The mirror., 1916-12-07
YER STUDIE NO.lO
Constructive Lessons In Verse.
Tone Color.
BY Beau Esprita


strument. Throughout the centuries he has been
fruitessy trying to initiate the beauty of vocal
in some mechanical instrument, and recognize as
the beautiful tone producing instruments those
that approximate the ideal of voice. the flute
the organ, and especially the VIOLIN No instrument
has ever been invented that could make sounds the
human voice cannot make-except in the degree,
l. e. volume and pitch-and none has been made that
could rival voice in timbr+. tone-color. The mel
lowest, most musical tones of the human voice are
those made with open throat. mouth, and lips, And
in direct ratio close the throat, the mouth, or
the lips the tones emitted become less musical un-
pleasant.
When men first began to use their voices to e4-
press ideas and emotions, they tried to initiate the
sounds made by the object referred to. Often these
sounds unpleasant to the ear, but they
descriptive and therefore highly suitable the
quirements of primitive intelligence. AS man de-
veloped Intellectually. he found more and Oh
ects, ideas, emotions, to be expressed in terms of
sound; he also found that many of these IDEAS OBJ
jects emotions, capable of being expressed
solely by initiative sounds. AS the power of
thought developed, found it increasingly
sary make of certain sounds to stand for OBJ
ects ideas of which they in wise initiative
descriptive. So begun the of words,
sound groups, symbols; certain group of sounds
meaning thing, another group meaning a second,
another third, etc. 1t must have become evil
dent that the human voice could not produce sep
sound for each object or idea and so
the of the sounds, in different relations to
each other, came totally different things
There enough musical tones in the human
voice to supply the growing demand for new
groups of sounds to express mems growing font of
ideas; and unmusical sound used to increase the
vocabulary.
Now our written languages of today consist of
group Of signs symbols which call letters of
the alphabet, each sign symbol standing for GER
tain voice sound. By grouping these signs-alpha-
betical letters-we symbolic sound groups which,
when make them with the voice become words.
Some of signs letters stand for musical
sounds-sounds made with open throat, mouth, and
lips We call these vowes. Some of our signs
stand for sounds made with the throat, or the
mouth the lips partially wholly closed. These
are the consonants; and they musical in
ito to the degree that the vocal passages are open
when sound them. We also have few signs or
letters, included in the consonants which stand for
sounds made not with the voice at ALL but by expel-
ling the breath between the tongue and teeth, and
these sounds distinctly unmusical 1t is exteme-
ly unpleasant to listen to person who pronounces
his her ss' very distinctly.
Words, in verse construction and poetry, per-
form three-fold offce; first to express thought,
through their symbolic meaning second, to express
action appearance, through their descriptive and
initiative qualities, and third to express beauty,
through the sounds of the human voice required for
their pronunciation.
1t is possible to write very beautiful verse with
out very much meaning 1t is also possible to write
packed with intellectual meaning, but which
is far from beautiful.
DIR. }. B. Esenwen says in his book
construction, The words which poet uses may be
compared to the bits of colored glass with which
worker in mosaic forms his picture. AS the artist
combines contrasts. and harmonizes his colored bits
of material, the poet combines. contrasts and
harmonizes the syllabes of his words echoing VOW
el with vowel, enhancing consOnant with cOnsonant,
and the resulting quality call TONE COLOR"
In order to produce this tone. color, the verse
writer must have clear notion OF which sounds are
all beautfu-a-e-i-o-u-. Those consonant
sounds which leave much possible of the throat
and mouth open, are beautlful--l-r-m-f-etc
The sounds of and b, of and g, of and d. are
not beautiful because they close the vocal pas
sages. producing abrupt, choppy, effect or gur-
gle. The sound of s." not being vocal at all, is
harsh and unpleasant 1t is in the use and contrast
of many possible of the beautiful voice sounds.
with the minimum of unpleasant voice sounds that
the highest effects of tone color are nrodnced Do