The effects on the vocal cords of improper methods of voice production and their remedy / by H. Holbrook Curtis.

  • Henry Holbrook Curtis
Date:
1894
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The effects on the vocal cords of improper methods of voice production and their remedy / by H. Holbrook Curtis. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University Libraries/Information Services, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University.

    10/22 (page 6)
    spite of long and attentivp observation, they had not been able to dis- tinguish in the theatre liow this illustrious tenor breathed. Joal goes on to stat« that the famous Lamperti is alternately represented as a l)artisiin or opponent of the abdominal type of breathing, but I think that, having treated many of the elder Lamjierti's pupils and interro- gated them very particularly upon this question. I may unhesitatingly aflirni that the elder Lamperti was a strong advocate of the lower cost^il-respiration, always arguing that the abdominal wall should remain (luiet, or be slightlj' drawn in during inspiration. The evidence of C'ampanini, Jean de Reszke and Clara Heyeu is in support of the above. Joal says if we except the works of Laget and Bonheur we find nowhere the praise of clavicular breathing in men. The ancient method of the Paris Conservatory and the works of Maunstein, Caruth and INIanuel Garcia, all advise thoracic respiration by the elevation of the ribs and drawing in of the abdomen. If we take up any work upon the voice and studj' the photographic appearances of the cords during the emission of certain notes, we remark that the cords are not vibrating longitudinally, but that their free borders approximate, touch or overlap, and that the posterior opening of the chink is longer or shorter and different in appearance for each note. I wish to put on record here my opinion, of the absolute impossibility of photographing the vocal-cords during the proper emis- sion of tone, fi'om the verj^ fact that the laryngoscopic mirror placed in the ])harj'^nx interferes with the right focus of the respiratory attack, and it is only possible to observe the vocal-cords in the photograph when the so-called stroke of the glottis is used in the emission of a note. The photographs of singers' cords, and the deductions that have been drawn from their appearance during the emission of different notes, only demonstrate, in every case that I have ever seen, that the larynx is elevated by the pulling up of the thyroid, the cords relaxed, and the free borders more or less approximated. If we ask a singer who is in the habit of using the so-called high-chest method of costal-respiration to take a note (the attack entirely taken from the cords and focussed in the masciue, bringing into play the hai-monics lent by the sound-waves passing behind the uvula and soft-palate), introducing the smallest pos- sible size of mirror, so that the color given to the note by nature's resonance-pipes, the antra and nasal cavities, will be as little as possible interfered with, we are surprised to find that on the emission of every note of the soprano medium register the cords appear equidistant from each other, throughout the entire extent that it is possible to see them. The part which the intrinsic muscles of the larynx play in the ten- sion of the vocal-cords becomes an interesting study. It is very easy for us to see by the depression of the thyroid how the |cords must be elon- gated, but it is extremely ditficult for us to comprehend the minute dif- ferences of tension caused by the movements of the thyroarytenoid and