MUSICAL COMPOSITION

CHAPTER VIIITHE TREATMENT OF VOICESTHE first tendency of a student when dealing with thehuman voice is to forget that it is not an instrumentupon which the notes can be obtained by striking ona key or pressing on a string. The singer has tomake his own notes; he has to start singing from apoint which is intelligible to his ear, and to make hisintervals from his inner perception. When thoseintervals are difficult, the road to them must be madesmooth, and the difficulty must not be enhanced bytheir surroundings. All the skips which are forbiddenin strict counterpoint are naturally difficult' for thevoice; not, perhaps, so much so to an ear accustomedto the modern developments of music as they werewhen the rules of counterpoint were made (in theinterest of singers), but even now requiring a veryaccurate ear to preserve pure intonation when theyare attempted. Every chorus-master knows the dangerwhich besets his forces when they have to sing evenso apparently straightforward a succession of notesas II J J J J I 0 I· The B will alwayshave a tendency to be too flat; the ear will rightlymake the C close to the B; the octave, therefore, will127