Extract from the Choir and Organ article (February 1995):

Arthur D. Hewlett, MA, BLitt, LRAM.

In the course of time, the emphasis has shifted decisively towards the practical aspects of sinus tone, so that it may be more enlightening to speak of a rule of sinus control (RSC) rather than a theory of sinus tone production (STP). Theory has its explanatory place, but the practice is what matters most. Those who study the practice can form their own judgement about the explanation, the theory.

The basic steps in the practice are as E.G. White first discovered and described them. Attention is to be centred on a high point in the head and thence tone is to flow downwards, and the more forward the starting point the higher will be the resulting note. With practice this becomes habitual and eventually even simpler, for the voice just rings in the head. The downward flow is the key: we are not aiming to get the voice 'into the head' in a conventional sense. So far perhaps this exposition could itself be dismissed as no more than an idea, a hypothesis, although considering that by now there is general assent to the notion that the sinuses are resonators, implying that they 'resound' -sound comes out of them -insistence on a downward direction should hardly be surprising. However, in confirmation, nearly a century of experience has shown that the idea works, and to great advantage. This does not mean that RSC can make everyone into a great performer -native endowment is a limiting factor -but it does mean that by adopting the right methods one can make the most of one's endowment rather than simply neglecting it or, worse still, striving with ill-founded methods. To master the first steps the help of a teacher may be required, though there have been reports from readers who have applied the written directions with success. So it is worth trying.

But do not try too hard! The first reward of sinus control is reduction of physical effort: all you are doing is directing a flow of air, so that producing a quiet humming sound takes no more energy than breathing silently, and a crescendo eventually takes little more. Meanwhile you can forget all muscular ancillaries. The lungs, the larynx, the jaw, and in articulation the lips and tongue, will function spontaneously in normal people if they are left to themselves, and nothing is gained but harm can result if you try to manipulate them. Similarly, the realisation that high notes come downward from a more forward focus removes another potential danger. We have a strong intuition that some notes are 'high' and some 'low' but it is misleading. Notes are not high or low in any spatial sense: the organist's hands move to the right and left, the cellist's fingers nearer to the floor for higher notes. So striving upwards for a high note is effort misdirected. The sinuses form an almost horizontal layer, and what is found, still referring to practical experience, is that although they are not a long straight tube they do respond somewhat like a recorder, or any woodwind for that matter. If sinus activity is mainly in the frontal sinuses (across the forehead just above the eyes) it is as though the recorder was played with the finger holes uncovered; as activity spreads to other sinuses the effect corresponds to stopping the finger holes successively while -most importantly -the frontal sinuses, like the top end of the recorder, do not fallout of use. In short, the foundation of sinus control is to find and use the frontal sinuses, always with that downward flow. There will then be little difficulty in utilising the whole sinus system with pitch determined by horizontal variation of focus.

The claim that experientia docet the success of this approach needs substantiation. White himself recorded work with one who had long been unable to speak because of damage to the vocal folds yet after tuition addressed an audience in the Queen's Hall. I too had a student who had only been able to use an exhausting whisper, and taught him to speak comfortably and to sing the compass of an octave. 'Why', it may be asked, 'did these subjects lose their voices in the first place if the vocal folds were not responsible?' An explanation (i.e. a theory) can be offered and will be found later. For the moment however let us remain with the practical and note some experiences under normal physical conditions.

Ronald Dussek (who was for a time organist of the temporary cathedral at Guildford and for many years before his death chairman of the Ernest George White Society) when he was Precentor of Radley College was congratulated on the 'silk purse tenors' in his school choir. It was a perceptive phrase, recognising that a pleasing performance was secured from the recently 'broken' voices of adolescent boys. Gilbert Curtis, whom many readers will remember, taught sinus control to men and boys in 50 years or more of choir training and wrote:

'If such methods are urged with tact and enthusiasm, the choir will realise that these work in practice and that they can now choose their dynamics. In addition they will be encouraged to listen to themselves and each other. This in itself is most valuable as in choir work shortcomings may be due as much to bad listening as to bad singing.'

The experienced author of a recent article on Choral Singing, Charles Cleall, who in earlier years had sung as a counter-tenor, wrote after studying sinus practice:

'...elicitation of baritone-timbre was very gradual and elemental. Its strangeness is difficult to express verbally, because the effortlessness was so extraordinary that the thoughts in one's mind went something like this: Who is that singing? It can't be me, surely? Perhaps I am not hearing a physical note, but imagining hearing it Little by little (there were) introduced crescendi and diminuendi; leaps; chromatic passages; ending with songs and recitatives. By this time, one accepted that one actually was singing the notes one's mind registered; but the effortlessness remained, and the effectiveness of timbre stayed .'

Dr Florence Windebank was a music specialist in a training college, with a lifelong interest in singing. She wrote of her early studies with distinguished teachers, Dr George Oldroyd and Professor E. Herbert-Caesari, acknowledging that she learnt much from them and by then hoped that she knew something about singing. Later, after retirement, she 'came across', as she puts it, books on sinus tone and then:

'Once more, somewhat to my astonishment, I was a student; and not just to get clear on a few minor points, but to begin a complete retraining of the voice on new concepts of tone production. What made me undertake this reappraisal of the whole of my life's work as a teacher of singing? Basically, it was that early in my lessons, I began to discover an added richness to the quality of my voice that convinced me that it was worthwhile to go through the training towards a new mastery. Moreover, I knew that with this new knowledge and experience I should not again teach by my former methods. It therefore seemed right to go the whole way and become recognised by the E.G. White Society as one of their teachers of Sinus Tone Production'.

The practice serves as well for speaking: teachers and clergy with failing voices have been saved with lasting benefit.

If that is a sufficiently persuasive introduction to the methods and merits of sinus control practice, a non-contentious view of the theory may be of interest. So far, the likeliest explanation is that the voice functions, like other wind instruments, (played with the breath!) as an integrated whole, the constituents reacting on each other so that no one element can properly be considered alone. What turns a breath column into a vocal tract is the involvement of the sinuses, and what facilitates involvement is the function of the vocal folds. Their observed vibrations can best be understood as the result of rhythmic changes of pressure in the vocal tract rather than as the cause. Thus a working hypothesis or general theory can be expressed in two propositions:

1. The voice is produced by the integral activity of the vocal tract comprising the organs and air spaces extending from the lungs to the sinuses.
2. In training and developing the voice attention is best directed to the sinuses, leaving all muscular organs to function for the most part freely and automatically.

It is a significant fact in this connection that the very existence of the sinuses is a comparatively recent discovery. It was not until about 100 years ago that they first appeared in medical and surgical records. By contrast the association of laryngeal movement with speech was observed Over 2000 years ago, so that the writer of psalm 115 could include among the failings of idols: 'neither speak they through their throat' .No wonder the notion is firmly entrenched and Shakespeare too invites one to 'tune his merry note unto the sweet bird's throat'! Yet in point of fact the visible movement of the 'Adam's apple', carefully observed, can be seen to be associated with articulation rather than with phonation. The answer to the question posed earlier about the effect of damage to the vocal folds is that this may cause a loss of intuitive control with consequent voice failure, but conscious control can be gained by focusing on the sinuses. These are invisible and stable, but once their existence was recognised it was not long before their possible vocal function was discerned, E.G. White's Science and Singing being published in 1909.

Nevertheless, it is not the purpose of the Ernest George White Society to pursue such arguments, however interesting, but to proffer a boon, namely the opportunity of learning the authentic practice of sinus control as it has been widely tested and proven.

Arthur Hewlett, born in 1902, studied with Ernest G. White from 1925 until his death in 1940. Mr. Hewlett was founding General Secretary of the Ernest George White Society in 1944, and served in that capacity for 43 years, becoming Honorary President in 1987.