ON VOCAL SOUNDS. 

 By John Gray M'Kendrick and Albert A. Gray. 



Contents : — Voice Production, p. 1206 — The Singing Voice, p. 1206 — Tone Intensity, 

 p. 1207— Tone Pitch, p. 1207— The Range of the Voice, p. 1207— The Muscular 

 Mechanisms which affect the Vocal Cords, p. 1209 — Voice Registers, p. 1210 — 

 The Quality of the Voice and Vowel Tones, p. 1215 — Theories of Vowel Tones, 

 p. 1216 — Wave-forms of Vowel Tones, p. 1220 — The Fourierian Analysis of 

 Wave-forms, p. 1221 — Phonograms, p. 1224 — General Conclusion, p. 1233 — 

 The Consonants, p. 1233 — Effect of the Cavities in connection with the Larynx 

 and Pharynx upon the Voice, p. 1235 — Whispering, p. 1236. 



Voice Production. 



Voice is produced by the vibrations of the vocal cords, and developed 

 by the resonance of the upper cavities. It is to be distinguished from 

 speech, which is the production of sounds intended to express ideas. 

 Many of the lower animals have voice, but none have the power of 

 speech in the sense in which man possesses that faculty, or, at all events, 

 the range of animal speech is very limited. There may be speech 

 without voice, as in whispering, or voice without speech, as in singing 

 notes without words. 



The singing voice. — One of the functions of the larynx is the 

 production of the singing voice, and hence it is to be looked upon as 

 a musical instrument ; but when an attempt is made to compare it with 

 the various instruments used by musicians, we find that it is quite 

 different from any of these. It is most nearly allied to reed instru- 

 ments, the essential factor in both being that the air is made to pass 

 through a narrow chink, and in doing so it is cut up into a series of 

 successive puffs. The similarity, however, ends here; for in reed in- 

 struments changes in pitch are obtained by alterations in the dimensions 

 of the resonator which is attached to them ; while in the case of the 

 larynx the pitch is regulated primarily by changes in the length, tension, 

 and thickness of the membranous tongues themselves. The action of 

 the vocal cords, however, may be compared with that of the performer's 

 lips in playing a brass instrument, and his lips may further be likened 

 to membranous tongues. It is to the membranous yielding nature of 

 the vocal cords that the peculiar softness of the human voice is to 

 be attributed ; we find that in reed instruments in which the tongues 

 are made of brass or metal, the tone is apt to be cutting, on account 

 of the presence of large numbers of high upper partials. 1 



The larynx, therefore, may be compared roughly to a reed instrument, 

 in which changes in pitch are produced by alterations in the tension, 

 length, thickness, and breadth of the cords themselves, and possibly, 



1 Helmholtz, "Sensations of Tone," translated by Ellis, 3rd ed., p. 151. 



