Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 9.djvu/542

516 the sounds produced. Being implicated in some of the more energetic movements of the tongue, it rises or falls, but to no purpose. The larynx of the singer, while fixed in its position, multiplies its performance; the suppleness of all its parts is a matter of prime importance. The vibrations of the vocal lips and the resonance of the vestibule determine the timbre of the glottic sounds; the configuration of the pharynx and of the buccal cavity, by modifying the sounds formed in the glottis, produces the timbre of the voice. This cannot be altered to any considerable degree by even the most powerful efforts of the will. Professors of singing injure their pupils by prescribing in too absolute a manner the mouth arrangements which they themselves find most serviceable. Each individual must follow Nature, and M. Mandl had good reasons for begging singing-masters never to forget this truth.

Our ear is not affected by all sounds; those which are very low or very acute are not perceived. The limits of hearing are usually set at forty, and at forty thousand vibrations per second. Persons of extreme sensibility are not restricted within these limits, but their gift is not a source of pleasure; every one knows how painful it is to hear sounds that are too acute. Song is the result of modulated sounds separated from one another by harmonic intervals. The whole series of sounds from the grave to the acute is the musical scale; the voice has a greater or less range in different individuals. In the language of musicians, each series of consecutive and homogeneous sounds is a register; we have the chest-register, the head-register, etc. A strange idea has gone abroad: singers, being led astray by the resonance of the arch of the palate, and by certain peculiar sensations caused by the action of various muscles, have supposed that the voice comes now from the chest, again from the head. But, as every one must now be aware, voice is produced always in the glottis. Hence it were well, as M. Mandl advises, to abandon the use of terms which had their origin in a misapprehension, and to use instead of them the terms lower and upper register.

Singing requires far more precise arrangements of the vocal organs than does speaking. At the moment of producing the sound the glottic orifice should be absolutely shut; the voice-emission will be good provided the vocal lips go apart to the proper extent with a kind of suddenness. It is interesting to follow with the eye, by means of the laryngoscope, the play of the instrument in producing successively low and high notes. In producing very low notes the glottic orifice assumes the form of a very long, regular ellipsoid, with both extremities pointed; as the sound rises in pitch, the vocal lips at once approach each other, and the orifice, constricted at one point, appears to be divided into two parts; the pitch still rising, the uttermost limit of the register is attained, and then the glottic orifice becomes a linear slit. Passing to the upper register—the head-voice or falsetto—a