The Renaissance of the Vocal Art by Edmund Myer
page 7 of 86 (08%)
page 7 of 86 (08%)
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scientist. All true art is based upon science, and none more than the art
of voice and of singing. Science is knowledge of facts co-ordinated, arranged, and systematized; hence science is truth. The object of science is knowledge; the object of art is works. In art, truth is the means to an end; in science, truth is the end. The science of voice is a knowledge of certain phenomena or movements which are found under certain conditions to occur regularly. The object of the true art of voice is to study the conditions which allow these phenomena to occur. The greatest mistake of the many systems of singing, formulated upon the theories of the scientists, and of the so-called scientists, was not so much in their being based upon theories which oftentimes were wrong, as in the misunderstanding and misapplication of true theories. The general mistake of these systems was and is that they attempt by direct local effort, by direct manipulation of muscle, to compel the phenomena of voice, instead of studying the conditions which allow them to occur. In this way they attempt to do by direct control, that which Nature alone can do correctly. While it is true that the vocal world owes much to science and the scientists, yet "the highest science can never fully explain the true phenomena of the voice, which are truly the phenomena of Nature." The phenomena of the voice no doubt interest the scientists from an anatomical standpoint, but these things are of little practical value to the singer. As someone has said, "To examine into the anatomical construction of the larynx, to watch it physiologically, and learn to understand the motions of |
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