Tone (voice)

“ A tone is something to hear, and hearing is mental. An old French anatomist once said: “The eye sees what it is looking for, and it is looking only for what it has in mind.” The same is true of the ear. We hear the tone mentally before we sing it, and we should hear it as distinctly as if it were sung by another. ”

“ The vibrations of the voice, as you see now while I am speaking, cause that little flame on the needle to flicker, diminishing with the lowered degrees of a single tone and rising with its upward trend. ”

“ All artistic tone is reinforced sound. There are two ways of reinforcing tone. First, by direct muscular effort, the wrong way; second, by expansion and inflation, the added resonance of air in the cavities, the right way. This condition of expansion and inflation is the distinguishing feature of many great voices, and is possible only through right bodily position and action. These movements are used by many great artists, who develop them as they themselves develop, through giving expression to thought, feeling, and emotion, through using the impressive, persuasive tone, the fervent voice. ”

“ Let any one put on a laughing, sneering, or cross face, and then talk, he may notice how his tone of voice follows; the attitude of features belonging to each particular temper acts directly on the voice, especially in affecting the musical quality of the vowels. ”

“ The hands are clasped together, and often lifted, and the head often shaken with foolish vehemence. The tone of the voice is canting, or sing-song lullaby, not much distant from an Irish howl, and the words godly doggrell. ”

“ There seems little reason to doubt that the old Italian masters sacrificed many things, clarity of diction included, to beauty of tone. This they placed above everything. True, beauty of tone is the first essential of artistic singing, but it is not the only essential. If song is speech vitalized by music, then speech, the words to which music is set, has some claim to consideration. In fact, the singer's diction should convey the import of the spoken word with the added emotional eloquence of music. ”

“ An orator, by his tones as well as by his words, causes definite mental activities to take possession of his audience, thus influencing them with the action of their own minds. The language of tone is the language of the spheres, it is the language of the invisible world, it is the language of the angels. ”

“ The Third Study should have convinced you that a sense of good humor is a safe and desirable thing to cultivate; that the whimsical tone in interpretation will leaven almost any lump of sheer learning and counteract a serious overdose of sentiment; that fable, fairy tale, and nonsense rhyme depend too for successful interpretation upon this element of whimsicality in the reader; that the secret of the whimsical element in vocal expression lies in a use of pause and inflection. ”

“ The delivery should correspond. The tone should be, in some degree, ennobled; the movement deliberate, and comparatively even and measured; the modulation not marked by striking variations in pitch; the pauses rather regular, and the gesture always sparing, perhaps wholly omitted. The voice should be generally pure and fine; the enunciation should be finished and true. Whatever action there may be should be restrained, well poised, deliberate, with some degree of grace. ”

“ In applauding an orator we usually applaud ourselves. He says what we were just ready to say; we seem to have suggested the idea. It is superfluous to remark that slowness without gesture, and especially without facial expression, would be intolerable. A tone must always be reproduced with an expression of the face.
2. The voice must not be jerky. Here we must keep jealous watch over ourselves. The entire interest of diction arises from a fusion of tones. The tones of the voice are sentient beings, who love, hold converse, follow each other and blend in a harmonious union. ”

“ A tone first of all is a mental product, and its pitch, power, and quality are definite mental entities. When we wish to convey this tone to another we do it through the sound producing instrument which nature has provided for this purpose.
That everything exists first as idea has been the teaching of the philosophers for ages. That the idea is the controlling, governing force is equally well understood. Therefore, inasmuch as the aim of all voice building is to produce beautiful tone we must start with the right idea of tone. ”

“ A perfectly used voice, on the other hand, convinces the hearer that the singer has full command of all the resources of the vocal organs. Each tone is a perfect musical sound, free from fault or blemish. The voice moves from one note to another with ease and with purity of intonation. ”

“ There is a stage of study, as we have said, in the experience of all students of the voice, when, in order to become artists, Nature demands of them more than mere sound. There comes a time when every tone of the voice must mean something, must express something, through the character of the tone, the idealized tone. In this way the personal magnetism of the singer is imparted, heard, and felt. This means the expression of thought and feeling through the color and character of the tone, the highest known form of expression. ”

“ The student of the voice who studies or who is trained in this way, develops, not only in character and beauty of tone, but in actual physical power and control. This study of tone color and tone character develops new power in every way. "The mechanical and mental alone are but half development, but this is full and complete development of the entire being." In proof of this, sing a light, bright, happy thought or tone, using the clear timbre, about the middle of the voice. ”

“ By quality is meant the kind of voice—whether it is smooth or rough, rich or poor, large or small, expressive or non-expressive of the many emotions [p. 40] which the human voice is capable of producing. A tone may be raucous, because it is held in the throat; it may be nasal, through being held in the head; it may be breathy, through a waste of breath; or, on the other hand, it may possess those qualities of clearness, smoothness, and richness that come only from a properly developed and correctly used vocal mechanism. The quality of the voice may be pure, aspirated, or whispered ”

“ The flute-voice in the world of tone.
Read this passage aloud as a mere statement of fact, employing a matter-of-fact tone. Gray in color, is it not? Now let your voice take the color Lanier has blended for you. Let your tone, like a thing "half song, half odor," float forth on these words and linger as only a perfume can about the thought. Now let the tone change in color to clarify and glorify the following message from the flute: [13]
Sweet friends,
Man's love ascends
To finer and diviner ends
Than man's mere thought e'er comprehends. ”

“ The distinction between the sounds or tones of singing and those of speaking seems to be of the same kind with that between the steps, gestures, and motions of Dancing, and those of any other ordinary action; though in speaking, a person may show a very agreeable tone of voice, yet if he seems to intend to show it, if he appears to listen to the sound of his own voice, and as it were to tune it into a pleasing modulation, he never fails to offend, as guilty of a most disagreeable affectation. ”

“ It is in general, and especially in the case of the human voice, very difficult to distinguish these single parts of tone, because we are accustomed to take the impressions of the external world without analyzing them, and only with a view to their use. ”

“ There are also distinct qualities of voice, peculiar to each person, both in tone and quality, and the best practice is to try and imitate three or four people’s voices, and let them be of a different tone and pitch.
The ordinary compass of the voice is about twelve notes, and a very good practice to the attainment of the art is to call aloud in a certain note, and then in the octave to that note ”

“ Singing under these circumstances strains and weakens [Pg 289] the muscles of the throat and injures the voice. The harsher the tones the worse they are for the voice.
Beauty of tone is the only criterion of the correct vocal action. By listening to himself the singer may know whether his tone-production is correct. ”

“ When he has reached the point where he can sing every vowel and consonant perfectly, and with as little effort as when speaking, on every tone of his singing voice, and then have that voice loud enough to be well heard in any hall, the voice is completely and well cultivated. ”

“ Study of the Importance of Tone
When we are speaking in ordinary conversation, or in public address, the tones we use have much to do in making our meaning clear. How often a person, merely by the tone of his voice, conveys an entirely different meaning than was intended. ”

“ Tone quality is the first consideration, and the tone must be pressed no further than is possible while retaining the pure singing quality. Where voices have been forced and are accustomed to sing nothing but thick tones this building process is sometimes slow. The student finds an almost irresistible tendency to increase the resistance as he increases the power of the tone. ”

“ They carry on one dominant feeling, needing little variation of voice. The idea is to render them in a way near to the monotone, that the student may learn to control one tone, so to speak, or to speak nearly in one key, before doing the more varied tones of familiar speech or of complex feeling. We might say the passages are to be read in some degree like the chant; but the chant is likely to bring an excess of head resonance and is too mechanical. The true spirit of the selections is to be given, from the first, but reduced to its very simplest form. ”

“ There is selling value, too, in the placing of tones in your mouth. A tone placed far forward indicates lack of thought and instability. It is the tone we associate with "lip judgments." On the contrary, hidden thoughts, unwillingness to tell all you know, are suggested by tones placed far back in your mouth. The middle-of-the-mouth tone makes the impression that the voice is properly balanced, and suggests the associated idea of mind balance. Avoid the extremes in placing your tones, if you would make certain of the most effective use of your voice in selling ideas. ”

“ The principle underlying this statement is of immense comfort in approaching a class in vocal expression. The hope of satisfying results is fostered by the knowledge that a mere statement of the fundamental facts of right tone production will do much toward inducing a right condition for tone. ”

“ The need may be for a use of that expressive vocal form which requires, to be efficient, the rugged or the gracious elements of your vocabulary; the vital or the velvet tone; the straight inflection or the circumflex; the salient or the slight change of pitch; the long or the short pause. Whatever form the demand takes, the need remains for command of the efficient elements of tone and speech if we are to become masters of the situation and to attain success in our calling. How to acquire this mastery is our problem. ”

“ I have observed, however, that in thin voices a too broad opening of the mouth in the middle tones of the voice favors the high over-tones more than the fundamental tone, and the tones are thus flat and wanting in timbre. ”

“ The quality of voice to which I would here call special attention is called pure tone, which in its perfection, accompanied with strength and compass, comprises nearly all the requisites of a good voice. ”

“ He may arouse his interest in some particular thought and hold that in mind as he sings; the voice will then have warmth of tone and will readily receive meanings. He may express varying degrees of surprise in the face and he will find varying degrees, to correspond, of fulness and roundness go into the voice. The use of expression in the face as a means of giving character and quality to tone opens a field of experiment and experience which will lead any teacher to practical and beneficial result. ”

“ The character of the tone in certain portions of its register is very similar to that of the human voice, and without going too far, it may be said that it is possible to produce nearly all the varied effects of articulation of which the voice is capable, except actually speaking. ”

“ Additional difficulties arise when we have vocal changes, and moderate effort, in the degree of the change, is best. In running the tone up, one should let the voice take its own way. The tone should not be pushed or held by any slightest effort at the throat. ”

“ Conversational elements: Pitch, Inflection, Color, Stress, Pause, Movement, Time. Separate discussions and illustrations with number of exercises for the pupil to practice. Melody in verse and in prose.
EXPRESSIVE SPEECH [9] By Robert Lloyd
’Tis not enough the voice be sound and clear,
’Tis modulation that must charm the ear.
When desperate heroines grieve with tedious moan,
And whine their sorrows in a see-saw tone,
The same soft sounds of unimpassioned woes
Can only make the yawning hearer doze. ”

“ An aspirated tone is one that is surrounded with breath, only a portion of which is vocalized.
Whispered Quality. The whisper is seldom used by the orator, but is often employed by the actor. Whispered speech is speech that is produced by the articulation of breath without that breath being converted into voice. ”