supposing others would see as I saw and comprehend as I did; having
no doubt but that the world would at once acknowledge their truths
and accept their precepts. I have since found that the world can get
along very comfortably with a vast amount of want of knowledge. I
therefore made up my mind not to be quite so rash again in making it my
beneficiary, not till I was better prepared for the purpose; this other
book of mine having been finished rather hastily in the erroneous
belief that this knowledge was at once and imperatively needed.
Since publishing this previous book I have also found, which I did
not know at that time, that my very mode of investigation (by means
of introspection) was new; that no one had ever looked into matters
of this kind in the manner I had; besides, it seems strange that in
this age of keen investigation of the most trivial matters, no one
should have deemed it worth his while to look into these more important
subjects.
Regarding the anatomical investigations of the larynx, and anatomical,
coupled with physiological, investigations generally, let me ask a
question: Supposing a palace with a million apartments, each one in
succession more luxuriously furnished than its predecessor, would they
avail anything to its _sole_ inhabitant, if that inhabitant were blind?
We have obtained a fair conception of the wonderful palace, the human
body, its numberless apartments and their luxurious furnishings, but
do not comprehend their meaning, except in a remote and unsatisfactory
mechanical sense. _We_ are the blind that inhabit it. Most of these
apartments will remain meaningless to our understanding until we
ascertain what use the sovereign, the soul, which reigns therein, is
making of them, not only mechanically, but _spiritually_ as well. For
the soul lives in them all, though it is supposed that it lives only in
its throne-room of the brain and that it never descends from the throne
set up in the same.
Just here biologists have blundered, trying to get hold of _psyche_ by
pursuing matter bereft of life; or investigating life in other beings
instead of that inherent in themselves. The vivisection of all the
frogs in the world will not give us the first knowledge of the frog's
soul; certainly not of _our_ soul. The knowledge of the anatomical
construction of the larynx has brought us no nearer the knowledge of
the mystery of the voice than that of the brain has brought us to that
of the soul. We must understand the process by which the mechanism of
the brain is set in _motion_ before we can begin to understand our
mode of thinking. We must comprehend the manner in which a musical
instrument is to be used before we can begin to draw music from the
same. And so must we understand the spirit which moves the mechanism of
the voice (of which so far we have known but a single factor), if we
want to understand our mode of using it.
Does any one seriously think that by photographing vocal sounds,
or passing a mirror down his throat and watching the movements of
the vocal cords, he will observe anything that will lead him to an
intimate knowledge of nature's subtle process by which vocal sounds are
produced? As well look at the face of a clock and see its hands move,
and then say you have arrived at a knowledge of the hidden intricate
mechanism of the works of the clock. The mechanism of the instrument of
the voice is a thousand times more intricate than that of a clock. It
lives, it breathes, it moves, it expands and contracts, it rises and
falls, it gathers, it gives--now here, now there.
Starting from the supposition that life is too subtle, too intangible
a thing to have its innermost operations disclosed by the clumsy work
of our hands or the dull vision of our eyes, though increased in
power a thousandfold, I matched the subtle work of my voice with the
subtler of my brain, and thus, undisturbed by any extraneous agency
whatever, watched the process by which, first, simple mechanical, then
articulated sounds, and finally sounds linked together into speech, are
produced. In so doing I traced sounds through the labyrinth of numerous
avenues to their original sources--_the organism of all our faculties,
instead of being confined to their end organs, being widespread over
our entire system_.
* * * * *
Physiologists as a rule are satisfied with the _observation and
exposition_ of phenomena. I have endeavored to _explain_ phenomena. I
have gone "behind the returns," as politicians say. I have lifted the
mysterious veil, and have obtained glimpses at the process of life. In
this manner the voice of the œsophagus was first discovered, which,
in logical sequence, has carried me from one discovery to another.
Once in the confidence of nature, it freely opened up to me its heart.
Comprehending one thing led me on to the comprehension of others.
There is no study which is as fascinating as that pursued by
introspection. It is self-compensating in the highest degree; all
facts thereby evolved being the logical sequence of others previously
ascertained. Or, if not always in sequence, they all fit into the same
system; everything that has been ascertained being a stone which was
waiting to be placed in a certain niche to fulfil a certain purpose
in the construction of a harmonious edifice. There was no waste, no
material entirely lost; nor will there be at any future time. If
similar studies will be pursued by those specially fitted for the
purpose, the time may not be far distant when there will not be an
atom of our material existence whose meaning and purpose will not be
understood. The laws which I claim to have discovered will assist in
this accomplishment, as they are of so broad a nature that they may be
said to form the substructure to forces and conditions which are at the
very root of our existence. I do not pretend to say that in this little
book they have been properly treated, nor that I possess the ability,
under the best of circumstances, to thus treat them. I have but stated
what has come under my observation, and have stated it in as simple and
direct a manner as my instinct and my ability have taught me to state
it.
I have been up on Mount Washington to see the sun rise. It was a
beautiful picture; still, there were clouds in the way which here and
there obscured my vision, as was to be expected from the unwonted
height to which I had risen, and the distant horizon.
* * * * *
I am not writing for a class, but for the multitude to which I belong,
and of which, in its aspirations, its hopes, its sincerity, and its
ignorance regarding _specific_ knowledge, I form a part. Hence my
thoughts are its thoughts and my language its language. There will be
no difficulty, therefore, for _all_ to understand me and to profit by
my experience.
My observations result in the triumph of the sensation, the feeling
(common to all), over the exact sciences (known to but few). Science,
for the most part, is satisfied with dissecting or analyzing. My
endeavor has been to construct; to form the whole out of parts instead
of reducing the whole into parts. My guide has been instinct coupled
with common-sense,--that rarest of all the senses in spite of its name.
How far it has guided me aright, it will be the province of science to
judge.
I may be asked why, in treating upon so "simple" a subject as the human
voice (my only endeavor in the beginning), I want to move heaven and
earth, and press them into my service. My answer is, Wherever I touched
the subject of the voice, I found it to be in correlation with all
other subjects.
My great desire now is, that I may be granted the time and retain the
ability to write out all I have ascertained; while my greatest wonder
is, that these things should have waited for me at all to be made
known; why they should not have been discovered centuries ago. My eyes
once opened, I found them lying about within the easy reach of my arm
and the mere assistance of my pick and shovel, like precious ore in
a newly discovered mining country. I had but to open the lid of the
mysterious casket which had been intrusted to me, and all these great
truths escaped from the same; not to disappear, however, as they did
in the fable, but to remain with me and to be made known through me to
the world.
* * * * *
The best part of my life has been spent in this, my adopted country.
Though I experience no difficulty in expressing myself in the English
language, still it is not my native tongue, and I sometimes feel as if
I might have said some things better if I had said them in German.
* * * * *
Looking at the many volumes written on the subject of the larynx alone,
and considering that during all this time its associate, the replica,
without whose assistance _not one_ vocal sound can ever be uttered, has
remained unknown, though in plain sight and "in everybody's mouth," one
cannot help but think of Goethe's lines:
"Ein Kerl der speculirt
Ist wie ein Thier, auf duerrer Haide
Von einem boesen Geist im Kreis herum gefuehrt,
Und ringsumher liegt schoene gruene Waide."
("A theorist is like unto a beast
On barren soil by evil sprite led round and round
Within a narrow circle, though beyond there is a feast
Of pasture green on fertile ground.")
"THE BASIC LAW OF VOCAL UTTERANCE"
My earlier work, entitled as above, was written under peculiar
circumstances. After discovering the fact that sounds proceed from
beneath as well as from above the tongue, light streamed in upon
me on so many subjects I had previously attempted to solve that I
was almost dazed thereby. I thought it my duty to make these matters
known, and attempted to describe them as they appeared to me. They
were all perfectly clear to me, and even to-day there is scarcely a
thing I then said that does not wholly stand its ground. Still, to-day,
viewing things from an advanced point of view, much of that which was
then expressed pragmatically, almost in a single sentence, and which
then appeared to be sufficient, I am convinced requires considerable
elaboration and elucidation.
Take, for instance, this dictum: "The manner in which we breathe for
speech is by raising and lowering the tongue," etc. This is perfectly
correct, and positive proof will be advanced hereafter as to its being
so.
I thought these matters would be readily understood, not knowing at
that time that between the manner in which I had reached conclusions
and the one in which conclusions had been reached by others who had
also made a study of these matters, there was a vast difference.
Unknown to myself I had lived a life of my own. I had given myself
up to these matters in a manner no one ever had before; having been
everlastingly at it, holding on with a tenacity that knew no restraint.
In this manner I wrung facts from nature that may have never been
intended to be revealed.
There was something Faust-like in it all, and I sometimes shudder at
my own temerity. Still, I had no such thought when I so persistently
continued trying to fathom the mystery of vocal sounds. Viewing it
in its proper light it was a narrow and every-day undertaking. I was
fairly staggered, therefore, when I reached such unlooked-for results.
The reader, however, may ask, and I feel it incumbent upon me, as well,
to tell him, What was the nature of these results? Wherein consisted
these discoveries? They covered a large field and whole range of
knowledge. They had reference more particularly to vocal sounds. These,
in fact, had almost exclusively occupied my mind for many years. These
apparently simple factors, vocal sounds, I have since ascertained are
the outcome of laws, forces, and agencies, and combinations of all
these, which largely make up the sum and substance of our spiritual
existence. The direct nature of vocal sounds, therefore, cannot be well
treated upon till some understanding has been arrived at of the nature
of the elements out of which they are composed. I was rash enough to
attempt to explain them, especially the consonant sounds, in this
little book of mine, from a standpoint I had then arrived at. Others
have tried to explain them from a much narrower standpoint still. From
that standpoint I offered explanations as to our mode of speaking,
breathing, as to defective speech, etc. Although this was an advanced
standpoint, and well worthy the consideration of scientists, it was a
standpoint far beneath the one I have arrived at since.
In attempting to scale a mountain I had reached a point from which I
could overlook the valley immediately beneath my feet. I have since
gone up much higher. Yet there are towering heights still above me
which I shall never be able to reach. From this it will be seen how
difficult it would be for me to state in a few paragraphs what I had
actually ascertained. That book, however, will increase in value
in the course of time, not only for the knowledge it contains, but
historically, so to say, as the beginning of an evolution which, it
seems to me, will eventually embrace all sciences in regard to man;
when treated, as they will be, from a standpoint of inner as against
one of outer consciousness, from the standpoint of the soul and the
heart, as in the inadequacy of our expressions I have to call them, as
against that of the head and the senses.
I have since arrived at a plan according to which these matters will
be treated in a more systematic manner. In _this_ volume, besides
many novel subjects, I have been enlarging upon and elucidating many
superficially mentioned in my book, _The Basic Law of Vocal Utterance_.
Still, the matters treated upon even in _this_ book cover so much
ground, and had to be condensed to such an extent, that many of these
also will require further enlargement and elucidation. This will be
attempted to be done in future publications. Meantime I trust these
matters will be taken in hand by others, who by their writings will
relieve me of some of this additional labor. Take it all in all, there
is so much of this work that I feel as if I had swallowed the ocean and
was now called upon to give an account of its contents.
THE VOICE OF THE ŒSOPHAGUS AND ITS VOCAL CORDS
Among the discoveries mentioned in my former publication one stands
out most prominent, and it is the basis of all my other discoveries;
namely, "that the voice is of a dual nature." I had ascertained that
sounds circulate around the radix of the tongue; that they, or rather
the air wave which carries them, enters either at the upper surface of
the tip of the tongue and recedes back, to come out again from beneath
its lower surface, or vice versa. I had also ascertained that the
former process is the English, the latter the German, for breathing and
vocal expression.
I was convinced that this signified a circulation of vocal sounds; and
though I had finally also reached this conclusion and intimated it,
namely, "that we breathe and speak through the œsophagus," I did not
express it in so many words, as I meant to leave this expression for a
future publication. I was at first under the impression that both waves
belonged to the trachea, the one that was ingoing as well as the one
which was outgoing.
Meantime I had discovered the "larynx or voice-box to the œsophagus,"
but considered this at first also as belonging to the trachea. I
thought inspiration and ingoing sounds belonged to the vocal cords of
the trachea, expiration and outgoing sounds to this "new" vocal cord
located beneath the tongue. To study these first attempts, by which
I was trying to find my way, and which culminated in these wonderful
discoveries, I presume would be of interest to the student. I can here
mention only the main points.
I have found beyond a doubt, and my future statements will more fully
establish this fact, that the frænum linguæ and the parts of the mucous
membrane surrounding the same are relatively of the same nature in
regard to the voice of the œsophagus that the vocal cords and other
parts of the larynx are in relation to that of the trachea.
In contradistinction to the larynx, I named these entire surroundings
the "replica," as, in conjunction with the tip of the tongue resting
upon the same, they conform to the shape of the oral cavity, of which
in their general appearance they are almost a counterpart. In a
similar manner I named the special part thereof, which "regulates" the
intonation, the "vocal lip," in contradistinction to the vocal cords of
the larynx, which perform the same service for the voice of the trachea.
After making such positive assertions regarding the replica as I did in
my previous publication--now more than four years ago--I was more than
surprised that no one should have deemed it worth his while to look
into the value of these assertions. If any one had, he could not have
helped but acknowledge their correctness. It is but necessary to utter
any vocal sound whatsoever, either vowel or consonant, and while doing
so watch the vocal lip and the frænum, to become at once convinced that
their motions are of precisely the same order as those of the larynx
and the vocal cords.
So many have spent year after year upon the difficult and "fruitless"
endeavor to study the motions of the larynx; while here is an
opportunity plainly before every one's eyes to study, without effort,
the most interesting phenomena in voice production. We must be obliged
to seek for a thing high and low before we deem it worthy of our
attention.
[Illustration]
THE HUMAN VOICE
What is the voice--a spirit, or "an expiratory current of air set into
vibration by purely physical agencies"? It does not seem to me to be
either, but something which is of the nature of both: our dual nature,
embodied in the sounds of speech; our body and soul joining hands to
produce the miracle of the voice. Regarding the materialistic view
quoted above, which is held by most of the investigators, who make the
larynx their _point d'appui_, I think that if there is anything in our
composition or emanating therefrom that is _not_ produced by "_purely_
physical agencies," it is the voice.
In my opinion there is nothing purer, more "spiritual," in the world
than a beautiful voice. Did you ever _see_ a spirit? Perhaps not. But
you have often _heard_ one. You hear them daily, hourly, constantly;
other spirits as well as your own--the spirits represented by the
voice; the soul incorporated in the sounds of speech. When you
converse, it is soul to soul; when you hear an anthem sung, it is the
soul of the singer to the soul of the universe. The soul reveals itself
most prominently through the voice when there is anguish in it, or joy;
tears or laughter; love or hate.
An attempt to get at the truth in matters of the voice is an attempt at
getting at the truth in matters of life. If you will tell me _all_ that
a vocal sound is, I will tell you what your soul is.
To examine into the anatomical construction of the larynx, to watch
it physiologically and learn to understand the motions of the vocal
cords in their relation to vocal sounds, is not much more than looking
at the dial of a clock (a simile already used, but worth repeating).
The movements of the hands will give you _no_ cue to the construction
of the intricate works hidden behind the face of the clock. Nor will
the careful examination and observation of the "dials" which serve the
voice of the œsophagus in the same manner as those of the larynx serve
the voice of the trachea, measurably increase the knowledge of vocal
phenomena. I do believe, however, that, inasmuch as the movements of
the replica, the frænum, and the vocal lip fit into and complement
those of the larynx and its vocal cords, and vice versa, lessons of
great benefit to the knowledge and the improvement of vocal utterance
may be learned, _after_ we have once begun to understand what these
movements imply.
That we cannot now derive any benefit from the observation of these
motions is due to the fact that they are _reflex_, _involuntary_,
_uncontrolled_ and _uncontrollable_ by the will. Or, as Mme. D'Arona
expresses it:
"They are not the _cause_ of the perfect tone, but are simply acted
upon by the cause."
After having become acquainted with the cause of these motions, and
having learned to control it in the interest of pure and perfect tone,
the movements of the larynx and the replica will become of value to
us as "indicators" of the correct or incorrect exercise of the cause
which they reflect. In "recording" the original movements they will
show us what is right or wrong in the latter, and will thus offer us
an opportunity for correcting them. Up to the present they have been
simply barometers, which, no matter how closely we may observe them,
offer us no opportunity for changing "the state of the weather" which
they indicate. After thoroughly comprehending the _causes_, however,
which move them, we may shape the course of the latter in conformity
with our will. Or, vice versa, we may shape our will, which, after all,
is the _first cause_, so as to correct that which they indicate to be
wrong in our tone production.
Now, what is that which the will acts upon, and thus becomes the
original source, the first cause, so to say, of tone production? My
answer will be a surprise, for, as far as I know, no one has ever as
much as thought, even, of looking in this direction for the seat of the
voice.
The original source of tone production has its location in _various
vessels of the viscera_: in the lungs, the kidneys, and the bladder,
for the most part, though many other vessels, if not all, participate,
and are more or less involved in its production. Besides these vessels,
the heart and the solar plexus, as central organs of the vascular
and nervous systems, together with the brain as the central seat of
thought and the will, perform parts of the highest importance in tone
production and vocal utterance. In the lungs, the bladder, and the
kidneys, together with their coadjutors, the bronchi and ureters, _the
tone originates_. Here we can control, and unconsciously do control, it.
I shall adduce indubitable proof as to the correctness of these
assertions. More than that, I shall _locate_ sounds in these various
vessels. As a tone proceeds from a given string located in a given part
of a musical instrument, and cannot proceed from or be produced on any
other string, a given tone of the human voice proceeds from a given
vessel, and cannot proceed from or be produced in any other vessel.
I shall furthermore show that the various shades of a tone proceed from
various parts of such vessel. Yet, while tones are produced in special
parts, the instrument of the voice being of a sympathetic nature,
_all_ parts of the _viscera_ participate therein, by, in a manner,
_leaning_ towards a vessel in which a tone is produced, thus assisting
in giving it utterance. If a sound is produced in one of the vessels
of the abdomen, those of the thorax, though not directly participating
therein, give it aid and comfort by their passivity, thus throwing the
entire strength of the voice-producing forces into this one spot. If a
sound is produced in the thorax, the vessels of the abdomen aid it in
a similar manner. This is more particularly the case when a sound of a
superior order is to be produced, which is thus _reinforced_ by this
aid.
In matters of the voice, as in many others, truth is stranger than
fiction.
Dr. Rush has said:
"Some day, when the real instrument of the voice will be discovered,
it will be found to be of an order far different in its nature and
construction from that which it has ever been supposed to be."