afected 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 focked 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 Reszkethe great French tenorto strike the fnal
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 becameas do those of prac-
tically all Frenchmen who lose their voices"white," throaty and very
nasal. He, therefore, experienced a defnite sensation of nasalityof
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 defnitely 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 fesh which have so great a damping efect
that, even if this cavity could be shaped, it could never act as an efcient
resonator. The frontal sinus is a small, fxed 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 flled with brains and is not, therefore, an air cavity. No!
There is defnitely no resonance cavity in the front of the face, or "in
the masque."
Fig. 37Resonance 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 efcient damping material. The frontal
sinus is a small cavitytoo small to act as an important resonatorand the top
of the head is flled 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 efcient 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 efect 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 efciency, 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 fnd, then, this most unfortunate state of afairs: A school of vocal
training which aims at a defnite 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 defnitely feel and hear themselves reaching the goal.
They can, apparently, defnitely hear their own voices improving in
quality. It is, indeed, difcult 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 scientifc 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 attainthat they
must start all over again and tear down the throatiness which has been
built upthat their voices are not great.
Buteither 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 of" 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 of
as they are today, although all three of them originally had quite
fne 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 inefective 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 difcult 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.