Projection engineering (Jan 1932-Mar 1933)

Page 14 Voice training on a scientific basis TRANSMITTING, recording, reproducing, and amplifying of sound by mechanical, electrical, and photographic devices have brought an industrial need for an exact science of sound. In 10 years of research with modern instruments and laboratory methods, and with the latest knowledge of physiology, enough has been learned to establish principles for training a voice understandingly although much additional research is needed. Hundreds of tests were made upon voices, trained and untrained; for example, an investigation of the expulsion of breath during phonation. The singer put on a French gas mask; in its eye-piece was a telephone transmitter; rubber tubing went from the mask to a spirometer and to the air. Flutter valves allowed breathing in from the outer air and out into the spirometer, but stopped ' escape into the outer air or out of the spirometer. The specially designed transmitter was connected to a special amplifier and thence to an oscillograph. The singer sang several tones on different vowels at various pitches and intensities, each tone held 8 to 12 seconds. Readings of the volume of air expelled per second were taken. Observation of great singers has shown that they never produce a "dead" steady tone except at pianissimo. The tone fluctuates in intensity with perfect regularity. This fluctuation, very wide at high intensity, is accompanied with a slight fluctuation of pitch. This vibrato is the result of an impulse periodically applied to all the muscles which coordinate in the act of phonation. Its frequency is about six per second, but can be increased. Thus all the time the singer is phonating he actually is alternately singing and silent, rapidly and regularly. As the intensity rises the "on" impulse is more vigorous and the swing of the vibrato increases. Since at mezzo forte, when the technic is good, the intensity of the tone should increase as the pitch rises nearly up to the top of the singer's range, the vibrato should increase in amplitude as the scale is ascended. The vibrato decreases as the intensity drops until a point is reached at which a stream of air actuates the XFrom "Research Narratives," June 15, 1931, published by The Engineering Foundation, 29 West 39th Street, New York, N. Y. Based upon information contributed by Douglas Stanley, M.S., Assoc. City Guilds of London Inst., Fel. Acoustical Society of America, N. Y. vocal chords, when it disappears altogether. This concept of an "on" and "off" impulse is very different from the old notion of steady control of a stream of breath. A great voice is not due to anatomical peculiarities but to mental and emotional capacity and tractability. The human voice is a sound-producing instrument governed by the laws of sound and of physiology; it consists of a motive force (the pressure of the breath), a vibrator (the vocal chords), and a resonator (a set of adjustable cavities in the head and throat). Voice starts in a mental concept which brings the necessary muscles into action. A singer must have a mental concept of the pitch which he is about to sound. If this concept or the receiving mechanism of the ear, be faulty, a pupil cannot be made to sing, although his speaking voice may be trained. Two groups of muscles, one of seven and the other (far stronger) of two, bring the vocal chords into tension and hold them there. When a mental concept initiates the nerve impulses supplied to the larynx, these muscles come into action and the vocal chords are set to the proper length, tension, and position. If the singer starts from pianissimo, where the breath pressure is at a minimum, and increases the intensity and therefore the breath pressure or the amplitude of the vibrato to fortissimo, the muscles must take on additional tension. The lighter muscle group should take tension to a point at which it would overload ; then tension of the stronger group must be increased. So long as the vocal chords are held in tension against pressure of the breath by means of additional tension on the lighter muscles, the singer or speaker is using the "upper register" (falsetto) ; as soon as the stronger muscles start to take on added tension, he is using the "lower register." Registration provides the proper method of controlling the intensity, not the pitch. The registers should be isolated and trained separately; only when fully developed should they be coordinated. Improper coordination of the laryngeal muscles accounts for the partial or total loss of voice of most of the great singers at an age at which they should be in their prime. From "breath expulsion-intensity" curves, a person trained in this new science will be able to make an accurate technical criticism of a voice without PROJECTION ENGINEERING having heard it. The "breath control" doctrines, long accepted, are fallacies. Tremolo is caused by a fluttering of the walls of the resonating cavities. The vibrato is the means for moving the voice correctly from tone to tone; it allows the singer to keep perfect time and rhythm; it can be improved and controlled by training. The range of every properly produced voice should be at least three octaves ; some persons may attain nearly four. Faulty registration and resonance adjustment can curtail the range 50 per cent or more; also reduce the power to an incredible degree. The mouth should not be used as resonator. When a person is phonating the muscles used in the act of phonation should not be relaxed but in proper tension balance. There is no fundamental difference between the singing and speaking voices except in so far as vowels are more sustained in singing. There is no vibrato in speech. In singing the intensity is far greater (thus the general pitch is far higher), the range far wider, and articulation much stronger than in speech. In speech, low tones are most effective ; hence all normal speech should be in the pure lower register. NATURAL COLOR MOVIES OF NORTHERN LIGHTS After exhaustive tests, Colorcraft film, produced by the Colorcraft Corporation, 122 East 42nd Street, New York City, has been accepted by the American Polar Expedition, members of which, under Captain Flavel M. Williams, commander, are now working out of a base established at Port Churchill, Canada, in an attempt to make motion pictures of the aurora borealis in natural colors. Laboratory tests, made with colored light reflected at intensities as low as five candlepower, proved the Colorcraft film to give 92 per cent fidelity over the entire spectrum, and to be 2l/2 times as fast as ordinary black and white film or the next fastest color film, and eight times as fast as the average color film. The film is treated by a special process developed by William Hoyt Peck, who in his fifteen years of work with color motion pictures has spent approximately $980,000 in experimentation. It is used in a standard bi-pack camera, and prints are made on specially treated and developed standard color positive. Peck is one of America's pioneers in color motion picture work and has thirty-six patents and applications on his processes. If the attempts to photograph the Aurora are successful, it will be the first time in thirteen years of trials by various companies that satisfactory results have been had.