The Brain and the Voice in Speech and SongMott, F. W. (Frederick Walker)
Science
The Brain and the Voice in Speech and Song
Mott, F. W. (Frederick Walker)
Voice
I have on page 77 referred to Stricker's views on the primary revival of
words in the sense of movement of the lips and tongue. Mach ("Analysis of
the Sensations") says: "The supposition that the processes in the larynx
during singing have had something to do with the formation of the tonal
series I noticed in one of my earlier publications, but did not find it
tenable. Singing is connected in too extrinsic and accidental a manner with
hearing to bear out such an hypothesis. I can hear and imagine tones far
beyond the range of my own voice. In listening to an orchestral performance
with all the parts, or in having an hallucination of such a performance, it
is impossible for me to think that my understanding of this broad and
complicated sound-fabric has been effected by my _one_ larynx, which is,
moreover, no very practised singer. I consider the sensations which in
listening to singing are doubtless occasionally noticed in the larynx a
matter of subsidiary importance, like the pictures of the keys touched
which when I was more in practice sprang up immediately into my imagination
on hearing a performance on the piano or organ. When I imagine music, I
always distinctly hear the notes. Music can no more come into being merely
through the motor sensations accompanying musical performances, than a deaf
man can hear by watching the movements of players. I cannot therefore agree
with Stricker on this point" (comp. Stricker, "Du langage et de la
musique," Paris, 1885).
Of the motor type myself and having a fairly good untrained ear for music,
I find that to memorise a melody, whether played by an instrument or by an
orchestra, I must either try to sing or hum that melody in order to fix it
in my memory. Every time I do this, association processes are being set up
in the brain between the auditory centres and the centres of phonation; and
when I try to revive in my silent thoughts the melody again, I do so best
by humming aloud a few bars of the melody to start the revival and then
continuing the revival by maintaining the resonator in the position of
humming the tune, viz. with closed lips, so that the sound waves can only
escape through the nose; under such circumstances the only definite
conscious muscular sensation I have is from the effect of closure of the
lips; the sensations from the larynx are either non-existent or quite
ill-defined, although I hear mentally the tonal sensations of the melody.
No doubt by closing the lips in silent humming I am in some way
concentrating attention to the sensori-motor sphere of phonation and
articulation, and by reactive association with the auditory sphere
reinforcing the tonal sensations in the mind. The vocal cords (ligaments)
themselves contain very few nerve fibres; those that are seen in the deeper
structures of the cords and adjacent parts mainly proceed to the mucous
glands. This fact, which I have ascertained by numerous careful
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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