The Ear is the Spine 3
There are two muscles embedded within in the ear. One of them—the tensor tympanum—sits behind the eardrum, while the other one—the stapedius—inserts into the stirrup, the last of a chain of three bones within the inner ear. According to Tomatis, these two tiny muscles integrate with the muscles of the body, regulating the processes of extension and flexion.
Oddly enough, I first learned about this from Margaret Harshaw, long before I knew anything about Tomatis' work.
"The vertebrae separate!" She said, her right hand motioning from her upper back to the top of her spine. "Here, I will show you." Whereupon she motioned me over to her, placed my hands on the back of her neck, and "opened" it with something more than a yawn—the likes of which I have not experienced since, the distention of her neck and spine being of immense proportion. "Now you do that!" She said. My eyes blinked and mind boggled. Try as I might, it was not something I fully understood until I had undergone Tomatis' listening training and experienced the extension of my spine from the inside out.
Was this one of the García School "throat" exercises her own teacher Anna E. Schoen-René had been given by Anna Schultzen von Asten in Berlin, the latter a student of Pauline Viardot-García; exercises which Schoen-René had been asked to demonstrate to Viardot-García, which she recorded in
America's Musical Inheritance: Memories and Reminiscences (1941)?
Respectful and awed, I stood at last before that great and wonderful woman admired by the whole musical world! With a beautiful smile of encouragement, she turned to the piano and began my accompaniment. Playing from memory from "La Sonnambula" by Bellini, she watched me closely as I sang.
"Sing the last aria you studied with Anna Schultzen von Asten," she said, "for I can hear that you have not studied this aria with her;" and so it was. During my last three months in Berlin, on the recommendation of Schultzen von Asten and Hermine Spies, my patroness, in order to be well prepared from Mme. Viardot, I had studied Italian opera with Martini, assistant and coach to Francesco Lamperti of Milan, and oratorio, with Professor Ferdinand Sieber.
I sang the aria from "Mignon": "Connais-tu le pays." Mme. Viardot was very complimentary, but asked me to show her my breathing and throat and singing exercises. Then she said: "Now you are producing your voice again correctly. Forget that coach! I want to hear some German Lieder." After I had sung these, she liked my interpretation, my good middle register,—which she always considered the most important asset for a singer, and the quality of my voice. "A soprano with mezzo color—a real Rhenish voice!" she exclaimed, greatly pleased.
The short answer is: yes. Based on my experience at the Listening Center in Toronto, which I have written about quite a bit on these pages, I am certain that what I was shown was nothing less than the body's response to a fully-opened ear, which is necessary for beautiful singing, this very expression finding expression in the García School. However, it's something that has to be understood within the context of a student-teacher relationship, one that avoids positioning and manipulation—a paradox to be sure, since the exercise itself is nothing but manipulation, showing and knowing not being the same thing at all.