor—to strike the �nal

blow which has been the main cause of the virtual elimination of all

great voices from the world today.

When Jean De Reszke lost his voice it became—as do those of prac-

tically all Frenchmen who lose their voices—"white," throaty and very

nasal. He, therefore, experienced a de�nite sensation of nasality—of

something happening in the front of his face. He based his technical

theories upon this sensation, which was solely a manifestation of the tech-

nical faults (throatiness, jaw-lock and neck tension) which had de-

stroyed his voice. He did not call this sensation nasality; he coined a

fancy phrase for it: "singing in the masque." For some obscure reason

this silly phrase took an overwhelming hold upon the popular imagination.

It became a standard idea for voice training everywhere. To this day

the majority of teachers either de�nitely profess to teach the De Reszke

method, or employ a method which is similar to it and, therefore, the

cavities, which are employed when the technic is correct, are just such

cavities. The mouth cavity also can be shaped, and is employed when

the technic is throaty and the pharynx is constricted and, therefore,

eliminated as a resonance cavity. The nasal cavity cannot be tuned or

adjusted. Furthermore, it is heavily lined with soft folds of mucous

membrane, folds of soft �esh which have so great a damping e�ect

that, even if this cavity could be shaped, it could never act as an e�cient

resonator. The frontal sinus is a small, �xed cavity, and its use as a resona-

tor is so completely out of the question that one need hardly consider it

seriously. Reference to Fig. 37 will show that there is no cavity in front

of the line A-B, which could possibly be used as a resonator. The cavity

of the skull is �lled with brains and is not, therefore, an air cavity. No!

There is de�nitely no resonance cavity in the front of the face, or "in

the masque."

Fig. 37—Resonance Cavities

This illustration clearly indicates the utter absurdity of the idea that the

voice should be resonated, "focussed," "placed" or "felt" in the front of the

face, the nose or the "masque"—i.e., in front of the line A B.

It will be seen that the nasal cavity is lined with thick folds of soft mucous

membrane which would act as a highly e�cient damping material. The frontal

sinus is a small cavity—too small to act as an important resonator—and the top

of the head is �lled with brains, a soft, highly absorbent material. Further-

more, neither the nasal cavity, the sinus nor the head can change their size or

shape or, in other words, they cannot be "tuned." Thus, there is no cavity in

the front of the face which could possibly act as a resonator of the tone.

The bony structure of the nose or forehead might act as an e�cient sound-

ing board if the vocal cords were attached there. However, the larynx is

actually suspended from the hyoid bone and is in the throat.

The front of the face could be used as a sounding board, if the vocal

cords were rigidly attached to it. But to accomplish this the larynx

would have to be amputated and grafted on somewhere behind the nose

—"in the masque"!

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The sensation of the voice being "in the masque," is then merely a

transmission e�ect brought about by an extreme jaw-lock and helped

by the neck tension which controls the technic of the "masque" singer.

This neck tension is deliberately engendered, by the teachers of this

school, both from above and from below. As a rule the pupils of this

school of teaching deliberately drop their heads to guide the voice "up

and over" into the "masque." They often accompany this forward and

down movement of the head with a circular gesture of the hand which

goes in and out in a semi-circle. As they make these gestures, they auto-

matically throw the neck muscles into tension from above.

Singers of this school are often taught "breath control," which gen-

erally centers upon the raising of the chest. They may be told to breathe

with the diaphragm and then draw the breath up into the chest, which

must be raised and distended as much as possible. This raising of the

chest brings the neck muscles into tension from below. The depressing

of the chest, which ensues as they start to phonate, blows the breath out

through the constriction, which has been completely established by

means of the locking of the jaw and the tensing of the neck muscles,

before phonation. These singers will, then, very easily and completely,

experience the sensation of something happening in the front of the

face, and the sensation thus engendered is what "singing in the masque"

really means.

There is one further point which renders this procedure particularly

pernicious: The pronounced tension which occurs on the sterno-mastoid

muscles transmits the sound, with great e�ciency, directly into the singer's

own inner ear. (See Figs. 26 & 27.) With each increase in throatiness

and tension on the neck and jaw muscles, he hears what seems to him

to be an increase in the richness and mellowness of the tone. This, de-

spite the fact that what he is really hearing is merely augmented

throatiness.

We �nd, then, this most unfortunate state of a�airs: A school of vocal

training which aims at a de�nite easily attained sensation which merely

determines the establishment of absolute throatiness plus an apparent

improvement in quality to the pupil's own ear. The victims of this school

of teaching can de�nitely feel and hear themselves reaching the goal.

They can, apparently, de�nitely hear their own voices improving in

quality. It is, indeed, di�cult for anyone to convince the pupil of a

"singing in the masque" teacher that his voice is deteriorating and that

the theory upon which his teacher works is merely injurious nonsense.

These students often become so conceited, as they hear the apparently

increased richness in the tones they are producing, that they are utterly

unmoved by any statement of the scienti�c facts of the case. This conceit

is encouraged by the teacher, whose chief method of holding his pupils

which they have spent so much time and money to attain—that they

must start all over again and tear down the throatiness which has been

built up—that their voices are not great.

But—either science is wrong, their voices are glorious and their

282

teachers are right; or science is right and they have to tear down their

entire technic and build it up again by patient hard work. Think of the

blow to their sense of vanity! Think of the world of hope which was

built up and which must inevitably come crashing to pieces under their

feetl No! As a rule the victim of a "singing in the masque" teacher never

realizes what is happening to his voice until he is actually unable to

go on singing. This may occur very soon, or he may be able to make

some sort of sound for several years, before he realizes the trap into

which he has fallen. Then it may be too late!

This school of teaching is rendered even more virulent today than it

was a few years ago, before the radio and movies became so prominent.

In those days a singer had to be audible in a theater. If his voice was

too weak to carry in an auditorium, he could not be a professional singer.

Today an individual with a voice so constricted and "shut o�" that it can

hardly be heard across a room, may be a big success over the radio and

in Hollywood, if he can put his words across nicely and has a pleasing

personality. Some of the highest paid singers of today are mere crooners.

The three outstanding baritones in America today speak at an

actually higher intensity level than the one they attain when they

sing. Before the era of reproduction they could not have been even

passably successful professional singers, with their voices as shut o�

as they are today, although all three of them originally had quite

�ne voices. The fact that certain, very throaty singers have been

engaged to sing leading roles at the Metropolitan does not help

matters! They are, of course, completely ine�ective and almost

entirely inaudible, but they are actually appearing at the greatest

opera house in the world! Thirty years ago these singers would not

have been considered good enough to sing leads in operettas!

Thus, the struggle to eliminate this type of physically harmful

and decadent teaching is becoming increasingly di�cult to win.

Nevertheless, the moment the public hears the singer with an even

half-way free voice, they love it. If one of the great singers of the

past were to appear at the Metropolitan today he would create an

overwhelming sensation. The public does know a good voice when

it hears one. Actually the two biggest and best voices in the world

today are the two most successful. Furthermore, throaty singers

don't last very long, either physically or in the public fancy. Their

careers are, as a rule, extremely limited even when they are able

to go on singing.