The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 | Page 6

the vigor, freedom, and elasticity of the breathing apparatus, may be taken as initiatory steps in voice culture; and, in moderation, they should be practised continually. Full, slow inspirations followed by slow, and, as far as possible, complete expirations; full, quick inspirations similarly followed; full inspirations followed by sudden and forcible expirations; full, deep inspirations, followed by slow, slightly but distinctly audible expirations, as in deep sighing; these and similar practices may be pursued. What is to be aimed at is to secure complete control of the breath, especially to the degree that, with perfect deliberateness, it can be equably and smoothly effused.
In all exercises where vocality is required it is best first to use the sound of ?, as in far, for in this sound the quality of the human voice is heard in most perfection, and in uttering it the vocal organs are most flexible and most easily adapt themselves to change. It may be preceded by the aspirate h, or by some consonant, as may be thought necessary.
In effective speaking or reading, with respect to the abruptness and rapidity of expiration there are three modes of utterance: the =effusive=, by which the voice is poured forth smoothly and equably, the =expulsive= and the =explosive=. Of these three modes the effusive is by far the most important, but the others, and especially the expulsive, have their uses also. These modes will be illustrated in the following exercise:
EXERCISE.--1. After a full and deliberate inspiration let the expiration of the element h be gently effected, until the lungs are exhausted--the aspiration coming from the very depths of the throat. Let this be repeated with the syllable h?h, audibly whispered. This is effusive utterance.
2. After a full and deliberate inspiration let the expiration of the element h be suddenly effected, the expiration being continued until the whispering sound vanishes in the bottom of the throat. Let this be repeated with the syllable h?h, audibly whispered. This is expulsive utterance.
3. Let the exercise be the same as in (2) except that the expiration is to be much more forcibly effected, and completed almost instantaneously. This is explosive utterance.
In the cultivation of the voice either one of two ends is generally kept in view--its improvement for speaking or its improvement for singing; but progress may be made towards both ends by the same study, and those exercises which benefit the singing voice benefit the speaking voice, and vice versa. The distinction between speaking tones and singing tones should be clearly understood. Musical tones are produced by isochronous (equal-timed) vibrations of the vocal organs continued for some length of time. Hence, a musical tone is a note, which may be prolonged at will without varying in pitch, either up or down. A speaking tone, on the contrary, is produced by vibrations which are not isochronous; it is not a note, properly so called, and can not be prolonged, without varying in pitch. Musical tones are discrete,--the voice passes from pitch to pitch through the intervals silently. In speaking, every tone, however short the time taken in uttering it, passes from one pitch to some other through an interval concretely, that is, with continuous vocality; though, with respect to one another, speech syllables, like notes in music, are discrete. This may be exemplified by uttering the words, "Where are you going?" In singing these words, they may be uttered on the same note, or on different notes, or, indeed, with different notes for the same word; but the voice skips from note to note through the intervals. In speaking the words, each is uttered with an inflection or intonation in which the voice varies in pitch, but passes through the interval concretely; the separate words, however, and the separate syllables (if there were any) being uttered discretely. Musical utterance might be graphically illustrated by a series of horizontal lines of less or greater length succeeding one another at different distances above or below a fixed horizontal line. In a similar notation for speech utterance the lines would all be curved, to represent the concrete passage through the various intervals. It is the concrete intonation of every syllable and monosyllabic word which gives to speech its distinctive character from music. Each syllable and monosyllabic word is called a =concrete=, and it is with the concrete in all its various possibilities of utterance that voice culture has mainly to do.
The intervals traversed by the voice in uttering the concrete are very variable. Using the musical scale for reference it may be said that in ordinary speech they are generally of but one, or, at most, two notes. In animated discourse or passionate utterance the intervals may be greater. For illustration, let the pronoun "I" be uttered in a tone of interrogative surprise; a concrete with a rising