press the feelings, yet each
may be musical and will be so if properly delivered.

CHAPTER VI

RESONANCE IN GENERAL

The intimate relationship existing between voice culture and the
science of acoustics was formerly slightly perceived. The teaching of
singing, as an art, then rested altogether on an empirical basis, and
the acoustics of singing had not received the attention of scientists.

With the publication in 1863 of Helmholtz's great work[4] a new era
began, although singer and scientist yet continue to look upon each
other with suspicion. Teachers of the voice, casting about for a
scientific basis for their work, were greatly impressed with
Helmholtz's revelations in regard to vocal resonance--the fact that
tones are modified in quality as well as increased in power by the
resonance of the air in the cavities of pharynx and head.

[Footnote 4: _Die Lehre von den Tonempfindungen als physiologische
Grundlage fuer die Theorie der Musik._ (The Sensations of Tone as a
Physiological Basis for the Theory of Music.)]

Writing in 1886, Edmund J. Meyer speaks of the importance of a "study
of the influence of the different resonance cavities as the voice is
colored by one or the other, and the tuning each to each and each to
all"; yet, he adds, "the subject is seldom heard of outside of books."

The basic importance of resonance in the use of the voice is still too
little recognized, though obvious enough in the construction of
musical instruments. With the exception of a few instruments of
percussion, all musical instruments possess three elements,--a
_motor_, a _vibrator_, and a _resonator_. The violin has the moving
bow for a motor, the strings for a vibrator, and the hollow body for a
resonator. The French horn has the lungs of the performer for a motor,
the lips for a vibrator, and the gradually enlarging tube, terminating
in the flaring bell, for a resonator. In the pianoforte the
hammer-stroke, the strings, and the sounding-board perform the
corresponding offices. Though improvements in other parts of the piano
have done much to increase the volume of the tone, yet in the radical
change of form, size, and other physical qualities of the
sounding-board consists the evolution of the modern pianoforte from
the primitive clavichord.

In all these instruments the quality and power of the tone depend upon
the presence of these three elements,--the perfection of their
construction, their proper relation as