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Ebook has 381 lines and 35473 words, and 8 pages

The FOOL

Illustrated by WESTON

Duncan? No, he wasn't the Agent just before you. He was here in 2180--oh, a good thirty years back, Earth-time. The natives say hundreds of years, but they're a short-lived lot. The way they cut each other's throats, it's a wonder any of them live out the life span they've got, anyway.

I came out when Duncan did--knew him pretty well, as well as anybody could. A perfect fool. Knowing him was a real education. Do anything the other way from the way Duncan did it, and you'd be all right.

You wouldn't think it to look at him. Well set-up man, around thirty when he got here, intelligent face, good talker, had a degree--but a fool. Seemed as if he couldn't do anything right. He told me once that he'd been married, and that it had broken up. He more or less implied that his wife had gotten sick of little things--broken dishes, tactless remarks, carelessness. You wouldn't think that would be enough to break up a marriage, but you've got no idea how that sort of thing can add up.

I was clerking for him then. I swear I did all the work. I had to. He couldn't add, couldn't file a record, and couldn't have found one if he'd managed somehow to put it away. I took Agent's inventories, I did most of the trading with the native chiefs, I did everything. Duncan just bumbled around the post, or listened to records, or wrote those silly, hopeless, letters to his ex-wife. He was trying to get her to come back to him. How do I know? Well, who do you think worked the subspace transmitter, as well as doing everything else?

The native thing really annoyed me, though, because it was dangerous. You know the Tarchiki. They look human enough, except for minor details. When it comes to a Tarchik female I'll overlook the green skin and the pointed ears every time. But they aren't entirely like us. They have a liking for war and torture that's really sickening.

Our ancestors? Oh, now, really ... you're talking just like Duncan. That was always his apology for them. He said our own ancestors were pretty bad, too. Certainly they were, but I can't see any ancestor of mine acting the way a Tarchik does with a captured enemy. And they haven't the slightest sense of sportsmanship, either. They'd rather jump you from ambush than fight in the open, and they won't fight at all if the enemy's stronger than they are. That's why they've never made any serious attempt to do in all the Earthmen on their world. That, and greed; they get very good deals from us, and they know it.

Anyway, I'm sure none of my ancestors ever acted like that.

But Duncan was always ready to forgive a Tarchik anything. That used to upset the hell out of them, too, because they expect to be punished when they're caught at anything. They don't understand our reluctance to kill, but they respect a Patrolman's shock gun, and when they get caught stealing or taking each other's tails they know they're going to get a few months in quod, or what they hate much worse, a public flogging. If they didn't get punished, they'd assume it was weakness on our part. Just like kids.

Anyway, there was Duncan, holding long confabs with the Tarchiki, trying to teach them some sort of elementary ethics. Naturally, it didn't take at all. They listened, because they love long speeches, but they never acted on what he said.

So Duncan wanted them to be a bit chivalrous to their women. Share the work, all kinds of things like that. You know what they thought of that idea--another Earthman's joke.

To the mothers, though, the kids represent a kind of investment, since custom directs the first loyalties to the mother's clan. So they treat them pretty well, although a bit casually, since they litter by twos and at least once a year.

Anyway, Duncan seemed to think highly of kids. Can't imagine why, since he never had any of his own. He used to run a kind of school for them. Taught them all kinds of things a Tarchik's got no use for at all, made toys for them--badly, naturally; he couldn't have cut his initials in a tree without slicing his thumb. But what he couldn't make in the way of school stuff, he imported from Earth. Cost him his entire salary, except for what he spent on those futile letters to his wife.

Those kids were fond of him, I suppose--as fond of him as a Tarchik ever gets of anything. They even kept the school foolishness going awhile afterward, but I think it's gone now.

Anything that fool Duncan said, the Tarchiki thought was a great joke. They wouldn't have hurt his feelings for anything, for fear he'd quit telling them tall stories. They told him quite a few things, too. He wrote it all down, in dead earnest, as if their fairy tales and drum poems had any value. I sent the whole lot off to his wife, after it happened. I think it got lost in transit--I never heard from her, anyway. Or she may have thrown it all away. I can't imagine what else you could do with such a pile of nonsense.

As a matter of fact, that's what led up to it--those damned legends. Duncan got interested in their religion. Never do that, boy. Let 'em all have their ghost stories and wooden gods, and never fool around with their idea of what makes the planet go round.

The Tarchiks have a lot of small time fetishes, but they also have one big god, a fat one made out of stone, out in the jungle over near Mount Clarke. Every so often they all go up in a body and pay him a visit, and they take along any spare pups, usually extra girl children or prisoners from other tribes. This god--Kachan, his name is, I think--likes children too. He likes them best roasted, like birds on a spit. Charming deity.

Anyway, when Duncan found out about Kachan, he got very upset. He went blazing out there to Mount Clarke, and he blew Kachan all to bits with a grenade. The Tarchiki didn't care for that, naturally.

About a week later, Duncan was on his way over to the big village near here, to give his Tarchik kids another arithmetic lesson, I suppose. Old Stancha--he was the local religious big shot, a kind of High Priest--threw a spear from the bushes, Tarchik fashion, and nailed Duncan very neatly. Nailed, yes. That's the way we found him, with his back against a tree.

Just another case of a man's foolishness catching up with him. But Duncan hasn't stopped giving us trouble yet, dead or not. First thing that happened was that old Stancha came in to the post, demanding to be executed. He claimed he'd made a big mistake killing Duncan, the biggest mistake of his life. I never could figure out what he meant--it seemed to have something to do with what Duncan said to him just before he died.

Well, if Stancha had kept his mouth shut, we'd have had no case at all, which would have been just fine with me. I was Agent, in Duncan's place, and I was out to see to it that business stayed good and got better. Can't annoy the natives by executing their high priest and expect good trade. But I couldn't very well let Stancha go, either, once he'd confessed. So I had him tried, all proper and correct, and executed him in due form.

Next thing I knew, the Tarchiks were putting Kachan back together again. They were all up there, building a great big new version, and having a first class party at the same time. These parties generally lead to a tail-hunting expedition, so I expected some trouble. But it didn't, this time.

There was plenty of noise, though. The Tarchiki never do anything quietly, and this seemed to be an occasion. What with drums, bagpipes, wailing and howling, there wasn't a bird would roost for twenty miles around.

When they got all through, I went up to look over the new statue, out of curiosity, and because I'd heard that they hadn't sacrificed a single pup. I thought there must be something queer about Kachan Number Two. There was.

It was Duncan. They'd given him a tail, and he looked more like a Tarchik than an Earthman, but the face was unmistakable. They aren't half bad carvers, you know; and they'd really spread themselves this time. The thing was forty feet tall, and it stood on a rock platform, with some words carved in that lettering Duncan had taught them to use. The words were something Duncan was supposed to have said as he was dying.

I never could read that stuff really well; all I got out of the thing was that Duncan was forgiving the old murderer, because he didn't know what he was doing. Pure nonsense, of course, but you don't expect a dying man to make sense, and particularly not Duncan. But it seems those words were what had caused all the to-do.

I found the story in one of those ballads Duncan had collected. Seems that the Tarchiki had been expecting a great teacher to show up, who'd do all sorts of wonderful things for them. Nothing unusual; all primitives have some story like that. But there was something else.

The idea was that if the Tarchiki listened to this teacher, he'd make them the most important people in the whole world; in the universe, in fact, from the way the thing sounded. Just how, wasn't specified. But if they should let him be killed, they would know who he had been because of his last words, forgiving them. Naturally, they fitted Duncan right in; forgiving anybody would be the least likely idea in any Tarchik's mind if he were being speared.

So the Tarchiki think they've made a terrible mistake, and they seem bent on spending the rest of time making up for it. It's the leading religion now, and it's the biggest joke I've ever come across. Poor Duncan, wrong-headed as he was about nearly everything else, had a bit of sense in that department; he never had any religious nonsense in him.

Anyway, it shows you, doesn't it? I've always said you can learn a little from practically anything. You keep Duncan in mind, any time you get to feeling too soft on these natives. He might be a god to these Tarchiki, but I'll tell you the real test of whether a man's got any sense; he's dead, I'm alive, and you're alive. That's enough proof for me.

Further, explicit directions are given for the action and control of everything involved in making tone except the mind of the student. The larynx seems to be particularly vulnerable and is subject to continuous attack. One says it should be held low throughout the compass. Another says it should rise as the pitch rises, and still another, that it should drop as the pitch rises. Instructions of this kind do not enlighten, they mystify.

If there be any one thing upon which voice teachers theoretically agree it is "free throat". Even those who argue for a fixed larynx agree to this, notwithstanding it is a physical impossibility to hold the larynx in a fixed position throughout the compass without a considerable amount of rigidity. It is like believing in Infinite Love and eternal punishment at the same time.

The soft palate also comes in for its share of instruction. I was once taught to raise it until the uvula disappeared. Later I was taught to relax it. Both of these movements of the soft palate were expected to result in a beautiful tone. Now if two things which are directly opposed to each other are equal to the same thing, then there is no use in bothering our heads further with logic.

One could write indefinitely on the peculiarities of voice training, the unique suggestions made, the mechanical instructions given, the unbelievable things students are made to do with lips, tongue and larynx as a necessary preparation to voice production. In this as in everything else there are extremists. Some have such an exquisite sense of detail that they never get beyond it. At the other extreme are those who trust everything to take care of itself. Both overlook the most important thing, namely, how the voice sounds.

It requires much time, study and experience to learn that voice training is simple. It is a fact that truth is naturally, inherently simple. Its mastery lies in removing those things which seem to make it difficult and complex. Training the voice, this so called "voice placing," is simple and easy when one has risen above that overwhelming amount of fiction, falsity, and fallacy that has accumulated around it, obscuring the truth and causing many well intentioned teachers to follow theories and vagaries that have no foundation in fact, and which lead both teacher and pupil astray. If there is any truth applicable to voice training it has an underlying principle, for truth is the operation of principle. If we start wrong we shall end wrong. If we start right and continue according to principle we shall reach the desired goal.

That everything exists first as idea has been the teaching of the philosophers for ages. That the idea is the controlling, governing force is equally well understood. Therefore, inasmuch as the aim of all voice building is to produce beautiful tone we must start with the right idea of tone. This is where the first and greatest difficulty appears. To most people a tone is intangible and difficult to define. One will rarely find a student that can formulate anything approaching a definition of a musical tone and I fancy many teachers would find it far from easy. Unless one has a grasp of the psychology of voice, and a great many have not, he will begin to work with what he can see. Here enters the long dreary mechanical grind that eventually ruins the temper of both teacher and student, and results in nothing but mechanical singing, instead of a joyous, inspiring musical performance.

In leaving this subject I wish to pay my respects to that company of cheerful sinners--the open throat propagandists. I was taught in my youth that the punishment for a sin committed ignorantly was none the less pungent and penetrating, and I trust that in administering justice to these offenders the powers will be prompt, punctilious and persevering. It is a worthy activity.

No mistake of greater magnitude was ever made since voice training began than that of holding the throat open by direct effort. It never resulted in a tone a real musician's ear could endure, nevertheless during the latter part of the nineteenth century and even the early part of the twentieth it was made such an integral part of voice culture that it seemed to be incorporated in the law of heredity, and vocal students, even before they were commanded, would try to make a large cavity in the back of the throat. I believe however, that there is much less of this than formerly. Vocal teachers are beginning to see that the one important thing is a free throat and that when this is gained the response of the mechanism to the mental demand is automatic and unerring.

THE HEAD VOICE

Let him take care, however, that the higher the notes, the more it is necessary to touch them with softness, to avoid screaming.

That the development of the upper, or head voice, is the most difficult as well as the most important part of the training of the singing voice, will be readily admitted by every experienced singing teacher.

That the upper voice should be produced with as much comfort as the middle or lower, is scarcely debatable.

That a majority of singers produce their upper voice with more or less difficulty, need not be argued.

Why is it that after two, three or more years of study so many upper voices are still thick, harsh and unsteady?

There is nothing in the tone world so beautiful as the male or female head voice when properly produced, and there is nothing so excruciatingly distressing as the same voice when badly produced.

The pure head voice is unique in its beauty. It is full of freedom, elasticity, spiritual exaltation. It seems to float, as it were, in the upper air without connection with a human throat. Its charm is irresistible. It is a joy alike to the singer and the listener. It is the most important part of any singer's equipment. Why is it so difficult and why do so few have it? Various reasons are at hand.

The spirit of American enterprise has found its way into voice teaching. It is in the blood of both teacher and pupil. The slogan is "Put it over." This calls for big tone and they do not see why they should not have it at once.

The ability to use the full power of the upper voice when occasion demands is necessary and right, but merely to be able to sing high and loud means nothing. All that is required for that is a strong physique and determination. Such voice building requires but little time and no musical sense whatever; but to be able to sing the upper register with full power, emotional intensity, musical quality and ease, is the result of long and careful work under the ear of a teacher whose sense of tone quality is so refined that it will detect instantly the slightest degree of resistance and not allow it to continue.

The ambitious young singer who has been told by the village oracle that she has a great voice and all she needs is a little "finishing," balks at the idea of devoting three or four years to the process, and so she looks for some one who will do it quickly and she always succeeds in finding him. To do this work correctly the old Italians insisted on from five to eight years with an hour lesson each day. To take such a course following the modern plan of one or two half hours a week, would have the student treading on the heels of Methuselah before it was completed.

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