Speech
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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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