LESSON XXXVI

TONE COLOR - Continued

GROUP III

THE THROATY, RASPING QUALITIES

VERY appropriate to the harsh and disagreeable sentiments, such as revenge, hate, scorn, contempt and the like, are the throaty, rasping qualities familiar to all in the utterance of a very angry child. One very good way to get these qualities is to growl very much as a dog, and then utter words with the same roughness and throat vibration. If you can really get angry upon some appropriate words, it will help.

CAUTION.

Do not practice this quality too much. It is apt to rasp the throat, and should be reserved for passions of the highest significance. Examples.

Othello: Peace, you were best.

Emilia: Thou hast not half the

power to harm me

As I have to be hurt. O gull! O dolt!

As ignorant as dirt! thou hast done a deed, etc.

Othello: 0, that the slave had forty thousand lives!
One is too poor, too weak for my revenge!

lago

Yet be content.

Othello: O, blood, blood, blood!

- SHAKESPEARE.

I have returned, not as the right honorable member has said, to raise another storm,—I have returned to discharge an honorable debt of gratitude to my country, that conferred a great reward for past services, which, I am proud to say, was not greater than my desert. I have re

turned to protect that constitution, of which I was the parent and founder, from the assassination of such men as the honorable gentleman and his unworthy associates. They are corrupt — they are seditious – and they, at this very moment, are in a conspiracy against their country! I have returned to refute a libel, as false as it is malicious, given to the public under the appellation of a report of the committee of the Lords. Here I stand for impeachment or trial! I dare accusation! I defy the honorable gentleman! I defy the Government! I defy their whole phalanx!- let them come forth! I tell the ministers I shall neither give them quarter nor take it! — GRATTAN in Reply to Mr. Corry.

Your sires were soldiers brave, not prowlers base,
Rogues, miscreants, felons, village ravagers!
They made great wars, they rode like heroes forth,
And, worthy, won broad lands and towers and towns,

So firmly won that thirty years of strife

Made of their followers dukes, their leaders kings!
While you! like jackal and bird of prey,

Who lurk in copses, or 'mid muddy beds,
Crouched and hushed, with dagger ready drawn,
Hide in the noisome marsh that skirts the way,
Trembling lest passing hounds snuff out your lair!
Listen at eventide on lonesome path

For traveler's footfall, or the mule-bell's chime,
Pouncing by hundreds on one helpless man,
To cut him down, then back to your retreats
You dare to vaunt your sires? I call your sires
Bravest of brave and greatest 'mid the great,
A line of warriors! you, a pack of thieves!

And, Douglas, more I tell thee here,

Even in thy pitch of pride,

Here in thy hold, thy vassals near,
(Nay, never look upon your lord,

VICTOR HUGO.

And lay your hands upon your sword,)
I tell thee, thou'rt defied!

And, if thou said'st I am not peer

To any lord in Scotland here,

Lowland or Highland, far or near,

Lord Angus, thou hast lied! — Scott.

GROUP IV

THE DEEP, HOLLOW QUALITIES

Every student is familiar with the common attempt to scare a person by assuming a deep, hollow, fear-inspiring voice such as it is imagined ghosts might have. This is but true to nature, for these deep, hollow qualities do inspire terror, awe, and the like. The deepest reverence and sublimity sometimes, however, are also appropriate sentiments for this, but it can easily be seen these partake of the element of intense fear, such as oppresses the personality. The voice really comes from trying to expand the chest cavity to a much greater degree than is usually attained, usually in an attempt to personify a being or comprehend an idea of larger or grander proportions. Examples:

From Hamlet:

Hamlet: Whither wilt thou lead me? Speak; I'll go no further. Ghost: Mark me.

Hamlet: I will.

Ghost:

My hour is almost come,

When I to sulphurous and tormenting flames
Must render up myself.

Hamlet: Alas, poor ghost.

Ghost: Pity me not. I am thy father's spirit ;
Doomed for a certain term to walk the night.

Also, from Macbeth:

Now o'er the one half world
Nature seems dead, and wicked dreams abuse
The curtained sleep; now witchcraft celebrates
Pale Hecate's offerings, and withered murder,

Alarmed by his sentinel, the wolf,

Whose howl's his watch, thus with stately pace,
With Tarquin's ravishing strides, towards his design
Moves like a ghost.

LESSON XXXVII

GATHERING UP THE ENDS

If the student has pursued the preceding lessons carefully, he will doubtless have perceived that certain lessons seem more or less related to others. For instance, he may have noticed that where certain passages have low pitch, they also have slow movement, or that where the movement is slow the pauses are longer, etc. This interrelation

of the elements of speech is found throughout all study of the subject, and it may be well to point out some of the more marked examples of it.

Relation between method of applying force, and stress. Especially plain is the relation between the manner of applying force, and stress. Where the force is applied smoothly and gently, it will be found that the median stress prevails. Where it is applied explosively, radical stress will prevail.

Pitch and rate of utterance. preceding relation is the relation voice and its rate of utterance.

Fully as apparent as the

between the pitch of the If the pitch of the voice

is high, generally the rate of utterance is rapid. If the pitch is low, a slower rate is used.

Pause and rate of utterance. It is readily apparent that as the rate of utterance decreases, the pauses increase in length.

Quantity and rate of utterance. Just as evident as the relation between pause and rate, is the relation between quantity and rate. The longer the syllables are prolonged,

the longer are the pauses prolonged, - this very clearly for the reason that proportion must be maintained.

Manner of applying force, and rate. When force is applied smoothly and gently, usually the rate of utterance is made slower, because it takes longer to start a note, swell it, and then let it die away, than it does to utter it as one decisive stroke.

Degree of force and rate.

From the fact that it takes

some time to bring out a tone to its full carrying value, when a person is using a great deal of loudness the rate must be made slower.

Stress and inflection. Very apparent among the interrelations of the elements of speech is the relation between stress and inflection. If median stress be used, the inflection is apt to be wavelike in form, first rising and then falling. If compound stress is used, usually there appears with it a double wave, the voice first rising and then falling, only to rise again at the end of the inflection.

Melody and inflection. - Melody and inflection are closely related. Usually if there is a rising melody, there are rising inflections predominating, and if there is descending melody, there are falling inflections predominating. In broken melody the inflections are longer. In monotone the inflection is apt to be level.

Quality and time. — Quality and time are very closely connected. Often what is due to one is attributed to the other. And quality often depends on time, for if a note is given quickly and then is stopped suddenly, oftentimes there is not time enough for it to set up the sympathetic overtones upon which depend the qualities of the voice. The note may be given in the short, quick, decisive quality, consisting merely of the fundamental, curt, short, mere matter of fact; or it may be held until echoes are set up in the remotest chambers of the vocal apparatus, almost