Page:Essentials in Conducting.djvu/150

138 pitches by pressing it against the fingerboard, thus shortening the vibrating portion more and more. The tuning process may be said to compare roughly with the mechanism of the chest register of the human voice; while the shortening of the string by pressing it against the fingerboard is somewhat analogous to what takes place in the higher registers of the voice.

We have now enumerated what seem to us to be the most essential matters connected with vocal procedure; and if to such information as is contained in the foregoing paragraphs the conductor adds the knowledge that the messa di voce (a beautiful vocal effect produced by swelling a tone from soft to loud and then back again) is to be produced by increase and decrease of breath pressure and not by a greater or lesser amount of straining of the throat muscles; that portamento (gliding by infinitely small degrees in pitch from one tone to another(, although a valuable and entirely legitimate expressional effect when used occasionally in a passage where its employment is appropriate, may be over-used to such an extent as to result in a slovenly, vulgar, and altogether objectionable style of singing; and that whereas the vibrato may imbue with virility and warmth an otherwise cold, dead tone and if skilfully and judiciously used may add greatly to the color and vitality of the singing, the tremolo is on the other hand a destroyer of pitch accuracy, a despoiler of vocal idealism, and an abhorrence to the listener; if our conductor knows these and other similar facts about singing, then he will not run quite so great a risk of making himself ridiculous in the eyes of the singers whom he is conducting as has sometimes been the case when instrumentalists have assumed control of vocal forces. But let us emphasize again the fact that these things cannot be learned from a book, but must be acquired through self-activity, i.e., by actual experience in singing; hence the importance of vocal study on the part of the prospective choral conductor.