Aspiration (phonetics)

“ I tried to get a phonographic record of the whistling; but it simply produced no impression on the wax at all. That is one of the things that has made me feel queer, I can tell you. Another extraordinary thing is that the microphone will not magnify the sound—will not even transmit it; seems to take no account of it, and acts as if it were nonexistent. I am absolutely and utterly stumped, up to the present. I am a wee bit curious to see whether any of your dear clever heads can make daylight of it. ”

“ Not only so, but the amplitude of vibration in the one will determine the amplitude of vibration in the other, for the intensity of the induced current is determined by the amplitude of the inducing vibration, and the amplitude of the vibration at the receiving end depends upon the intensity of the attractive impulses. When we sing into a piano, certain of the strings of the instrument are set in vibration sympathetically by the action of the voice with different degrees of amplitude, and a sound, which is an approximation to the vowel uttered, is produced from the piano. ”

“ Not only is the vacuum tube a detector of electric wave signals and speech and music but it can also be used to amplify them, that is, to make them stronger and, hence, louder in the telephone receiver and further its powers of amplification are so great that it will reproduce them by means of a loud speaker, just as a horn amplifies the sounds of a phonograph reproducer, until they can be heard by a room or an auditorium full of people. ”

“ In view of the laws of tone, how great is the common error of speaking of the larynx as if it alone were the vocal organ, when the principal vibrations are above the vocal cords in the chambers of resonance!
Since the musical value, the beauty of tone, as well as its volume, comes only from right use of the resonator, our principal business must be the acquiring control of the vibratory air current above the larynx. The acquirement of this control involves the proper focusing or placing of the tone, with the free uncramped use of all the vocal organs; power will then take care of itself. ”

“ But Bell’s thin steel tongue, though it has its own fundamental note (and so has every tympanum, for that matter) when left free to vibrate in its own time, will reproduce any other note or sound that may be forced upon it by the varying attraction of the electro-magnet. There is, indeed, the whole difference between “free” and “forced” vibrations. One of the strangest delusions that has somehow grown up in recent telephonic discussions is the almost incredible proposition that a tongue cannot talk because it is a tongue. ”

“ Below the lesser-number, the tendency is to appreciate the separate vibrations as separate sounds. Above the higher number, the vibrations are inaudible to the human ear. The most acute perception of sound differences lies at about 3,000 vibrations per second. ”

“ The function of the organs of hearing, therefore, is to impart faithfully to the auditory nerve, every condensation and rarefaction occurring in the surrounding medium. The function of the auditory nerve is to bring to our consciousness the vibrations of matter resulting at the given time, both according to their number and their magnitude. Here, first, certain combinations acquire a distinct name: here, first the vibrations become musical tones or discords (Misstöne) . ”

“ Now, the speaking diaphragm in the telephone, as in the phonograph, presently to be described, must reproduce not only all the varieties of sound-wave corresponding to vowel sounds, with their intermixtures of the fundamental tone and its overtones and their inflexions or sliding changes of pitch, but also all the effects produced on the receiving diaphragm by those interruptions, complete or partial, of aerial emission which correspond to the pronunciation of the various consonant sounds. ”

“ If the person who wishes to hear by means of the Audiphone will hold the fan against the upper teeth,—the convex side of the fan outward,—he or she will hear distinctly, for the vibrations of sound are collected and strike upon the teeth and bones, and act upon the auditory nerves from within, precisely as the vibrations act from without through the auricle. ”

“ Apart from our ear, every tone is nothing more than the condensation and rarefaction of a body repeated several times in a second (at least seven to eight times [15] ) . If this occurs in the same medium (the air) as that with which we are surrounded, then the membrane of our ear will be compressed toward the drum-cavity by every condensation, so that in the succeeding rarefaction it moves back in the opposite direction. ”

“ Anything more than that which is exhibited in this way or by similar curves our ear cannot in the least perceive, and this is sufficient to bring to our consciousness each single tone and each given combination of tones. For, if several tones are produced at the same time, the sound-conducting medium is put under the influence of several simultaneously acting forces which are subject to the laws of mechanics.
If all the forces operate in the same sense, then the magnitude of the motion is proportional to the sum of the forces. ”

“ The string is tuned, by its tension and its weight, to a single note; the ear can adapt itself to receive and transmit to the brain only a limited range of notes. There are many vibrations in the air which are too rapid or too slow for reception by the human ear. ”

“ The vibrations once started in air spread in all directions, just as waves spread from a stone thrown into a pond, and when these air waves strike upon another object that is free to vibrate they will set it going at the same rate. The human hearing apparatus is a device which is set in vibration by air waves, and the result is called sound. The ear is limited in its ability to respond to vibrations; they must be neither too fast nor too slow; if slower than 16 a second, most people will fail to hear them, and the same is true if they are more rapid than about 40,000 a second. ”

“ In wires and bells the bodies themselves produce the sounds we hear. In wind instruments and the voice the air is the cause of the sound.
The very deepest notes are produced by the fewest vibrations. Fourteen or fifteen vibrations will give us a very low note, if not the very lowest. The pipe of sixteen feet, closed at its upper end, will produce sound waves of thirty-two feet. High notes can be formed from vibrations up to 48,000 in a second. Beyond these limits the ear cannot accept a musical sound. ”

“ In using the Audiphone during conversation there is no movement or vibration felt by the teeth; in listening to a piano there is a very faint sensation as if the Audiphone vibrated slightly, while with the handle of the Audiphone resting on the sounding-board of the piano the vibrations are so violent as to be painful to the teeth. By closing the ears a person with even acute hearing can observe the admirable manner in which the instrument conveys spoken words to the ear. ”

“ Yet, by breaking into the vowel-tone with certain expressive noises called consonants, we can give the vowel-tone such a turn as to make its motion a copy of a motion of sensation, which, reaching the mysterious mechanism of an ear, will be changed back into a sensation.
It seems strange that words should be nothing but music broken up by different expressive noises, but we all know how differently we are affected by different noises. And in music it is recognized that different keys produce different effects; certain keys better than others, exciting certain emotions. ”

“ PITCH. The various degrees of pitch in the compass of the voice depend upon the rate of vibration of the vocal cords. This rate of vibration, the pressure of breath being the same, is caused by the different degrees of tension of the vocal cords. If the vocal cords are drawn thin and short, the pitch will be high; as the tension diminishes, the pitch will be lower. The greater the number of vibrations to the second, the higher will be the pitch. A sound consisting of sixteen vibrations to the second produces the lowest pitch that has been recognized by the human ear as sound ”

“ There is, however, an absence of accurate investigation of this point; no one has endeavoured to ascertain how much of the complex effect is due to the rapid transitions of the ear from one sound to another, how much to the concurrence of several series of pulses in one augmented series, and how much to the composition of successive effects in the ear into a synchronous whole in the emotional wave, or general excitement of the brain. It will be found, by any careful observer, that in listening to a band, we are really occupied with very few of the sounds at the same instant of time ”

“ You will find that the string tuned to the pitch of your voice will start vibrating while all the others remain quiet. You can even go farther and try the experiment of uttering several different pitches, if you want to, and the corresponding strings will give back your notes, each one singling out its own particular vibration from the air. Now the results reached in these experiments with the piano strings meant a great deal more to Alexander Graham Bell than they would have meant to you or to me. ”

“ It may be here noted that in a paper on experiments in audition published in 1827 Wheatstone said: “The great intensity with which sound is transmitted by solid rods at the same time that its diffusion is prevented, affords a ready means of augmenting the loudness of external sounds and of constructing an instrument which, from its rendering audible the weakest sounds, may with propriety be named the microphone.” ”

“ A number of different forms of resonators can be used to illustrate this law; a law indeed which is of the greatest importance in connection with the mechanism of the human voice. Although notes are of the same loudness and pitch when played on different instruments or spoken or sung by different individuals, yet even a person with no ear for music can easily detect a difference in the quality of the sound and is able to recognise the nature of the instrument or the timbre of the voice. This difference in the timbre is due to harmonics or overtones. ”

“ There is nothing in the realm of sound at all corresponding to the actual photographing of a visible object on the retina; our auditive apparatus, whatever its mysteries, gives no sign of being in any way of the nature of a phonograph. Moreover, one element of music is certainly due to the sense of locomotion, the rhythm; so that sound, to become music, requires the attention of something more than the mere ear. ”

“ For whereas correct intonation depends upon the innate musical ear, which is able to control and regulate the tensions of the minute muscles acting upon the vocal cords, it is intelligence which alters and changes the form of the resonator by means of movement of the lips, tongue, and jaw in the production of articulate speech. The simple musical instrument in the production of phonation is bilaterally represented in the brain, but as a speaking instrument it is unilaterally represented in right-handed individuals in the left hemisphere and in left-handed individuals in the right hemisphere. ”

“ By speaking into the phonograph and reproducing the words, we are enabled for the first time to hear ourselves speak as others hear us; for the vibrations of the head are understood to mask the voice a little to our own ears. Moreover, by altering the speed of the barrel the voice can be altered, music can be executed in slow or quick time, however it is played, inaudible notes can be raised or lowered, as the case may be, to audibility. ”

“ If thus the reproduction [of tones] in exactly similar height and depth is easily attained, it is however difficult for our ear, amidst the always smaller vibrations, to which the diminished strength of the tone is due, to evaluate exactly the magnitude of the vibrations. But the character of the tone depends upon the number of variations of amplitude (Anschwellungen) , that is to say, depends upon whether, for example, in the tones which have similar pitch and therefore a similar number of waves per second, the fourth, sixth, eighth, tenth, or sixteenth wave is stronger than the others. ”

“ This [Pg 36] once accomplished, tests can be made with sounds of different kinds, different pitch, and different volume, varying the distance, the instruments, and the vowel when the articulate sounds are reached. He can be shown a whistle, then, when it is blown behind his back, he will hold up as many fingers as the times it was blown, if he perceives the sound. He can be asked to distinguish between a whistle, a little bell, and the clapping of the hands. When he is successful in that, the vowel sounds may be uttered not far from his ear, but behind him. ”

“ The extreme upper limit is not more than 35,000 vibrations per second. Auditory sensations are of two kinds—noises and musical sounds. Noises are caused by impulses which are not regular in intensity or duration, or are not periodic, or they may be caused by a series of musical sounds occurring instantaneously so as to produce discords, as when we place our hand at random on the keyboard of a piano. Musical tones are produced by periodic and regular vibrations. In musical sounds three characters are prominent—intensity, pitch and quality. ”

“ The three nails I have spoken of will not only do all, and that far better than Edison's carbon telephone in telephony, but has the power of taking up sounds inaudible to human ears, and rendering them audible, in fact a true microphone; besides it has the merit of demonstrating the molecular action which is constantly occurring in all matter under the influence of sonorous vibrations. ”

“ Increased loudness of the voice will not improve its carrying power if the resonator is improperly used; it will often lead to a rise of pitch and the production of a harsh, shrill tone associated with a sense of strain and effort. Aikin claims that by studying the whispering voice we can find for every vowel sound that position of the resonator which gives us the maximum of resonance. By percussing2 the resonator in the position for the production of the various vowel sounds you will observe a distinct difference in the pitch of the note produced. ”