components of the tone are such as to produce a group of responses which integrate with each other nicely and seem pleasant to the hearer, he pronounces the tone one of good quality. The eardrum of a person listening to orchestra music is being bombarded by condensation impacts in the air at an enormous variety of different rates. Our judgment of quality must depend upon whether or not we find it convenient and comfortable to react simultaneously to all of these different stimuli.

In the preceding chapter we have explained that the vocal folds in the human larynx have such intricate muscle attachments that they may be tensed in many ways. Thus it comes about that these folds may initiate a fundamental tone by unitary vibration, and many partial tones or overtones by segmental vibration. As we have seen, the function of the resonators, the pharynx, the nasal passages, the sinuses, and the mouth, is to reinforce these several partial vibrations as well as the fundamental. This is the mechanism by which vocal quality is produced.

Several other terms have been used at different times to describe vocal quality. Two of the most useful are "tone color" and "timbre." Whoever originated these terms must have had a good deal of understanding, based either upon intuition or experimentation, of the real nature of sound. Tone color, of course, suggests the phenomena which we have in color mixture, an analogy which has considerable applicability in describing tone. Timbre is a word of French derivation, which means "tone color," or "clang tint." The difference between middle C on the piano and middle C on the saxophone is wholly a matter of difference in tone quality. The most important difference between one human voice and another is a matter of tone quality. Professor D. C. Miller of the Case School of Applied Science has performed some very interesting experimental work in the analysis and synthesis of tones.1 He has determined by mathematical analysis the 1D. C. Miller, The Science of Musical Sounds.

fundamental tone and the principal overtones in a particular human voice, and has then constructed a group of organ pipes to reproduce this combination of fundamental and overtones so accurately that when the organ pipes are sounded together, the particular voice can be clearly recognized.

B. The Physiology and Psychology of Vocal Quality. Any person's characteristic vocal quality must necessarily be the result of the anatomical structure and the physiological functioning of his voice mechanism. If he has very small nasal resonators the complexity of the vocal tone may be reduced, since many of the partials find no resonators tuned to their particular pitches.2 The muscle tone of the pharynx undoubtedly has a good deal to do with resonating the vibrations which come from the vocal folds. If these muscles are too flabby, the voice quality is likely to be muffled and weak, whereas, if these muscles are too tense, the tone quality is likely to be harsh and clangy. As has been explained in the preceding chapter, the soft palate must be functioning properly if unpleasant nasality is to be avoided in vocalization.

Vocal quality is a matter of total, or emotional response. It is, by virtue of this fact, more definitely than any of the other physical elements of voice associated with other emo

tional responses. Vocal quality changes are therefore produced primarily by changes in the emotional tone of the whole organism. They reveal fundamental attitudes and states, rather than intellectual distinctions. We have no difficulty in recognizing a cry of fright, no matter what language is used. We can feel perfectly certain that people manifesting a particular kind of vocal quality are angry, even though we cannot understand the words they speak. We know that one speaking like Captain Absolute in "The Rivals," when he is supposed to be making love, and in order to disguise his voice is using a hard, gruff quality described by his father as "croaking like a frog in a quinzy," is doing something decidedly inappropriate. It is a significant fact that the vocal qualities which are most G. N. Merry, op. cit.

easily identified are those associated with the fundamental emotional states of man-hunger, fear, pain, rage, and love. Of course we conventionalize refinements of these fundamental emotional states and learn to recognize shadings of vocal tone as indicative of derived and secondary emotional states. It is of great importance in a comprehensive system of voice training to follow the fundamental order and begin with these total vocal changes, and gradually work up through the changes requiring more delicate and specialized adjustment of the vocal muscles. We should strive to build as large a vocabulary of tones as possible, the first consideration being, as in the case of visible action, to gain flexibility and versatility. One of the commonest faults in vocal quality is that of monotony, which means one quality all the time. The fact that one quality is appropriate at one moment for the expression of a particular kind of feeling, clearly implies that it will be quite inappropriate for the expression of a different emotional state. This is where we begin voice training, viz., with the attempt to build up a tone vocabulary and to learn how to use this vocabulary most appropriately and effectively in stirring up in our hearers the emotional responses which will help us most in the accomplishment of our purpose.

Monotony may be a matter of too low a tension of the bodily muscles generally. People who have been suffering from a long illness or from the wasting effects of disease, or those whose emotional life has dropped down to practically zero, who feel nothing very deeply, are likely to have monotonous voices. On the other hand, those who are given to moods, who are intensely emotional, but whose emotion lacks variety, may have voices equally monotonous, even though the quality be quite different from that growing out of states of depression and lethargy. The effect of muscle tonicity on vocal quality is the utmost importance. One marked reason for vocal monotony is embarrassment or stage fright. These emotional states tend to produce a vocal quality which is characteristic of fear responses. A good many unhappy laryngeal tensions,

harmful to the voice mechanism are present, and constitute a great handicap to everything which the speaker tries to do.

Training in vocal quality means training in a large number of different emotional responses; and it means training in the full, complete, and varied uses of the resonators.

II. THE DIFFERENT VOCAL QUALITIES

Since Dr. James Rush3 published his pioneer work about a hundred years ago, writers on voice have discussed eight different vocal qualities. In the order in which we shall take them up these are: the aspirate, the guttural, the pectoral, the nasal, the oral, the falsetto, the normal, and the orotund. We shall now explain briefly what is meant by each of these terms and what use is commonly made of them.

A. The Aspirate. There is a sense in which the aspirate is not really a quality at all because the pure aspirate is really a combination of articulate noises, rather than a modification of vocal tone. The word "aspirate" means a sound consisting of, or characterized by, breathing. It is breath unvocalized and made into speech by the tongue, the teeth, and the lips. Such vibration as is present is of a very irregular type produced by what are known as air blades. The wind whistling around the corner of the house vibrates in this fashion. The whisper is a pure aspirate quality. What is known as the stage whisper has in it elements of laryngeal vibration, or tone. We are here talking about the speech which occurs without any laryngeal vibrations whatever. The glottis is wide open, the breath passes through freely, and nearly all the vibrations which occur, occur above the larynx. The aspirate quality is associated with extreme emotional states which either effect a paralysis of the laryngeal muscles or in some other way render the speaker voiceless.

In the World War there were many cases of soldiers who through shell shock and other forms of violent fear lost their power to produce laryngeal sound. Some of them, ten years 3 Tames Rush, The Philosophy of the Human Voice.

later, are still in the same condition - never having regained the power to control their laryngeal muscles. Most of these people can whisper. There are many real values to be derived from the practice of whispering. Among these values should be mentioned the discipline of the breathing apparatus. The whisper requires the use of a great deal of breath, and training in whispering means training in deep and controlled breathing. If the whisper is going to be made loud enough to be heard at a distance this must be accomplished by extremely forcible action of the abdominal muscles in producing a breath stream which will result in sufficient air blade vibration. In addition to providing training in breathing, practice in the aspirate quality makes for skilled and efficient use of the articulatory mechanism. Slovenly, careless enunciation is one of the besetting sins of the American people, a sin in which students share with the great mass of our citizens. No one thing would do more to improve the speech of the average man than a marked increase in the activity of the tongue, the lips, and the soft palate.

B. The Guttural. The word "guttural" itself sounds a \ great deal like the quality for which it stands. It comes from a Latin word meaning "throat." The quality is therefore a throaty quality. It is the quality associated with violent emotions which choke the utterance. It comes from tensions in the laryngeal and pharyngeal muscles, very intense activity at the root of the tongue, which pulls the tongue back, obstructing the pharynx, and probably pushing the epiglottis down over the opening of the larynx. The growl of a dog represents this quality. Any intense emotion is likely to cause these muscle tensions in the throat, and produce the guttural quality. On the whole, there is rather little value to be derived from the practice of this quality because the uses for it are relatively rare, and the constrictions which produce it are largely involuntary, functioning on the few appropriate occasions, without any conscious attention on the part of the speaker. This is the quality of which teachers of vocal music