There is a science of acoustics, and in this science one may learn all about tones, vibrating bodies, vibrating strings, vibrating cavities, simple, compound and complex vibrations. Will this knowledge make him a scientific voice teacher? When he has learned all of this he has not yet begun to prepare for voice teaching. There is no record of a great voice teacher having been trained in a physics laboratory.
It is possible to analyze a tone and learn how fundamental and upper partials are combined and how these combinations affect quality. Does this constitute scientific voice production? This knowledge may all be gained from the various hand books on acoustics. Has any one the hardihood to assert that such knowledge prepares one for the responsible work of training voices? One may know all of this and still be as ignorant of voice training as a Hottentot is of Calvinism.
Further, who shall decide which particular combination of fundamental and upper partials constitutes the perfect singing tone? If a tone is produced and we say, there is the perfect tone, all it proves is that it corresponds to our mental concept of tone. It satisfies our ear, which is another term for our taste.
Can a tone be disagreeable and still be scientifically produced? One combination of fundamental and overtones is, strictly speaking, just as scientific as another combination. The flute tone with its two overtones is just as scientific as the string tone with its six or eight. A tone is pleasant or disagreeable according as it corresponds to a mental demand. Even the most hardened scientist would not call a tone which offends his ear scientific. Therefore he must first produce, or have produced the tone that satisfies his ear. The question then naturally arises--when he has secured the tone that satisfies his ear of what value beyond satisfying his curiosity is a physical analysis? A tone is something to hear, and when it satisfies the ear that knows, that in itself is unmistakable evidence that it is rightly produced.
If this scientific knowledge of tone is necessary then every great artist in the world is unscientific, because not one of them makes any use whatsoever of such knowledge in his singing.