Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

semitone. If your moan or wail sounds genuine, and the tremor adds to the mournfulness of it, then each little break, or tittle, of the tremor is itself a brief concrete of the semitone. When you clearly recognize the effect of this continued wave of the semitone, and its execution makes your eyes 'water', discard the swell and the tremor, and try to make the simple rise and fall of the interval, with very subdued force. The rise and the fall are only just perceptible, but should be perceived, and distinguished from each other; watch for the mournful expression.

Note that the throat adjustment for semitonic intonation differs from the adjustment for the major intervals. Nobody, perhaps, can tell exactly what the difference is; but you can feel the difference. The muscles of the lower throat, the pharynx, the soft palate, and the back tongue, are on a strain; and after you have practiced even a little while, you become aware of a 'heartsick' lump in the throat, such as is felt in extreme grief.

Practice of pathetic expression should be in short periods.

MIND AFFECTS VOICE; VOICE AFFECTS MIND.

Mind and voice react on each other. If your inflections are semitonic and your voice color is dark, you cannot help feeling a corresponding emotional sympathy. If you are suffering from deep grief, wasting sickness, physical or mental anguish, or extreme fatigue, you cannot keep the signs out of your voice; they will be heard, unless you choose to be dumb.

The woe, the suffering, the pathos, the passion, of actor, orator, and reader, is necessarily fictitious, ideal, assumed; but the sympathy with the pictured situation or personation may and should be perfectly genuine. You should study, sympathetically and often, the voice of real grief and suffering, and with it compare your own rendition of pathos. Let

your face take on the expression of the feeling you are trying to exhibit in your voice. Do not be afraid to imitate! No art was ever learned without imitation; indeed, art is very largely a matter of imitation and adaptation. But, in every phase of your practice, cultivate an all-embracing sympathy. It is the talisman, the test, the crown, the final charm, the soul and life, of true elocution.

WHERE DOCTORS DISAGREE.

Most writers on elocution, since Rush, state that emphasis is made plaintive by inflections of minor third, minor fourth, minor fifth, etc. Doctor Rush declares that the minor third occurs in speech only as a fault; that normal emphatic intonation, in pathos, consists of a wave, whose first constituent is the semitone, and the second constituent the emphatic interval of major third, fourth, fifth, or octave.

I think, myself, that the minor intervals of third, fourth, etc., are usually and properly employed in the expression of unmixed grief, contrition, etc.; but that the Rush formula is the true one in the embodiment of complex and contradictory moods, such as angry complaint, petulance, indignant grief, self-condemnation, etc.

EQUAL WAVES, BY CONSTRUCTION.

To construct the equal falling wave of the fifth:

a. On the vowel ā, from a clear radical, at a rather low pitch, give a deliberate rising slide of the fifth, with smoothly tapering vanish; pause and inhale; and from the vanishing pitch of the rise, make a corresponding falling slide of the fifth.

b. Repeat the rising slide; and, omitting the breathing pause, hold, briefly, the vanish of the rising movement,then, with a new syllabic impulse, make the falling concrete of the fifth. The two opposing slides are hinged together.

C.

Again repeat,-this time, without the hold at the turning-point; thus uniting the rise and fall in one syllabic impulse, a falling wave of the fifth.

d. Once more repeat, with light radical opening, swelling smoothly to full expulsion at the crest of the wave, and diminishing gradually to a delicate vanish on the falling con. stituent.

Do likewise with any and all of the narrow vowels.

[merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small]

Construct the equal rising, or inverted, wave of the fifth, in the same manner, by reversing the order of the slides. For most students, this is much the more difficult task, and consequently a valuable discipline for ear and voice.

Construct the equal falling wave of the octave, in the same order: a. Separate slides, rising and falling; b. The two slides hinged together; c. One syllabic movement, smoothly describing the contour of the wave; d. The wave repeated, with light but clear radical and smooth, full median swell, increasing to and diminishing from the crest of the wave. Take care to open the throat more and more as the swell increases on the rise, or you will incur the danger of throat irritation and throaty quality; the voice may even change from laryngeal to oral or falsetto quality.

In like manner construct the equal rising wave of the

octave.

EMPHATIC RISING WAVES USUALLY UNEQUAL.

As actually employed in speech, rising waves that end with the fourth, fifth, or octave, are usually unequal; that is.

the initial constituent is of a narrower interval than the closing one, thus:

The emphatic rising wave is chiefly used in strongly emotional direct-interrogative passages, in which the melody sweeps upward. In such cases, the unequal form of the wave is necessary, in order that the emphatic inflections shall not only fit into the melody, but advance it in the direction it is going. Wide equal rising waves, beginning and ending at the same pitch level, would speedily render emphasis and melody monotonous.

Nevertheless, it is an excellent education to practice equal, as well as unequal, rising waves.

INFLECTION CHANGES WITH CHANGES IN SYL

LABIC FORCE AND TIME.

Construct falling and rising waves of the third.

You may also easily derive the equal waves of the third in this way:

Affirm each tonic, with clear, incisive radical and delicate, rapid vanish; the inflection will be the simple falling slide of the third. Then, substitute a gentle effusive swell for the abrupt explosive form, still preserving the emphasis of moderate affirmation. The inflection will now be an equal falling wave of the third,-expressive of dignified decision, controlled wonder, moderate enthusiasm, gaiety, and similar moods. The rising equal wave may be similarly derived, by comparison of the soft effusive swell with the staccato rising concrete. It is expressive of mild interest, as in the conversational feeder, 'Yes?' of inquiry, with subdued wonder or pleasure; and in surprise, mirth, indignation, elation, etc., under control.

THE WAVE OF THE SECOND, OR SYLLABIC
NOTE OF THE MONOTONE.

The wave of the second-a most beautiful and important inflection, should be derived and practiced in comparison or contrast with the simple rise of the second in the equable concrete. It is frequently described, in books of elocution, as a level note, 'that neither rises nor falls,'-a syllabic form that never occurs in normal speech. It is sometimes called 'the suspensive inflection'; and again, 'the plain, or plane, slide.'

In its most frequent form, it is a double wave rising of the second,~, the last constituent being a rising vanish of that interval. To the untrained ear its wave character is very obscure, even unrecognizable, on account of,—a. Its narrow, unobtrusive interval of pitch; b. Its long quantity and slow pitch change; c. Its full median swell and (usually) orotund resonance and volume, which smooth out the inflectional impression. So the books evade the trouble of explanation, by calling it a level note.

Practice the tonics on the simple rising concrete of the second, with a light, brief, but decided touch. Then, by degrees, extend the quantity, with full, gentle swell and round, mellow resonance; always speaking the tonic, not singing it; and taking care that you do not traverse the interval of the third, or of the minor third, on the vanish. The vanish should be only suspensive-barely continuative. Your ear will soon catch the music and meaning of this simple and noble speech note; and by observation and heedful practice you will learn to command its beautiful, thoughtful, grave, and gracious influence upon the current of speech melody.

Gray's 'Elegy', Bryant's 'Thanatopsis', Prentice's 'The Dying Year', Brainard's 'Niagara', and Read's 'The Closing Scene', are among the compositions in the expressive reading of which this note predominates, on accented syllables.

« AnteriorContinuar »