MANUAL OF READING. PART I. ORTHOPHONY. ORTHOPHONY is systematic voice-training. I. HYGIENIC SUGGESTIONS. To attain the highest voice capacity requires health and practice. To insure or perpetuate health, we must have1st. Plain food, regularly taken. 2d. Comfortable clothing, warm, light, and loose. 3d. Exercise and pure air. 4th. Plenty of sleep. FOOD. The most wholesome diet for pupils in voice-training, amateur and professional voice artists, excludes all greasy food, soups, pork in any form, nuts, rich food, as suet or plum puddings, fruit-cake, mince pie, pickles, lobster, hot breads, candy, and all other food that causes indigestion and feverishness, together with all stimulating drinks, including strong tea and coffee. To guard against the imputation of having excluded every thing palatable, a list of dishes, both pleasant and harmless, is added. Fish, fowl, rare-boiled or poached eggs, tripe, rare-roasted or broiled beef, cold breads, toast, crackers, wheat grits, oatmeal mush and cakes, plain puddings and pies, fruit, cold water, milk or weak tea. No food should be taken between meals or late at night. Persons using the voice professionally take no food for at least one hour be fore using the voice, and oftener two or three hours inter vene between dinner and the concert or lecture. But one exception has been given among distinguished singers, and that is Adelaide Patti, who is said to dine between the acts of the opera. Parepa, whose voice is not only wonderful for its power, but for its clearness, dines four hours before concert, taking a light lunch, if needful, just before singing, but nothing afterward, and avoids all voice-smoothers, such as lozenges, lemon, sugar, etc. To avoid a sensation of hunger or faintness, a little toast and weak tea, or, what is better, a raw egg, may be taken just before using the voice. CLOTHING. The clothing should be at all times sufficiently warm for the climate and season. Light, so as to give ease and warmth without weight, and loose in those much-abused parts of the body, viz., the throat, waist, and feet. One thickness of flannel should cover the chest, to avoid the chill of damp cotton or linen garments after exercise. The weight of clothing should rest, as much as possible, upon the shoulders, by means of bands or suspenders, and the feet should be kept at all times dry and warm. EXERCISE AND PURE AIR. Fresh air should be plentiful at all times by means of ventilators, windows, and doors; and this should be not only in halls and churches, but in all business places, school-rooms, and sleeping apartments. This note may seem unnecessary in a teacher's manual; but so little thought is given the subject elsewhere, we would have the children thoroughly taught the necessity as well as comfort of pure air. When about to practice calisthenics or gesture, it is safe to have windows and doors open; but when warm and resting, they should be closed, and all drafts avoided. Upon going into cold or damp air after using the voice, as in reading, lecturing, or singing, the lungs and mouth should be carefully protected, the process of breathing carried on through the nostrils or a thickness of flannel. SLEEP. Let no one think sleep unworthy of consideration, for it is a cosmetic, a tonic, and an indispensable voice-agent. No stimulants, lotions, or cordials can give that vigor to the vocal organs; no cosmetics can give that freshness of feeling and appearance that perfect rest and sleep give. Children will waken when fully rested, and it is nothing less than cruelty to waken and force them to rise. They should be sent to bed earlier, that they may have the needed amount of rest. Besides health, voice-culture requires continued systematic exercise or practice in respiration, intonation, and calisthenics, or gesture. These exercises bring into action all of the muscles of the chest and throat, head and mouth. Exercises in breathing, by noting the number of seconds required to fill the lungs by slow inhalation, and the seconds. required to empty them by slow exhalation, together with exercises in intoning, noting the number of seconds that a full smooth tone can be produced, and how many syllables can be uttered without a fresh supply of breath, have been found very beneficial to the respiratory and vocal organs. These exercises give the power and ability to produce many words with a small supply of breath or voice-material, thus enabling a speaker to render long passages of composition smoothly and effectively-passages that would lose half their force by an interruption for breath. The general or primary position for exercises in breathing and intoning is the military or gymnasium position (see page 24), and the special position No. 1, page 25, i. e., the hands upon the sides, so that the finger-tips may touch in the back, thumbs point front, elbows back, and chin curbed. II. GENERAL EXERCISES. RESPIRATION. 1. INSPIRING. The lungs must first be emptied in order to ascertain how long it takes to fill them; hence, begin this exercise by expelling the air from the lungs, making a continuous hissing sound; when the sound ceases the air in the lungs is sufficiently exhausted. Now inspire very slowly, making a slight noise, until the lungs are filled, noting the time in seconds. 2. EXPIRING. Assume the required military and special position. Place the upper teeth upon the lower lip, as if to say v; inspire slowly until no more air can be inhaled; then, with the tongue near the teeth, as if to give the sound of s, emit the breath as slowly as possible, making an even and continuous hissing sound, so that there can be no mistake whether the breath is constantly escaping or being held at intervals. a. Effusive. Inspire and emit the breath freely, as in the prolonged sound of the aspirate h. b. Expulsive. Inspire and emit the breath more quick-. ly and forcibly than in the effusive, with the sound of the aspirate h. c. Explosive. Inspire and expel the breath suddenly and violently, making the sound of h like a whispered cough. (Combine this exercise with the thrust movements in calisthenics.) 3. SIGHING. Combined inspiration and expiration emotionally. a. Inspire and expire suddenly. b. Inspire and expire moderately. c. Inspire moderately and expire suddenly. d. Inspire suddenly and expire moderately. 4. GASPING. Convulsive inspiration and gradual expiration. 5. PANTING. Rapid and forcible inspiration and expiration several times in succession. 6. SOBBING is sighing or gasping made slightly vocal. INTONATION. Intoning Exercises without change of Force or Pitch. 1. PROLONGING A NOTE OR SOUND. Fill the lungs, and note the number of seconds that one sound can be smoothly prolonged. The sound may be one of the vowels or consonant continuants.* * See Table of Sounds, No. 2. The sound may be concrete or smoothly 2. COUNTING. Inspire as before, and note the number that can be counted at one expiration. 3. REPEATING ALOUD A LINE, COUPLET, OR STANZA. Inspire and note the number of times that one line, couplet, or stanza can be repeated at one expiration. The selection for this exercise should consist mostly of monosyllables. 4. REPEATING IN A WHISPER A LINE, COUPLET, OR Stanza. This exercise is more difficult than No. 3, in that the repetition is made in a whisper, but it is considered very beneficial in strengthening the lungs. 5. LAUGHING. Fill the lungs, and laugh in a forcible expulsive manner. This exercise strengthens the abdominal muscles more than any other. A great variety of laughing exercises can be produced by placing h before the different vowel sounds. Ha, ha, hã; hă, hă, hă; hä, hä, hä; hâ, hâ, hâ; he, he, he; hě, hě, hě; hi, hi, hi; hĩ, hĩ, hi; hō, hō, hō; hò, hò, hò; hô, hô, hô; hũ, hũ, hũ; hủ, hũ, hủ. Hã, Intoning Exercises with changes of Force. 6. Prolong a note or sound, or repeat a sentence. a. Increasing in force to the end. b. Decreasing in force to the end. c. Increasing to the middle, and decreasing to the end. d. Decreasing to the middle, and increasing to the end. Intoning Exercises with changes of Force and Pitch. 7. Prolong a note or sound, or repeat a sentence. a. Increasing in force while ascending the scale. d. Decreasing in force while descending the scale. e. Increasing in force to the middle, and decreasing to the last while ascending the scale. f. Decreasing in force to the middle, and increasing to the last while ascending the scale. connected, as ō continued; discrete or disconnected, as fa, fa, fa, etc. An other change may be produced by making the sound intermittent or in tremor; and again, by assuming different qualities of voice. |