# Punch/Volume 147/Issue 3814/Our Musical Correspondence Column

OUR MUSICAL CORRESPONDENCE COLUMN.
(With acknowledgments to "The Musical Herald.")
I think I am a tenor, but after taking lessons continuously for six years from sixteen different masters I am still in doubt, and what is more, I am not quite certain whether I want to be. Did not somebody once say that a tenor was not a man but a disease? I am a healthy normal subject, and recently won the lawn-tennis singles at our local tournament. What puzzles me is my upper register. After reaching the top A, if I relax the wind pressure and slant the voice in a slightly backward direction toward the cavities, I can produce a full rich B flat, or even C, with the greatest ease. My family do not like it, but family criticism is seldom satisfactory. Can you tell me whether this is a legitimate use of my vocal resources or not; also, whether the resinous quality of my voice is likely to affected by my wearing stand-up collars of more than 2 1/2 inches in height? I have read somewhere that starched linen is a bad conductor of sound.—Mario Junior.
Answer.—It is hard to tell whether you are a tenor or a forced-up baritone without hearing or seeing you. Tenors are generally short, stubby men with brief necks, while baritones are for the most part tall, spare and long-necked. It was Hans von Bülow who said that a tenor was a disease, but he was a pianist and a conductor. Do not "grouse" if you can sing tenor parts and yet retain the volume and virility of a baritone. Jean de Reszke began as a baritone and is said to have earned £20,000 a year. The nasal tone that you speak of, when it approximates to the whinnying of a horse or, better still, the trumpeting of an infuriated rogue elephant, is a most valuable asset, but should be used with moderation in the family circle. Do not say "resinous"; "resonant" is probably the word you mean. High stand-up collars are certainly to be avoided, as they constrict the Adam's apple and muffle the tone of the voice. A soft turn-down collar, such as those supplied by Pope Bros., is greatly to be preferred and imparts a romantic and semi-Byronic appearance highly desirable in an artist.
I am a railway porter with a good bass voice, and having read that the great Russian singer who has been appearing at Drury Lane began life in that position and is now paid at the rate of £400 a night I am anxious to follow his example, if I can obtain adequate guarantees of success.—Clapham Junction.
Answer.—It is always dangerous to generalise from exceptional individual cases. Are you over six feet high, and have you corn-coloured hair and blue eyes, like Chaliapine? Again, Russian railway porters are in the habit of shouting the names of stations, not only in a loud clear voice, but with scrupulously clear articulation. Do not rashly abandon your career on the railway on the off-chance of a vocal Bonanza. Remember the words of the poet:—
O, ever since the world began,
There never was and never can Be such a very useful man As the railway porter!
My voice is of good compass and volume, but it is lacking in the "rich fruity tone" which, according to popular novelists, is indispensable to the exertion of a magnetic influence on the hearer. Is it possible by died to remedy this deficiency?—Contralto.
Answer.—The use of an emollient diet is recommended by some authorities with a view to improving and enriching vocal tone. You might try a course of Carlsbad plums, Devonshire cream, and peach-fed Colorado ham. But it is easy to overdo the plummy tone, which is apt to become cloying.
Kindly explain the following terms taken from an article on Scriabine which recently appeared in a leading daily paper: Psychical conjunctivitis; Katzenjammer; Cephalœdematous; Hokusai; Asininity. What is the difference between the portamento and "scooping"? Why do opera singers show such a marked tendency to embonpoint? Am I wrong in preferring the cornet to any other wind instrument?—Anxious Aspirant.
Answer.—This is not a general information bureau, but we will do our best. (1) Conjunctivitis is properly a disease of the eyes; "psychical conjunctivitis" would be a sort of mental squint. "Katzenjammer" is the German for "hot coppers." "Cephalœdematous" is not in the New Oxford Dictionary, but apparently applies to a sufferer from swelled head. Hokusai was a Japanese artist, and "asininity" is the special quality of the writer of the article from which you have taken these words. (2) "Scooping" is the vulgarisation of the portamento. (3) Operatic singers grow stout because they drink stout; also because much singing tends to expand the larynx, pharynx and thorax, as well as the basilico-thaumaturgic cavaties of the medulla oblongata. (4) There is nothing criminal in preferring the cornet to any other wind instrument. Many pious people prefer Marie Corelli to Milton.