Now, to make the sound of any tone-producing element more intense, and
to give it some special quality, is the work of the resonator. If we
simply fix a fiddle string at either end, and, after giving it a certain
amount of tension, draw a bow across it, we shall certainly produce a
tone, but a very poor and faint one. Put the same string with the same
amount of tension upon a cheap violin, and the tone will be intensified,
and its quality changed, though that quality may be of a very unpleasant
kind. Repeat the experiment upon an Amati or a Straduarius, and not only
will the tone be more powerful still, but it will also have a full,
round, and beautiful quality. Something, it is true, depends upon the
string and upon the bowing, but we are here supposing the same string
and the same player, our object being to show how the _resonator_,
which, in this case, is the body of the violin, intensifies the tone of
the string, and affects its quality.
Illustrations exemplifying the same thing might be multiplied to any
extent, but the one I have just given will suffice. As with the string,
so with the vocal ligaments. Cut a larynx out of a dead body, put it in
proper position on the top of a bellows, and force the air through it,
and you will produce tone, but faint and poor tone. Now add a resonator
to the larynx, and the tone of the vocal ligaments will be intensified,
and its quality altered according to the kind of resonator you make use
of.
It is clear, therefore, that the human voice does not only depend upon
the vibrations of the vocal ligaments, and the corresponding vibrations
of the air passing between them, but also upon the resonator as defined
on p. 9. According to the natural formation of our resonator, and
according to the infinite variety of shapes which every one has it in
his power to give to it, our voices will be, always supposing the
conditions of the vocal ligaments to be the same, either full, round,
sonorous, and _beautiful_, or they will be poor, cutting, muffled,
guttural, nasal, and _ugly_.
As we have, or may easily acquire, absolute command over the resonator,
or, at least, over the greatest part of it, it is a comfort to know that
so very much depends upon it, and I trust my readers will now, with some
amount of pleasure, look with me at this part of the vocal apparatus.
The 1st and 2nd divisions of the resonator--namely, the pockets of the
larynx and the tube above the pocket ligaments--have been fully
described on pp. 52, 53, and no more need be said on the subject here.
The upper part of the throat, called in scientific works the "Pharynx"
(pl. I, P), is a cavity, the largest part of which may be seen through
the arch at the back of the open mouth. Its hinder wall is formed by the
spinal column, and it extends upwards as far as the Eustachian tubes
(pl. I, E) which communicate with the middle part of the ear. Here it
joins--
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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