The news and herald. (Winnsboro, S.C.) 1877-1900, 1883-07-10
Vocal Sounds.

a common defect in speaking in large
buildings is inability to catch the KEY
note or resonance vibration Of the en-
closed space. All large areas have such
resonance notes, and in some it is very
marked. Westminster Abby, for in
stance, consonates to G sharp, and in
toning OH this note is much more aud
lble than one a semitone above or below
1T. The use of an open-chest voice as
little vocaliZed as may be is the best.
1t is less laborious, less liable to acci-
dents, less liable to developthe affection
commonly known as "clergyman's
throat" and by removing the sensation
to effort, more easy and sympathetic.
TO analyZe the constituents of a good
dellVery-firsb come the pauses, Haste
is one Of the commonest faults in speech,
1t has two defects-the one in oyertax-
! ing the complex muscular mechanism
of the speaker, the other in adding to
the intellectual labor of the listener.
The rapidity ofreception of ideas through
the ear differs materially in different
persons, even excluding those distinctly
'hard of hearing" 1t is not great
among the uneducated, whence it has
lterate persons are deaf. But they do
state Of attention than the more cul-
tivated. Naval officers had defended
the practice of swearing, or, as it was
euphemistically termed ''shotting their
speech," with sailors, the explctivc
rousing attention and preparing the
mind for the succeeding command.
MIR. Hullah had OH a similar ground
explained the refrains of fal-al-las of
the older music in that they dilute the
too concentrated sense of the words. and
give time for the perception of the mus
ic. When the great actor Salvin was
i'll England, in 1875, an investigator
made some experiments on this point,
SalVini's voice was one of the most re-
markable ever heard for it's power of
travelling, even suppressed phrases
coming up to the distant gallery with
perfect clcarness. lie spoke on a note
about ID III the bass about the chest
and in sort of recitative; there were
distinct periods from accent to accent.
and the infections were very large, run
ming over al interval OF more than a
fifth. The individual wordscamc about
one a second, and the pauses were aston
ishingly long. They frequently amount
ed to four, several times to five, and at
the two great crises Of the play to seven
continuous seconds. And yet there
was no sense of delay or of interruption,
but quite the reverse. The lecturer in
cldentally noted another thing, which
the recent development of Wagner's
musical theories had invested with ad-
ditional interest. In the play 'II Gla-
diatore," the four principal characters
a young Christian virgin, a Roman
matroni the hero, a Roman officer, and
the gladator-formed an unintentionalc
though perfect, vocal quartet of sopra-
no, contralto, tenor and bass. Attimes
the altcrnations Of dialogue produced
a distinctly musical effect, an obserya-
ton which to his mind, strongly corro-
borated the views of the great musician
lately deceased, that dramatic music
instead OF being conventional, should
be the outflow of passion and emotion,
and that the result could be attained as
well from tho elecutionary as from
strictly melodramatic side.