The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1891-07-26
MUSIC'S NEW GOSPEL.
Why Shouldn't American Girls
Be Educated at Home?
A GERMAN TEACHERS OPINION.
The Effect OF Tight Lacing on the Voice
Tone Development Still the "se-
cref'-Candy Eating Condemned.

oAy on tHc giODe. Iney nave all the
requisites of perseverance, superior mental
endowments and ambition. The Ameri-
can singers who have become famous have
been trained abroad, but hold that they
can be educated at home if they are prop
erly taught Health is the road to sue
cess In singing as well as in other profess
sions. The new gospel of music l would
teacn TO the young woman of America Is
technique, physique and grace. 1t is no
Deisartean fad, nor anything of the kind,
but common sense: There are hundreds
OF so-called remedies and little secrets in
tended to make the voice clear and
smooth, such as eating dried plums, swal-
lowing glycerine in homeopathic phos-
pilates. My secret is health. Body and
soul and voice are so nearly connected
that the disease of one means the blight of
the others. Take healthy woman, and
you viii never find in her those capricious
freaks, and nervous depressions, which
make life burden to her and her friends.
Unfortunately, the weaker sex is granted
privileges which tend to make her enjoy
the sensation of enacting the role of a
nervous, fading, drooding lily. Nine
times out of ten if she would remove her
vise-like corsets, she would soon become
healthy rose.
Health and voice are as nearly connected
as physical and mental health, and the
voice is the thermometer of health. A
change in the physical state is first noticed
in the voice, and the beginning of an@mia
has the effect of making the voice feeble
and untrue (below the pitch). Where is
the young girl who does not suffer occa-
sionally, in more or less degree, from this
sickness of today?
What is the remedy, or rather. the pre-
tentative? The most dangerous enemy
of health is tight lacing. 1t is not ex-
pected that young girl should at once
recognize the far reaching destructive
effects of this most pernicious abuse. but
their mothers should use all their infiu-
ence to check danger so serious to
future generations. The sole motive
for tight lacing is to display a
wasp-like waist, vanity that helps to en-
rich doctors and destroys beauty. Young
girls do not reflect on the fact that tight
lacing is very often the reason for bad COM
plexions, red noses, pale cheeks and dull,
expressionless eyes. The man who adj
mires wasp-like waist in preference to
rosy checks, bright eyes, and well-pro-
portioned figure, is not worthy of consid-
Grafton. He is abnormal and has no sense
of beauty.
am proud to say always convince my
pupils of the dangers of lacing. In Rus
STA one of them, the young Countess K,
came one morning to her lessons in
sailor blouse, and told me, to my great joy,
that she had decided to wear only loose
fitting waist. The young girls health
improved greatly from that time.
A young lady well known in society
both here and in Washington City, was in
the habit OF laeing to such dangerous de-
gree, that her mother became alarmed and
tried to dissuade her from so doing. Well,
succeeded in getting the young lady to
cease the habit, and was duly thanked by
the mother. Now the young lady's voice
is much steadier, her lungs are enabled to
expand and inhale fully, and to permit
the breath in singing to stream out stead
lily and smoothly.
Lacing congresses that part of the
lungs so necessary to easy breathing and
singing. If the lungs are so tightly COM
pressed they cannot expand at the sides,
they must find relief by going to the up
per or lower part. Every one knows, or
should know, that the upper part of the
lungs is the weakest, and most of the
irritations of the lungs begin there.
1t is by no means an edifying sight TO see
lady singing with her shoulders" as /
heard it called. The opposite, the abdom-
inal breathing, is well enough for a man,
but ii can become very dangerous for
woman. In spite of this well-known fact,
many renowned singing teachers make this
kind of breathing the Alpha and Omega of
their method for men and women alike. In
Germany, recently, met three girl pupils
& of in
country who uses the abdominal method,
and really they We're so weakened 1 do
not believe they will ever get
back their health. 1t is sad
to think of the number of
girls who have their health and voices
culture. A time will come when civiliZa-
ton will reach such a high intellectual
plane that there will be laws TO prevent
bad methods in teaching the young how
to sing | know of q certain Boston pro-
fessor who teaches the same way and
gives his pupils no more idea of tone de-
yeIopment and tone production than man
in the moon. One of his former pupils
lost her voice under his instruction. Be-
fore she went TO him she sang splendidly
and challenged the criticism of some we'll
known critics.
There are some voices which have re-
sisted every training. and could not be
killed IN SplIe Vi IutlT 1HeSe
voices. although they exist in small
minority, will make the reputation of
teacher, whether deserved or not. But if
teacher is enabled TO choose his material
and 10 discard voices he does not think
worth cultivating, he ought to have sue
cess with every single pupil. The voice is
like delicate plant. the gardener cannot
produce it. but he can nurse and cultivate
il with most careful love. II the voice
merits all the requirements in the early
DAYS of training, there is no need TO worry
about progress later, Tor success Is
assured. The most difficult part of voice
culture should ne taught first, viz: The
free and easy development of the tone and
eQualizing of the registers. If singer ac-
ouires these, they will enable HIM or her
10 reach the highest point IN art. The old
singing master, Porpora. used TO say that
one might be able to write upon one piece
of music paper all that singer needed for
instruction.
In spite of renowned Conservatives, the
mere tone development Is still the wonder
full "secret" Generally the greatest atten-
ton is paid not to tone development, but
to a musical education in all directions and
branches. How snail a singer succeed who
has not been taught right in the first place?
We know a good many succeed who are
taught wrong but that is because they
have voices that defy all attempts to kill
them. lie or she will have to learn for
himself or herself what to do and do it.
The other day a vocal student told me
that he had been with ten teachers before
he found one who wished 10 instruct him
how 10 produce tone. Professor Engel,
teacher at the Royal High school of Ber-
lin. said in one of his criticism, "Wachtel
is and will he king of the tenors because
he has foup1 ont the secret of connecting