Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 30.djvu/806

782

Common conversation is generally held in the major mode, and in the same key:

But when sad and pathetic it is in minor:

An unfriendly reply is mostly in an unrelated key:

Every person has his own fundamental and favorite key in which he generally speaks, but which he often transposes higher or lower in sympathy to other voices, and when he is excited. In divine service at church I have heard the minister begin in his natural key, and the choir sing the response in a higher key; when the minister, possessing a musical ear, gradually rose to the tone of the choir. In one instance the minister began the communion service in E flat, and the choir and organ gave the response in F. The minister gradually raised his voice, and by the fourth commandment met the tone of the choir, wherein he continued to the end.