ASPIRATED QUALITY.

135. The impure, or aspirated, quality of voice, arises from the escape, perhaps unconsciously to the speaker, of a quantity of air, before it is molded by the organs_into speech. In the language of excitement, it is caused by the force of emotion producing an undue pressure on the muscles of the throat, in consequence of which the vocal ligaments are strained to so great a degree that they can not prevent the escape of a rush of unvocalized breath with every sound, and hence the forcible whispering drift by which it is characterized.

The quality, thus caused, indicates, by its harsh and discordant effect upon the ear, the unusual and intense excitement of the speaker's emotional nature, and produces a corresponding disturbance or agitation of feeling within the heart of the hearer.

Its broadest animal effect is heard in the hoarse snarl of anger in the dog, which intimates danger to the mind of the hearer, and suggests the savage bite which may follow.

The utmost capacity of the vocal organs seems inadequate for the expression of the more intense exclamations of fear, alarm, terror, or horror, and they burst forth in a hoarse sound that is half vocality and half whisper. Macduff, on discovering the murder of Duncan, exclaims:

"O horror! horror! horror!

Tongue, nor heart, can not conceive, nor name thee!"

This impure vocality is also heard in a slight degree in the expression of dread, wonder, astonishment, and feelings akin to these. And it often becomes the habitual voice of those who are much exposed to the open air, as the sailor or soldier.

There is another effect produced by energy of utterance in which we hear aspiration; i. e., with the sound of the voice in joy, or any exhilerating emotion, is heard a rush of breath, which is most expressive in effect; for example, "Joy, joy! shout, shout aloud for joy!" Awe aspirates the tone, and in the forms of deep grief is heard this escape of breath.

The utterances of love, in its extreme degrees, not only become tremulous, but are also in a measure aspirated.

136. The cultivation of the whispering function, for application of force to the organs of voice in the production of aspirated quality, in its gentlest form, is the primary discipline of vocal culture. See ¶¶57

By this process, the organs are exercised in a manner entirely opposite to the practical use of the voice in the ordinary affairs of speech. The daily use of the voice, in most cases, is to call into play the active agencies of vocality in a partial or imperfect exercise of their respective functions, in consequence of which the full, round, and energetic sound of the elements is seldom brought out and perfected for the purposes of public address. The whispering process is the initiatory step in elementary vocal culture; by this aspirated discipline, the amount of muscular effort becomes apparent to the student, from the fact that his effort to produce articulation, in the form of whisper, appears more labored than in the mechanical exertion necessary to call forth and sustain pure vocal effect in its most forcible forms. After the articulated whisper has been brought under the control of the will, to the full effect of original precision and power, and after it has ceased to be used simply as an agent in the inception of culture, it becomes the intensifier of passion in the rushing sweep of what may be termed the fierce blast of excessive breath, as it overrides vocality in the expression of the more impassioned forms of epic or

M. E.-15.

dramatic description and delineation. Examples in "Coriolanus" and "Macbeth":

"Measureless liar!"

"I'll fight, till from my limbs my flesh be hacked."

Thus, it will be seen that the whispering function paves the way for all the progressive steps of the student, from the lightest forms of vocal force to the full powers of the tempestuous whirlwind of speech.

EXERCISES IN ASPIRATED QUALITY.

"O, if thou teach me to believe this sorrow,
Teach thou this sorrow how to make me die;
And let belief and life encounter so,
As doth the fury of two desperate men,
Which, in the very meeting, fall and die."

—“ King John," SHAKESPEARE.

O father, I see a gleaming light;

O say, what may it be?'

But the father answered never a word,

A frozen corpse was he."

The Wreck of the Hesperus," Longfellow.

"O men with sisters dear!

O men with mothers and wives!

It is not linen you're wearing out,

But human creatures' lives!

Stitch stitch! stitch!

In poverty, hunger, and dirt,——

Sewing at once, with a double thread,

A shroud as well as a shirt!"

-Song of the Shirt," Hood.

"Spare me, great God! Lift up my drooping brow;

I am content to die; but, oh, not now."

-"Earnest Prayer," MRS. Norton.

Macbeth.-There's one did laugh in his sleep,

And one cry'd, "murder!" that they did wake each other;
I stood and heard them: but they did say their prayers,
And address'd them again to sleep.

-" Macbeth," SHAKESPEARE.

PECTORAL QUALITY.

138. All emotions that call into play the pectoral quality, sink the voice into the lowest part of the chest, causing it to become the "voce de petto" (voice of the chest). Human suffering, whether it be mental or physical, causes the ringing vocality to be buried in deep reverberations of the thoracic cavity, resembling the groan, as aspiration resembles the sigh. It is mingled with aspiration. The aspirated orotund is often confounded with the pectoral. This quality may be easily recognized in King John's voice in his reply to Prince Henry:

Prince Henry. How fares your majesty?

King John.-Poison'd,--ill fare;-dead, forsook, cast off:
And none of you will bid the winter come,

To thrust his icy fingers in my maw;

Nor let my kingdom's rivers take their course
Through my burn'd bosom; nor entreat the north
To make his bleak winds kiss my parched lips.

-“King John," SHAKESPEARE.

Romeo.-Courage, man; the hurt can not be much.

Mercutio.-No, 't is not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church

I am

door; but 't is enough, 't will serve: ask for me tomorrow, and you shall find me a grave man. peppered, I warrant, for this world;-a plague o' both your houses!

--"Romeo and Juliet," SHAKESPEARE.

Shylock.-I pray you, give me leave to go from hence;
I am not well.

"Merchant of Venice," SHAKESPEARE.

PHYSICAL EXHAUSTION.

Adam.-Dear master, I can go no further: O, I die for food! Here lie I down, and measure out my grave. Farewell, kind

master.

"As You Like It," SHAKESPEARE.

SICKNESS.

"And wherefore should these good news make me sick?
I should rejoice now at this happy news;

And now my sight fails, and my brain is giddy:

O me! come near me, now I am much ill.

I pray you, take me up, and bear me hence
Into some other chamber; softly, pray.

Let there be no noise made, my gentle friends;
Unless some dull and favorable hand

Will whisper music to my weary spirit."

·

Henry IV" Part II, SHAKESPEARE.

FALSETTO QUALITY.

Of this quality, after much investigation, we find little that is at all satisfactory. All systems differ with regard to the causes by which it is produced. We can only repeat, in Rush's language: "The falsetto is a peculiar. voice, in the higher degrees of pitch, beginning where the natural voice breaks, or outruns its compass."

The falsetto would seem to be produced by the air being thrown immediately, from the glottis, up into the head,