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PREFACE. |
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An endeavour is herein made to place voice-training upon a safe scientific foundation; hitherto its principles have been very imperfectly understood, and it has usually been included in the teaching of singing or elocution under the name of voice-production.
The training of the voice is the tuning of the vocal organ, and the removal of defects, whereby the instrument is enabled to do its work efficiently and easily. It would be better to call it voice-building or voice-renovating—the process of renovation being a special form of physical education, accomplished by a scheme of exercises for developing and directing the movements of each part of the vocal apparatus. For success it is necessary that each exercise should be properly executed and its purpose thoroughly understood. This involves a theoretical knowledge, not necessarily of an exhaustive nature, but sufficient to ensure intelligent practice. The theoretical work which has been included in this book always has a definite practical utility: it is strictly confined to the management of the voice, and may be called the practical theory of vocal culture. When the voice has been cultivated and developed by physical education of its special set of muscles it may be, as it were, played upon by the artiste—the singer or speaker. Voice-production, as its name implies, |
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