There have been, at all ages and under all circumstances and conditions,
men who have been at the root or the bottom of things,--men who have
preserved the truth in spite of their surroundings. So in the vocal art,
there have been at every decade a few men who have known the truth, and who
have handed it down through the dark ages of the vocal art. The work of
these men has not been lost. Its influence has been felt, and is today more
powerful than ever. Hence the trend of the best thought of the profession
is away from the ideas of the local-effort school, away from rigidity and
artificiality, and more in the direction of naturalness and common sense. I
believe we are now, as a profession, slowly but surely awakening to truths
which will grow, and which will in time bring to pass that which must come
sooner or later, the new school of the twentieth century.
There is to-day that which is known as "The New Movement in the Vocal
Art"--a movement based upon natural laws and common sense and opposed to
the ideas of the local-effort school;--movement in the direction of freedom
of action, spontaneity and flexible strength as opposed to rigidity and
direct effort;--a movement which advocates vitalized energy instead of
muscular effort;--a movement which had its origin in the belief that no man
ever learned to sing because he locally fixed or puckered his lips; because
he held down his tongue with a spatulum or a spoon; because he locally
lowered or raised his soft palate; because he consciously moved or locally
fixed his larynx; because he consciously, rigidly set or firmly pulled in
one direction or another, his breathing muscles; because he carried an
unnaturally high chest at the sacrifice of form, position and strength in
every other way; because he sang with a stick or a pencil or a cork in his
mouth; or because he did a hundred other unnatural things too foolish to
mention.
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