Lecture on scientific voice production and breathing exercises : their relation to health / delivered by Cortlandt MacMahon.

  • MacMahon, Cortlandt.
Date:
1910
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Lecture on scientific voice production and breathing exercises : their relation to health / delivered by Cortlandt MacMahon. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    but the more correctly we produce the vowel sounds in speech, the better and more musical is the voice. When the speaking voice is to be trained it must be through the singing voice. All the shapes for lips and tongue and method of breathing should be taught on the singing voice, and, when that voice becomes good, then it should be lifted into the speaking voice. This ensures the great thing of all, that is, music in voice. When your speaking voice is really musical, then you know it is being properly produced. Think what that means to the person to whom their voice is everything. Without it their means of livelihood are gone, and, even when there are remote symptoms of voice trouble, imagine the fearful anxiety it is to them to think that, should anything happen to their voice, their means of living will in all probability be taken away from them. This danger is one that can be averted by having the voice trained in such a way that these symptoms never need occur, and the voice that is impregnable to the ills that arise from misuse is the voice that has real music in, and because it is being properly produced, harmonics and over-tones supplement it; the vocal cords vibrate perfectly through the air pressure being scientifically applied, and the resulting voice carries, even when produced quite gently, through a large room on account of its many and concentrated vibrations. Consider, then, what a voice really produced with music in means to anyone, but above all to those who have to use their voices for many hours daily. Voice troubles are most prevalent, I should say, among teachers in schools, and I think that all should have the opportunity of going through a course of training for voice, and so being assured of bein^ able to carry on their profession relieved of all anxiety from a voice point of view. Now as to breathing exercises. I have mentioned the particular one for developing the bases of the lungs, and where the hands should be placed. The many physical exercises with which a great many of you, 1 expect, are perfectly familiar are all excellent when combined with correct breathing, but the breathing is of the greatest importance. In so many exercises the breath is let out far too soon, and the whole effect, from a voice and health point of view, lost. An instance is the hands meeting in