The vowels and consonants are, in speaking, produced by certain
noises (_Geräusche_), which in singing sound together with the
tone. These sounds are produced by local diminutions of the
cavity of the mouth, or by the opening or closing of the lips
and teeth, as well as by movements of the tip of the tongue,
&c., while a single pulse of the air passes through the
tolerably wide open glottis and through the cavity of the mouth
without regular vibrations. For the air rushes more directly
out of the mouth in speaking than in singing. Of this we may be
easily convinced by holding a feather before the mouth; it will
show far more motion in speaking than in correct singing. If, in
speaking, people would take pains to form the vowels in the
front of the mouth--a habit so necessary in singing, and which
is easily acquired by practice--our common speech would be much
more melodious, far-sounding, and less strained. We see the
truth of this when we hear words called out from a height and
from a distance; the different consonants then mostly disappear,
excepting the _m_ and _n_, which are formed mostly in the front
of the mouth. The vowels, on the other hand, are more or less
plainly heard, according to the places in the mouth where they
are formed. Certain it is that for the beauty of our common
speech, the resonance of the cavity of the mouth peculiar to
each vowel may be rendered available. A singing tone in speaking
is very disagreeable. Every one who is not used to it, finds the
singing dialect of Saxony in the highest degree offensive and
unpleasant. Nevertheless, a more attentive observation soon
teaches us that behind the noise which characterizes the several
sounds in language, a timbre is heard similar to the tone in
singing, and in various instances there occur regular musical
intervals, as at the end of a sentence or in the special
accentuation of single words. Thus, at the conclusion of an
affirmative sentence the voice usually falls about a fourth from
the medium pitch, and at the end of an interrogatory sentence
rises about a fifth above the usual speaking tone. Words
specially accented are usually a tone higher than the rest,
&c. In public speaking and in dramatic representations these
variations of sound are more numerous and complicated, and the
inventor of the modern Recitative, _Jacob Perri_, even declares
that he formed it by imitating in singing these variations of
sound, in order to restore again the declamation of the ancient
tragedians.[16]
Tedious and intolerable as it is to hear so much sing-song in
common speech, it is equally wearisome when people drone on
always in a dry speaking tone at the same pitch, without ever
letting the voice rise or fall. The most interesting matter
thus delivered will lull the hearer to sleep. It cannot be
denied that a rich field is here offered for farther scientific
observation, and those natural laws which lie at the foundation
of the art of singing may certainly be applied with advantage
to the perfecting of the mode of speaking, especially in those
who have to speak in public.[17]
To extend these remarks any farther does not come within our
present purpose, which is concerned exclusively with the
voice in singing and its cultivation. For this reason I leave
unnoticed many most interesting phenomena relating to music
in general, but not particularly to the culture of the voice,
although they are of the deepest interest to the educated
musician.
[7] Tyndall.
[8] The concert pitch in different places and at different periods
has undergone great changes. The Grand Opera in Paris in the
year 1700 established 404 vibrations to a second as the
concert pitch of a¹, which gradually rose higher, as the wind
instruments became more perfect and had a more important part
assigned them in concerted music, until 1858 it had attained
the height of 448 vibrations in a second. In this same year
(1858) at Berlin and St. Petersburg it reached its greatest
height--451½ vibrations in the second. In Mozart's time, in
Vienna, it had only 422 and 428 vibrations.
[9] As long as melody alone was aimed at in music, and was
accompanied only by octaves, the tones preserved their
natural purity. But with the rise of harmony (the accord
of different tones) there was rendered necessary a more
regular system, to which the purity of the tones was
sacrificed.
[10] “It is not possible to sound a stretched string as a whole
without at the same time causing to a greater or less extent
its subdivision; that is to say, superposed upon the
vibrations of the string we have always, in a greater or less
degree, the vibrations of its aliquot parts. The higher notes
produced by these latter vibrations are called the _harmonics_
of the string. And so it is with other sounding bodies; we
have, in all cases, a co-existence of vibrations. Higher tones
mingle with the fundamental tone, and it is their intermixture
which determines what, for want of a better term, we call the
_quality_ of the sound. The French call it _timbre_, and the
Germans call it _Klangfarbe_. It is this union of high and low
tones that enables us to distinguish one musical instrument
from another. A clarionet and a violin, for example, though
tuned to the same fundamental note, are not confounded....
“All bodies and instruments, then, employed for producing
musical sounds, emit, besides their fundamental tones,
tones due to higher order of vibrations. The Germans
embrace all such sounds under the general term _Obertöne_.
I think it will be an advantage if we, in England, adopt
the term _over-tones_, as the equivalent of the term
employed in Germany. One has occasion to envy the power of
the German language to adapt itself to requirements of this
nature. The term _Klangfarbe_, for example, employed by
Helmholtz, is exceedingly expressive, and we need its
equivalent also. You know that color depends upon rapidity
of vibrations--that blue light bears to red the same
relation that a high tone does to a low one. A simple color
has but one rate of vibration, and it may be regarded as
the analogue of a simple tone in music. A _tone_, then, may
be defined as the product of a vibration which cannot be
decomposed into more simple ones. A compound color, on the
contrary, is produced by the admixture of two or more
simple ones; and an assemblage of tones, such, as we obtain
when the fundamental tone and the harmonics of a string
sound together, is called by the Germans a _Klang_. May we
not employ the English word _clang_ to denote the same
thing, and thus give the term a precise scientific meaning
akin to its popular one? And may we not, like Helmholtz,
add the word _color_ or _tint_ to denote the character of
the clang, using the term _clang-tint_ as the equivalent of
_Klangfarbe_?” (Sound: A course of Lectures delivered at
the Royal Institution of Great Britain by John Tyndall,
LL.D., F.R.S., Professor of Nat. Phil. in the Royal
Institution and in the Royal School of Mines. English
edition, pp. 116-118.)--Tr.
[11] As to the characteristic sounds of the different keys, the
views of musicians are to the present day divided. Many even
of our most eminent theorists, as Hauptmann, for example, in
Leipsig, have maintained that all keys (_Tonarten_) are only
transpositions of one major and minor key, and that like
musical effects may be produced with one as well as with
the other. The majority of musicians are, however, of the
opinion that each key has its peculiar character, and that
by transposition into another key the musical effect is
changed. My son, Carl Seiler, has discovered that each key
has its own peculiar, prominent over-tones, which determine
its distinctive character. A table of all the keys (_Tonarten_),
in which the prominent over-tones of each are given, shows
also that the mutual relation of the keys (_Tonarten_) is
elucidated by these over-tones. And thus again scientific
investigation confirms what the founders of the theory of
music, with their sound sense for the beautiful, recognized
as correct.
[12] The position of the body in singing must be such as in no
way to interfere with the easy drawing of the breath. One
sings most easily standing as erect as possible, quiet and
unconstrained, the chest somewhat projected, the body
slightly drawn in, and the hands folded.
[13] It was instruments of this class--trumpets, horns, bugles,
etc.--in whose timbre the highest inharmonic over-tones
overpower all the rest, that were painfully offensive to
the exquisite musical organization of Mozart from his
earliest childhood.
[14] It is all but impossible to give an idea of what is meant
by _Tonansatz_, without a practical illustration. It is
that striking of the note or the air corresponding to the
touch in piano-playing.
[15] A selection of such exercises, prepared by the present
writer, has recently been published by Mr. O. Ditson in
Boston, and also two books of old Italian solfeggi from
Mieksch and Mazzoni, arranged to the present pitch.
[16] According to _Boethius_, the _lyra_, which was used by the
Greeks to accompany declamation, embraced, in the tuning
of its strings, the principal intervals used in speaking.
[17] Since the appearance of this book I have often been consulted
by persons whose calling required them to speak in public,
and whose vocal organs were no longer competent thereto. Here
also I have found in most cases that there was an incorrect
use of the registers, and that men especially form the lowest
sounds with that forced enlarging of the windpipe already
mentioned (that is, with the so-called _Strohbassregister_).
Many have probably fallen into this unnatural and exhausting
manner by attempting to speak or to sing loudly. Together
with the incorrect use of the registers, there is also an
incorrect management (_Leitung_) of the vibrating air, which
so often renders speaking so difficult to public speakers.
As, when the voice is not wholly directed to the front of the
mouth, it does not move the external air quickly enough and
so does not reach far, the speaker commonly tries to help
himself by a greater expenditure of force. Misled by false
views, speakers usually attempt by a great waste of breath
and by exertion alone to produce an effect which can be
realized only by skilful management of the most delicate
and easily moved of all things, the air.