Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 24.djvu/299

Rh VOICE 275 in consequence of the lengthening of the cords, generally falling an octave in pitch. A similar change, but very much less in amount, occurs at the same period in the female. At puberty in the female there is an increase of about one-third in the size of the glottis, but it is nearly doubled in the male, and the adult male larynx is about one-third greater than that of the female. In advanced life the upper notes of the register are gradually weakened and ultimately disappear, whilst the character of the voice also changes, owing to loss of elasticity caused by ossifica tion, which first begins about middle life in the thyroid cartilage, then appears in the cricoid, and much later in the arytenoid. Eunuchs retain the voices of childhood ; and by careful training it is possible in normal persons to arrest the development of the larynx so that an adult male can still sing the soprano parts sometimes used in cathedral choirs. The ranges of the different varieties of voice are shown in the following diagram, where the dotted lines give the range of certain remarkable voices, and the figures represent vibrations per second. fl O( . . 2048. Upper note of Lucrezia Ajugari. 1365. Upper note of Nilson in II Flauto Magico. 1152. Ajugari trilled on this note. la. 80)4 re 4 doj i? 3 Do 3 1024. 768. 640. 512. 341. 250. Mid C in piano. 240. iVii 10G. Baritone. solj f! H mil Bass. 64. 42. Mcz Contralto. or. , Sop zo - sopra Sessi, 3J octaves. Farineiii, 3J octaves. Aji gari. Gaspard Forster, 3 octaves. doj si-i la-i Sol-! fa-1 mi i re-i do-j 32. Beginning of musical tone. There is thus a range for ordinary voices of nearly two octaves, and certain rare voices may have a range of three and a half octaves. A basso named Gaspard Forster passed from f a _ i to la.; ; the younger of the sisters Sessi had a contralto voice from do. 2 to fa 5 ; the voice of Catalan! ranged three and a half octaves ; a eunuch singer, Fari- nelli, passed from la T to re 5 ; Nilson, in II Flauto Magico, can take fa 5 ; and Mozart states that he heard in Parma in 1770 a singer, Lucrezia Ajugari, range from sol, to do fi , which she gave purely, whilst she could execute trills on re 5. The latter is the most highly pitched voice referred to in musical literature, an octave and a half above the highest ordinary soprano. The range of these voices is shown in dotted lines in the accompanying diagram, and the number of vibrations per second is also noted, taking the middle C of the piano as 256 vibrations per second. It will be observed that the lowest note of Gaspard Forster s voice is not much above the pitch at which the perception of musical tone begins, and that from this note to the upper note of Lucrezia Ajugari there is a range of nearly six octaves, whilst the extreme range of ordinary voices, from the lowest bass to the highest soprano, is a little over three octaves. It is also interesting to observe in connexion with this that the range of the human ear for the percep tion of musical tone is from do _ l to do 10, or from about 32 to 33,768 vibrations per second, eleven octaves. The quality of the human voice depends on the same laws that determine the quality, clang-tint, or timbre of the tones produced by any musical instrument. Musical tones are formed by the vibrations of the true vocal cords. These tones may be either pure or mixed, and in both cases they are strengthened by the resonance of the air in the air-passages and in the pharyngeal and oral cavities. If mixed that is, if the tone is compounded of a number of partials one or more of these will be strengthened by the cavities above the cords acting as a resonator ; and so strongly may these partials be thus reinforced that the fundamental one may be obscured, and a certain quality or timbre will be communicated to the ear. Further, Yon Helmholtz has shown that special forms of the oral cavity reinforce in particular certain partials, and thus give a character to vowel tones, indeed to such an extent that each vowel tone may be said to have a fixed pitch. This may be proved by putting the mouth in a certain form, keeping the lips open, and bringing various tuning forks sounding feebly in front of the opening. When a fork is found to which the resonant cavity of the mouth corresponds, then the tone of the fork is intensified, and by thus altering the form and capacity of the oral cavity its pitch in various conditions may be determined. Thus, according to Von Helmholtz, the pitch corresponding to the vowels may be expressed : Vowels OU Tone ... .. fa 2 O sib 3 No. of vibrations.. 170 470 940 AI S0l 5 re 4 1536 fa 3 EU do 5 or fa. U so! 5 or fa 2 1920 2304 1024 1536 or or or or 341 576 341 170 341 170 Koenig has fixed the pitch of the vowels differently, thus : Vowels OU O Tone sib2 sit&amp;gt;3 No. of vibrations. . 235 470 A sit&amp;gt;4 940 I Slb.5 1880 I sib 6 3760 Bonders has given a third result, differing from each of the above ; and there is little doubt that much will depend on the quality of tone peculiar to different nationalities. By means of Koenig s manometric flames with revolving mirror the varying quality of tone may be illustrated : with a pure tone, the teeth in the flame-picture are equal, like the serrations of a saw, whilst usually the tone is mixed with partials, which show themselves by the unequal serra tions. It is thus certain that quality of voice depends, not merely on the size, degree of elasticity, and general mobility of the vocal cords, but also on the form of the resonating cavities above, and there can be no doubt that very slight differences in these may produce striking results. 3. Condition of the Larynx in the Various Registers. In singing, one can readily observe that the tone may appear to come chiefly from the chest, from the throat, or from the head, or it may show the peculiar quality of tone termed falsetto. Authorities differ much in the nomenclature applied to these varieties of the voice. Thus the old Italian music masters spoke of the voce di petto, voce di gola, and voce di testa. Madam Setter describes five conditions, namely, the first series of tones of the chest register, the second series of tones of the chest register, the first series of tones of the falsetto register, the second series of tones of the falsetto register, and the head register. French writers usually refer to two registers only, the chest and the head ; whilst Behnke gives three registers for male voices (lower thick, upper thick, and upper thin), and five for the voices of women and children (lower thick, upper thick, lower thin, upper thin, and small). 1 These 1 See Voice, Song, and Speech, by Leuuox Browne aud Einil Belmke, 1883, p. 171.