Chapter XIII
Reading edition
CHAPTER XIII.
CHIEFLY AN APPLICATION TO VOICE-PRODUCTION OF FACTS AND PRINCIPLES PREVIOUSLY CONSIDERED.
Vowels, consonants, noise—Consonants and pauses—Voice-production and vowels—Certain vowel sounds common to most languages—Why German and English are relatively unmusical—The needs of the musical artist—The mechanism required for the production of a vowel sound—Reconsideration of the resonance-chambers—The larynx to be steadied but not held rigidly immovable—The principal modifiers of the shape of the mouth-cavity—Breath to be taken through the mouth—The lips—Tongue and lip practice before a mirror—Importance of the connection between the ear and the mouth parts, etc—"Open mouth"—The mouth in singing a descending scale—Undue opening of the mouth—Proper method of opening the mouth—Causes of compression and the consequences 195