Omaha daily bee., 1884-11-13

breath badly in talking, they make tones
by contracting the muscles Of the chest
and so using only the upper part of the
lungs, instead of using the one muscle
in the body best adapted to
breathing purposes, the diaphragm. The
single change from chest to diaphragm
motion will produce a marked effect in
the quality of voice produced. Not only
does the voice sound better, but the
speaker can talk longer without taking
breath, and continue speaking for an in
credibly longer time than he could from
chest motion. Nor is breathing the only
thing to be considered; the skull is full
of cavities whose only use go far as
known is that of resonance chambers for
the voice. The manner of using these
resonance cavities defines the quality Of
voice, the difference between iull, rich,
musical voice and a harsh, weak, irritat-
ing one is chiefly ratter of resonance.
One man 80 controls his voice that it uses
these resonance cavities, another disre.
CARDS them altogether.
Why is 1t that certain tones of the
voice IN talking excite certain emotions
That atress upon certain word in a sem
tence makes it mean one thing, a change
of quality on that same word makes it
mean something different Everyone
acknowledges that this is true, but why
is IL truel
That ia question no man dared to
ask until Delsarte, having carried his
study of human expression to unex-
ampled success, not only asked but
proceeded to answer this difficult question.
He analysed the tones of the human
voice; certain ones cause an emotion of
pleasure, Others of indignation, others,
again, are comic, maudlip, noble. So at
length the truth burst upon him that
each of mans three natures, the moral,
mental and physical, expressed itself as
well through tones as gestures; that one
class of tones was the expression of
physical emotions, another of mental, an
other of moral, and that, like gestures,
these classes of tones overlapped and
blended with each other, giving as a re-
suit the infnity of expressions of which
the human voice is capable. This dis.
covery was great gain to the world, but
the subject did not rest here. Melville
Bell, after close study of the anatomy of
the organs of speech, gave to to the
world what is known as "Bell's Visible
Speech, and to the wonder of all, the
deaf were taught to speak as other men.
Any sound made depends upon the posi-
tion of the several organs of speech. Bell
analysed these positions and showed
by diagram the positions the organs
take in producing any given sound.
After looking at the diagrams the
deaf mute put his organs in like
position, and the result soon
came to be word. Bells study
of vowels is peculiarly interesting, he has
given us scale of universal vowel sounds
including all vowel sounds possible to the
human voice. The secret is so simple
that one wonders it was not discovered
long ago. According to Bells theory, a
person can make any vowel sound by
knowing how to place the tongue, the
French 'e' and German umlant letters
become as simple to Americans as their
own sounds, the difficulty In getting the
foreign pronunciation existing in the fact
that they try to make foreign vowels and
keep the tongue i'll position for their own
sounds, and of course the result is fail
ure. Know just what part of the tongue
to raise, and the sound that comes over it
Ia the one expected.
Much bad reading results from the way
children in school are taught emphasis.
They read sentence; "John has new
hat" The teacher asks, "who has
new hat2" The child answers, "John
has new hat" Again the teacher re-
peats, "aoho has new hat?' John has
a new hat, and 30 on until the little
victim has given the word "John" all
the emphatic force of which he is cap
able. But this Is all one kind of emph.
asis only, the emphasis of force, is
taught, and what wonder that the child
reads with no more expression than
talking machine would use2 Emphasis
to him means loudness, and 80 all the
finer meanings given by other kinds of
emphasis are lost. 1t is the mission of
the new education to train the child to
read intelligently at the beginning, and
from such habits of using the voice as
may be of value to him in after life.