192 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CANADIAN' INSTITUTE. 



service ; while the improvised recitations of Italy are said to preserve 

 it with very great fidelity. It is the nol>le ait in a gelatine stage, yet 

 between it and speaking there is a difierence which is pointed out by 

 Mr. Hullah when he says : " musical notes ar.^ discrete, speaking 

 notes concrete." He refers to inflection, the chief charm of speech, 

 and that which gives it so vast a range of expression. Now, withdraw 

 inflections from speaking, as we have already abstracted key-notes 

 and accompaniments with their dependencies from music, and you 

 come upon a platform which both have in common, and from which 

 they set out on their diverse developments, the monotone. The mayor's 

 proclamation in Henry VI., the ghost's speech in Hamlet, the well 

 known '' oyez, oyez, oyez," of our courts are rightly .said to be sung, 

 or intoned, or spoken. 



The cultivation of the speaking voice in respect of force, quality 

 time, stress and pitch, proceeds along the lines which singers adopt. 

 The musical scale is used in common. Good singing demands a wider 

 compass of compound tones than effective speaking which will be 

 satisfied with three or four notes, at most an octave. To speak well, 

 one should confine himself to those notes which he can best produce, 

 and upon them practice every form of modulation, particularly the 

 welding of notes or inflection. 



In the chart exercises, A is select"d, not Ijecause it only should be 

 used, but for other reasons. A is the centre of the vowel system, is 

 that tone which is most easily formed, which opens the mouth most 

 widely and best develops the possibilities of the human voice. O, E, 

 U, I, the intermediates and compounds are not to be neglected, but 

 return should frequently be made to A. 



The Consonants. — I had once thought of pursuing the subject 

 from the compound vowels to the liquids, and thence to the more 

 pronounced irregularities of the mute consonants. For the present I 

 pass from, that point of view, interesting as it may be or may some day 

 becoine, begin at the other end, adopt as the basis of classification the 

 formation-point of consonants in the mouth, beginning at the tip of 

 the lips and proceeding step by step backward to the base of the 

 tongue and soft palate. Within this space there ate two regions of 

 aspiration, the teeth and the back of the mouth, and two of light pro- 

 duction, the tip of the lips and mid-arch of the hard palate. Accord- 

 ingly, we have the mouth divided into three main and easily 



