PRACTICAL HINTS TO STUDENTS

Dominion, Volume 15, Issue 284, 26 August 1922, Page 9

PRACTICAL HINTS TO STUDENTS

VOICE PRODUCTION AND MUSIC. The judge of music and singing at the competitions, Mr. A. W. Juncker, gave some practical hints to students on Wednesday on voice production and music. Many i people imagine that they could teach themselves to sing, he said. This was a great mistake. Why? For the reason, chiefly, that they could not hear themselves. They could hear that they were making some sort of noise, but they could not tell whether it was good or bad tone. It was the same with a fine tone in the piano. Put a good pianist down to a badtoned instrument; ha or she could do nothing. A singer may give a fair rendering of a song, with a,- bad voice, and untrained, but it will not go down; the tone is not there. Tone is to music and singing what a beautiful face or picture is to the vision. To produce good tone in singing, one must get the larynx and hyo-glossis muscle fairly well down, without contracting the jaw muscles. It is difficult to explain by a mere word of mouth. The tongue must always be kept well down at the back, and grooved if possible—again a difficult subject—to place the voice. The tongue should tip the lower teeth, generally speaking. If that is done, there is a fair flow of tone, but it has to b? persisted in for many months before one can get the right article. Jean de Reszke, the great Polish tenor, told him that it took him nearly the first four months of training pupils’ voices in Paris to keep the tongue in proper position; then ho would start the usual training. . “If you wish to excel in pianoforte, singing, or any other line of music, you must stud.y well the rudiments. I find the greatest trouble in Australia —I do not know New Zealand conditions well—is tho difficulty of getting children to learn to read at sight. They learn a few show pieces, and can play them tolerably well, but, when asked to play anything new, when they go out. it is a closed book, they can’t do it. Parents are a great deal to blame, because they like hearing their children play nice show pieces after a short term of lessons. If they don't get this result, they think the children are not getting on, and they leave the teacher for another one. If the new teacher does not let thsm play more show pieces, they leave him again, and the girls, generally speaking, are all readers. It is very much to be deplored. That is my experience in Australia. As regards the piano, if they study for the profession or for examinations, tho least amount of practice they should have is two hours or one and a half hours a day. In singing, at least half an hour a day should bo spent in practice; as much more as they like." People should be always prepared to learn —•

I speak of grown-ups, especially. I have been a student all my life, and, when I go to Europe, I hunt up the best men I can, and derive what knowledge I can gain from their riper experience.”