What to sing and How to Sing.

Te Aroha News, Volume XIV, Issue 2112, 23 June 1898, Page 2

What to sing and How to Sing.

A FAMOUS VOCALIST’S INSTRUCTIONS. Scrr posing that yon have developed a good quality of tone, which you manage properly. Yonr technique is good. You sing, even with a voice of small compass and power, in a correct and acceptable manner. >

Your first care is to select songs suitable to your voice, and within your limitations. Do not be too ambitions. A simple son" beautifully rendered will be regard®! as e . far greater achievement than aflorid bit of operatic work beyond your powers and - indifferently given. It is well to have faultless technique, but you will never be in perfect sympathy with your audienee or be a truly dramatic singer unless you feel the emotions you desire to excite and know how to give expression to them. Hear all the good singing that you can. If a singer has obtained public recognition, it is rare if tnere is not something to de<* serve that position. Go prepared to learn, not to find fault. Look for the good, nob the bad. Wbat we find and take to ourselves in this life depends largely upon . what we look for. After you have wisely and carefully selected your songs, study them carefully —both words and music. By this we do hot mean merely to memorise them. Tnafc is a mechanical piece of work, which is accomplished unconsciously while comprehending the meaning of text and melody. Try to discover the underlying motive. Get yourself in perfect sympathy with the composer. Understand him. Use your brain and your heart before you use the instrument of expression, the human voice. When you have thoroughly appreciated the sentiment,- notice how that idea ia expressed i i the music. Sing it aeftfy.- tying to bring out every shade of meaning in every note. Prom the first reading of a song, give it all the expression you can find in it and of which you are capable. The longer y' v .-t study it the more meaning you will 6ad .£ the music is really good and the better you will find that the*wo d« and the music are your own—that they are in vour heart and brain—and that the mechanical learning of a song is a thing unknown to you. This is the only way that you cau learn to sing with feeling and expression. Think only of what music means to you and what you would have it mean to your listners. Study understanding^. Now. suppose you are properly equipped with a number of songs which you cau sing w>th credit to yourself and the composer. You are ready now to give others the benefit of your work. But this is the time when many joung singers are overwhelmed by a sense of their own inefficiency and of the awful and stupendous nature of au audience of critics. X) Try to forget yourself entirely. Self -4 possession in its best sense is unconscious* ness of self. Remember that your duty is simply to present a musical theme to some people who want to receive it. You are simply an intoipreter. Think of that theme as you understand and love it. Sing it as you can beat express it- Never mind your audience. Try to feel happy and interested in your music. That will produce the beat effect upon your audience.