HARMONY IN MUSIC. 85 



The following easy experiment clearly shows that it is in- 

 ilifferent whether the several simple tones contained in a com- 

 pound tone like a vowel uttered by the human voice come from 

 one source or several. If the dampers of a pianoforte are raised, 

 not only do the sympathetic vibrations of the strings furnish 

 tones of the same pitch as those uttered beside it; but if we sing 

 A (a in father) to any note of the piano, we hear an A quite 

 clearly returned from the strings; and if E (a in fare or fate), 

 O (o in hole or ore), and U (po in cool), be similarly sung to the 

 note, E, 0, and U will also be echoed back. It is only necessary 

 to hit the note of the piano with great exactness. 1 Now the 



for a very slight variation in pronunciation would produce a change in the 

 fundamental tone, and consequently a more considerable change in the position 

 of the upper partials. The tones given by Bonders, which are written below 

 the English equivalents, are cited on the authority of Helmholtz's Tonem- 

 pfindungen, 3rd edition, 1870, p. 171, where Helmholtz says: ' Bonders'* results 

 differ somewhat from mine, partly because his refer to a Butch, and mine to a 

 North German, pronunciation, and partly because Bonders, not having had the 

 assistance of tuning forks, could not always correctly determine the octave to 

 which the sounds belong.' Also (ib. p. 167) the author remarks that b"V- answers 

 only to the deep German a (which is the broad Scotch a', or aw without 

 labialisation), and that if the brighter Italian a (English a in father) be used, 

 the resonance rises a third, to d'". Br. C. L. Merkel, of Leipzig, in his Phy- 

 siologic der menschlichen Sprache, 18G6, p. 109, after citing Helmholtz's experi- 

 ments as detailed in his Tonempfindungen, gives the following as ' the pitches 

 of the vowels according to his most recent examination of his own habits of 

 speech, as accurately as he is able to note them.' 



cool hole ore Scotch father French French fat fare fate feel 



nearly 



' Here the note a applies to the timbre obscur of A with low larynx, and b to 

 the timbre clair of A with high larynx, and similarly the vowel E may pass 

 from d" to e" by nan-owing the channel in the mouth. The intermediate 

 vowels O, A, have also two different timbres, and hence their pitch is not fixed ; 

 the most frequent are consequently written over one another ; the lower note is 

 for the obscure, and the higher for the bright timbre. But the vowel U seems 

 to be tolerably fixed as a', just as its parents U and I are upon d and a", and it 

 has consequently the pitch of the ordinary a' tuning fork.' TK. 



1 My own experience shows that if any vowel at any pitch be loudly and 



