Reading Aloud [pp. 254-260]

APPLETONS' JO URNAL.
Legouv6, are the only rules in reading that we are
never permitted to break. And if there is one thing
more important than inspiration it is expiration.
Never allow more breath to escape you than is absolutely necessary for the effect you wish to produce.
The singer Delle Sedie made it his boast that he
could sing the ascending and descending scale in
front of a lighted candle without causing the flame
to tremble. It was a proof that he wasted no breath.
Never to expend force uselessly is a lesson we should
all learn.
There is but one thing more to say, and that is,
that we can breathe most easily while standing erect,
or while sitting on a straight, high chair. Any position which compresses the lungs ever so slightly, by
bending the body, interferes with their freedom of
expansion. It is not only the power of undivided
attention to the song which a singer gains by having
an accompanist, it is also the full play of his lungs
secured by standing erect, instead of bending over
the piano.
Having learned how to take breath, we have to
learn when to take breath-a matter that is not wholly summed up in the rule, "Breathe always before
your lungs are empty," but depends partially on
more aesthetic considerations, upon the character and
sentiment of what you have to read. One general
suggestion may be given-always take advantage of
a pause, whether you need breath at the moment or
not.
Having our supply of air well under our control,
the next thing to think of is the proper management
of the vibrations which that air produces. We must
learn to pitch the voice properly, in the first place;
not only to find out and use only its best tones, but
to adjust it, as we have already seen, to the size and
acoustic qualities of the room in which it is used. It
is inconceivable how much distress is caused to both
speakers and hearers by a neglect of the first half of
this rule. How often we say of a speaker, "The
man has good tones in his voice, if he would only
use them!" The best tones in a person's voice are
always the easiest for him to use, if he only knew
it, because they are the result of the most natural
and harmonious adjustment of the vocal organs.
Find out which are the pleasantest tones in your
voice, and resolutely confine yourself within their
range. If you catch yourself reading or talking on
a different key, change the pitch at once, and those
tones will soon become your habitual ones. M. Legouve says little of pitch, but he tells this significant
story: M. ]3erryer, the famous French advocate, told
him that he one day lost an important suit because,
without noticing it, he had begun on too high a key.
His throat was soon tired; his brain grew weary and
confused; he forgot his strongest arguments-all because he had pitched his voice too high, and did not
know how to lower it.
But it is not enough to pitch the voice; we must
know how to reflect it, in order to bring out all its
best characteristics, the greatest amount of sweetness
and resonant power of which it is capable. If quality, as we have seen, is independent of pitch, upon
what is it dependent? Upon the resonance of the
mouth, which reinforces one or the other of the
tones of the vocal chords, and influences in a striking manner, says Professor Tyndall, the clang-tint
(or quality) of the voice. This shows us the importance of the proper adjustment of our soundingboard, a thing to which most teachers of the voice
pay little or no attention. All the air-passages above
the larynx, the pharynx, mouth, nose, and even the
cells in the frontal bone, form part of this soundingboard or resonance-tube; but, if we can properly
control the movements of the tongue, the other parts
will take care of themselves. It is a want of control of the tongue which causes a singer executing a
long passage on a word like day, for example, to
run over every known vowel-sound before finishing,
instead of preserving on every note the sound of
a. The proper control of the tongue, which enables us to take the form of a and hold it as long as
we like, can only be acquired by practice before
a mirror until the muscles learn their lesson, and
respond to our volitions. " Muscles," says Dr.
Streeter, "retain, to an almost indefinite extent, habits acquired," and it is upon this muscular memory
that we all depend, to an extent of which we are
quite unconscious. That there can be false intonation in speaking as well as in singing, I think we
are all aware. The sudden fall or rise of a voice in
speaking will strike a sensitive ear at once. The
power of musical intonation, we are told, depends on
the power of accurate adaptation of the muscular
parts concerned in the production of the voice to a
state known to be capable of producing the required
sound. This state is at first recognized by the effect
on the ear, and afterward directly through the "muscular sensibility" of the muscles concerned (" muscular sensibility" is, in other words, muscular consciousness, which is the first step toward muscular
memory). "Thus we have two memories stored up
-the memory of a definite sound and the memory
of a definite state of muscles. After a time the process becomes automatic." That is, we have acquired
that muscular memory of which we have just spoken,
by whose exercise, the moment we see t _ ]
we immediately say Do, with the vocal chords vibrating at the rate af two hundred and sixty-four times a
second.
So far, with the exception of the syllable just
named, we have only spoken of the production of
vowel-sounds at a given pitch; now comes the question of articulation-of the pronunciation of consonants. To illustrate their importance, one of the
most famous London singing-masters writes out for
his pupils a sentence composed entirely of vowels.
It is impossible to understand it. Then he gives it
to them with only the consonants written out and
the vowels omitted. It can be read with little difficulty. The consonants are the bones of the language, and upon the correct articulation of this skeleton depends the clearness of our speech. "All
consonants," says Professor Max Muller, "fall under
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