THE PSYCHO PHYSIOLOGICAL APPROACH

It is necessary for a teacher not only to be aware of what a student is thinking, but also to guide him in his thinking. He must not overburden him with too much explanation on how the mechanism works, or try to accomplish too much atone time. The student is apt to become confused and end up with a case of vocal indigestion. The best illustration of this is the story of the student who, when asked what her former teacher thought of her voice, said: "He says I have vowel trouble, that my voice is consonated."

The teaching approach must be, for the most part, an indirect or mental approach through the use of the imagination. The reason for this is that the vocal mechanism is so complicated in its coordination, and so complex in its musculature, that a direct approach, except in rare cases, is impossible. The teacher needs to know, however, the physiological processes involved. This affords him a basis for analyzing errors in production, and a basis for working out ways and means of correcting these errors. This is the psycho physiological approach.

For example, the problem of teaching a student to breathe deeply can be approached by having the student pant as after running, fast at first, taking in short breaths, and then panting slower, taking in longer breaths. This locates the process of deep breathing below the breastbone and above the waistline, where the greatest expansion of the thoracic or chest cage is possible. The problem of how to support his singing tone can be approached by having the student place one hand on his midsection and clear his throat, or call "hey."

In either case there is a contraction of the abdominal muscles, establishing what is called the abdominal press, which decreases the size of the abdominal cavity. The result is a pressure flow of the breath, which is called breath support. How to increase the range of the singing voice brings up the problem of registration, which is a part of phonation. The range of the singing voice divides itself naturally into a low, a middle, and a high register, which are the result of changes in vocal cord adjustment, in turn indicated by changes in resonance quality.

The problem is to teach the student how to make the changes from one register to another, without the changes in quality being too obvious. Since the action of the vocal cords is below the level of con¬sciousness, an acoustical approach must be made. An imitation of yodeling, the changing from the middle to the high voice, is an indirect approach.

In changed male voices the use of falsetto, sung softly, reflecting undampened vocal cords, then changing to pharynx falsetto, reflecting dampened vocal cords, is another indirect approach. Humming n or ng with the mouth open in the high voice, and then changing to a vowel sound, preferably ay, oh, or ah, is another indirect approach to a change to the high voice mechanism. The solution of the problem of how to teach a student to sing in his normal quality is dependent first on building up in the student's mind a conception of what normal quality sounds like.