Expressive Voice Culture, Including the Emerson System by Jessie Eldridge Southwick
page 6 of 35 (17%)
page 6 of 35 (17%)
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First, freedom of voice is attained (technically speaking) by right direction of tone and vital support. A few words of explanation will make this patent. If the vibrating column of air when it leaves the vocal cords is so directed that it passes freely through all the cavities of resonance, it cannot fail to find the right one. The following exercise, if properly taken, will induce right direction of tone: produce a light humming sound such as would be the sound of _m, n,_ or _ng_, if so idealized as to eliminate that element of sound commonly spoken of as nasality. That which is called nasality is caused by the failure of the tone to reach freely the anterior cavities of the nares. The cavity which lies just back of the nose and frontal bone imparts a musical resonance resembling the vibrating after-tone when a note has been struck upon a piano and allowed to die away gradually. The "nasal" effect comes when the tone is confined in the posterior or back part of the nares, or head cavity, or is split by the dropping of the uvula so that part of the tone is directed through the nares and part through the mouth. Many so-called "humming tones" are given for practice, but in accepting them observe whether the foregoing principle is obeyed. The controlling center of consciousness is the extreme limit of the _nares anteri_. The tone should be thought of as outside. Keep the mind upon results, just as one would hold the thought of a certain figure which one might desire to draw. If one wishes to inscribe a curve, he thinks of the curve as an object of thought, not of the muscles which act in executing it. So with the voice. A tone is not a reality until its form of vibration reaches the outer air. One should always think of the tone one wishes to make--never listen to one's own execution. If the ideal is |
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