Chapter 13

CHIEFLY AN APPLICATION TO VOICE-PRODUCTION OF FACTS AND PRINCIPLES PREVIOUSLY CONSIDERED.

Vowels, consonants, noise--Consonants and pauses--Voice-production and vowels--Certain vowel sounds common to most languages--Why German and English are relatively unmusical--The needs of the musical artist--The mechanism required for the production of a vowel sound--Reconsideration of the resonance-chambers--The larynx to be steadied but not held rigidly immovable--The principal modifiers of the shape of the mouth-cavity--Breath to be taken through the mouth--The lips--Tongue and lip practice before a mirror--Importance of the connection between the ear and the mouth parts, etc--"Open mouth"--The mouth in singing a descending scale--Undue opening of the mouth--Proper method of opening the mouth--Causes of compression and the consequences 195