s;--it
arises from a systematic combination of those vocal peculiarities which
are the physiological effects of acute pleasure and pain.

Besides these chief characteristics of song as distinguished from common
speech, there are sundry minor ones similarly explicable as due to the
relation between mental and muscular excitement; and before proceeding
further these should be briefly noticed. Thus, certain passions, and
perhaps all passions when pushed to an extreme, produce (probably
through their influence over the action of the heart) an effect the
reverse of that which has been described: they cause a physical
prostration, one symptom of which is a general relaxation of the
muscles, and a consequent trembling. We have the trembling of anger, of
fear, of hope, of joy; and the vocal muscles being implicated with the
rest, the voice too becomes tremulous. Now, in singing, this
tremulousness of voice is very effectively used by some vocalists in
highly pathetic passages; sometimes, indeed, because of its
effectiveness, too much used by them--as by Tamberlik, for instance.

Again, there is a mode of musical execution known as the _staccato_,
appropriate to energetic passages--to passages expressive of
exhilaration, of resolution, of confidence. The action of the vocal
muscles which produces this staccato style is analogous to the muscular
action which produces the sharp decisive, energetic movements of body
indicating these states of mind; and therefore it is that the staccato
style has the meaning we ascribe to it. Conversely, slurred intervals
are expressive of gentler and less active feelings; and are so because
they imply the smaller muscular vivacity due to a lower mental energy.
The difference of effect resulting from difference of _time_ in music is
also attributable to the same law. Already it has been pointed out that
the more frequent changes of pitch which ordinarily result from passion
are imitated and developed in song; and here we have to add, that the
various rates of such changes, appropriate to the different styles of
music, are further traits having the same derivation. The slowest
movements, _largo_ and _adagio_, are used where such depressing emotions
as grief, or such unexciting emotions as reverence, are to be portrayed;
while the more rapid movements, _andante_, _allegro_, _presto_,
represent successively increasing degrees of mental vivacity; and do
this because they imply that muscular activity wh