Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB
[graphic][graphic][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][merged small][graphic][graphic]
[graphic][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][merged small][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed]
[merged small][graphic][subsumed][subsumed][graphic][merged small][subsumed]

THE ORGANS OF VOICE.1

AN exact anatomical knowledge of the vocal organs is not essential to our purpose. All that is aimed at, in the following observations, is to impart such an idea of organic structure and action as is indispensable to an intelligent, voluntary use of the vocal organs.

-

We commence our investigation with the primary action of inspiration, or inhaling breath. A person in good health draws in breath by an exertion, partly involuntary, partly voluntary, of those muscles which, by a combined act, expand, and at the same time raise the chest, and consequently enlarge the cavity called the thorax, the region between the neck and the stomach. The degree of freedom and energy, in this muscular action, decides of course the extent to which the thoracic cavity is enlarged, and the volume of air which is inhaled: it decides, also, as a natural consequence, the capacity of resonance in the chest, and the fulness of the supply of breath, the material of sound.

These preliminary facts teach us the first practical lesson in the cultivation of the voice, the necessity of maintaining an erect, free, expansive, unembarrassed posture of the chest, as an indispensable condition of full, clear, distinct, effective, and appropriate utterance.

.

The next practical lesson here taught is that utterance demands a free expulsion, not less than a deep inhalation of breath; that there must be a vigorous consentaneous action of the will, along with the silent involuntary process of nature.

1 For further study the student is referred to Dr. Ghislani Durant's ad mirable work on the Hygiene of the Voice.

The full function of expiration, when carried to the extent of vocalized exclamation, implies an energetic use of the lower muscles of the trunk, those which are termed the abdominal,1-to impart, by upward and inward impulse, a powerful percussion to the diaphragm, by which the breath contained in the air-cells of the lungs is forced through the bronchial tubes and the trachea, towards the glottis and the larynx, where it is converted into sound, and thence into and through the mouth, and the cavity of the head, where it is modified into speech by the action of the nasal passage, the tongue, the palate, the teeth, and the lips, in the various functions of articulate utterance.

The engraved figures will serve to impart a clearer idea than can be conveyed by words of the place and form of the vocal organs, together with their action in the production of sound.

Figure 1 represents the principal abdominal muscle by which the first expulsory movement terminating in sound is produced. The action of this muscle, in energetic and abrupt forms of utterance, is nearly the same in kind, though not in degree, with that which takes place in the sudden shrinking from a blow aimed at or below the stomach. In vigorous utterance of a steady and sustained character, or in the energetic singing of long notes, a powerful and continued upward and inward pressure of the abdominal muscles takes place, as in the attitude observed in swift riding on horseback.

2. The diaphragm, which by an upward impulse, consentaneous with that of the abdominal muscles, and imparted to the pleura or enveloping membrane of the lungs, forces the breath from the air cells into the bronchi, and thence into the trachea and the larynx.

3. The thorax, the great cavity of the chest. By the ex

1 In shouting and calling, and other violent exertions of voice, the dorsal muscles those of the lower part of the back-partake in the expulsory effort.

« AnteriorContinuar »