FEW PERSONS KNOW what is meant by qualities of the voice, and still fewer persons ever make use of them. All conversations are carried on in the same uninteresting fiat tones, which soon tire even those who employ them. We now approach the study of those tones that reflect the real soul and character behind them. The mouth and throat are given the power to change their shape, and thereby change the nature of the tones that are uttered. Earlier in these lessons we learned that when the upper throat is nearly closed, the tones are flat and guttural; that when the lower throat is partly closed the tones are threatening and pectoral

Singers are taught to impinge their voices against the front upper palate of the mouth, and at this place the tones are bright and beautiful. For speaking and conversing the tones may be forward in the position just stated; or the voice may be impinged against the middle of the palate, in which case a different effect is produced; and if impinged against the soft palate, the dark or gloomy quality is made.

Then when the upper throat is open and round, another timbre follows; but when the lower throat is open and round, still another effect is produced. And so on through the entire list of changes in the voice that reflect the soul or the character of the speaker.

All these varieties of voice are known as TIMBRE QUALITIES.

Asyou open this lesson you ask if there can be anything more tobe learned about the voice. But you will agree, ere long, that this faculty of speech is most wonderful, most amazing in its powers.

The end has not yet been reached.

Color is a great thing; but no musical instrument can of itself produce color; although the players are able to do so to some extent.

But the church organ is able to produce timbre qualities. You have heard it almost sing in the beauty and ecstasy of its tones; then suddenly change to the heavy roll of majesty; or again produce the liquid notes of birds at early morning; and so on, through a multitude of qualities that are summoned by the manipulation of the many stops. The organ has timbre qualities, but lacks tone color.

The true character or inner life of a person shows itself in the timbre that prevails in that person's voice. He who leads a gloomy, solemn life, will fall into the unconscious habit of using thedark form, and generally a low pitch. If his gloom is mingled with sorrow or suffering, the pitch is higher, and there is a mixture of the laryngeal timbre in the voice.

Although the dark form is perfectly natural, and is given to the world in fact by the world's great mother, yet everybody does not possess it. It is easily acquired by practice.

A man or woman whose life has more of happiness than of sorrow in it, will fall into an unconscious habit of using the bright form, and vice versa.

Daniel Webster's habitual timbre quality was orotund. He was brought up amid the giant scenery of New Hampshire and the grandeur of earth impressed itself on his mind and heart.

"TIMBRE MEANINGS"

The Bright Timbre means happiness, brightness, or vitality. It is produced by impinging the voice forward in the mouth so that it strikes against the hard palate near the front upper teeth.

The Dark. Timbre means gloom or solemnity. II is made by impinging the voice against the soft, palate near the back of the mouth.

The Pure Timbre means beauty. It is made with a round shape of the throat.

The Orotund Timbre means grandeur. It is made by enlarging the whole pharynx and thereby increasing the volume of

The Guttural Timbre means hatred. It is made with the flat shape of the throat.

The Nasal Timbre means scorn. It is made by lessening the resonance of the voice which seems as if the nose intervened

The Oral Timbre means weakness. It is made by mouthing the voice, or confining the sound within the mouth with very little vitality.

The Laryngeal Timbre means suffering. It is made at the vocal cords and has no vitality elsewhere.

The Aspirate Timbre means something startling or secret. It is made by a large proportion of escaping air mixed with the voice.

The Whisper Timbre means extreme secrecy or startling importance. It is made by removing all tone from the voice, and using only a whisper.

The Pectoral Timbre means awe or deep malice. It is made by the flat shape of the lowest part of the throat.

Just as the player of a great church organ would suit the stops to the character of the selections played, so any person in life should suit the Timbres to the uses made of the voice.

In business conversation the Pure Timbre is the most attractive, and may be shaded with some slight changes in the Bright and Dark.

In social conversation, the Bright, Dark, Pure, Orotund, and Whisper are useful, but should be tempered in good taste.

The preacher has need of the Bright, Dark, Pure, Orotund Pectoral, and possibly the Whisper, which is very effective when rightly used.

The lawyer in his address to the jury has need of all the Timbres, as has been proved in the lives of every successful attorney.

The actor needs exactly as many Timbres as the lawyer Edwin Booth was past-master of Timbre tones. The difference between the actor and the lawyer is that the latter keeps more closely to the conversational Timbres except when he is depictinghuman character, while the actor has occasion to depart morefrequently from those Timbres when he steps out of the merely conversational roles.

The reciter, entertainer and imitator needs all the Timbres that are described in this lesson. The lecturer is a social converser on a large scale. The orator is an actor in part and needs in part of his work all the Timbres. John B. Gough was the most wonderful depieter of human character of modern times, if not of all time; yet, without his mastery of these Timbres, he would have been amere lecturer. The Timbres coined for him more than a mil-liondollars, and they did the same for Dickens, the reader of his own characters.

A Timbre is the character of the tone.

A Quality is the blend in which the Timbre is employed in the voice.

We will include here those Qualities that are most useful in ordinary life.

The First Quality is Bright.—The Quotation is: "My happy heart with rapture swells." The Second Quality is Dark.—The Quotation is: "Her death was sadly beautiful, and her soul was borne upon the perfume of earth's drooping lilies to the land of flowers that neverfade." The Third Quality is Neutral.—The Quotation is: "Though they smile in vain for what once was ours, they are love's last gift." The Fourth Quality is Half-Bright.—The Quotation is: "The Rhine! The Rhine! Our own imperial river! Be glory on thy track!" The Fifth Quality is Half-Dark.—The Quotation is: "One sweetly solemn thought comes to me o'er and o'er." All the foregoing Qualities are made in the Pure Timbre mixed witheither Bright or Dark Timbres, except the Third which is neutral; that is, without brightness or darkness. The Sixth Quality is Bright Orotund.—The Quotation is: "And the spent ship, tempest driven, on reef hen rent and riven." The Seventh Quality is Half-Dark Orotund.—The Quotation is:

"Through what variety of untried being, through whal scenes and changes must we pass!"

The Eighth Quality is Dark Orotund.—The Quotation is:

"Toll! toll! toll! thou bell by billows swung!"

The Ninth Quality is Whisper.—The Quotation is:

"Hark! Listen! Keep still! Some one is coming!"

The Tenth Quality is Aspirate.—The Quotation is:

"Thou sure and firm-set earth, hear not my steps which way they walk!"

The Eleventh Quality is Bright Guttural.—The Quotation is;

"I loathe you in my bosom!"

The Twelfth Quality is Dark Guttural.—The Quotation is:

"Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, creeps in this petty pace from day to day, to the last syllable of recorded time."

The Thirteenth Quality is Pectoral.—The Quotation is:

"I am thy father's spirit, doomed for a certain term to walk the night."

You can make your own colors.

In a previous lesson you were taught to make the round voice and to remove its crudities. That produces the Pure Timbre Such a Timbre you must have if you would have friends. So that much is assured, and is easy.

To produce the Orotund Timbre, merely give greater volume of sound to the Pure voice. Make the throat cavity deeper and larger, and that is all there is to it. So the Orotund will be at hand in your tones very soon.

The Bright and Dark Timbres are matters of impingement, which means that a forward throwing of the tones will brighten the voice, and a backward throwing of the voice will darken it.

The Guttural is made by the top of the flat throat. To be sure, the Guttural is a flat voice and is faulty; but hatred is a faulty phase of character.

The Aspirate is a mixture of tone and whisper. It is a fault, but the above remarks concerning the Guttural, will apply.

The Pectoral is like the Guttural, except that it is made in the lower throat, while the Guttural is made in the upper throat Very little practice will be needed to secure it in your voice if you use the quotation given.

In fact all the quotations help very much to establish the Qualities.