There is also a feigned lower voice by which voices of all kinds are able to descend lower in pitch than iu the natural register. Tho term basso-falsetto has been proposed to designate this voice, but the term lower falsetto is more accurate.
The Quality of the person's voice has a distinct quality or tone (timbre of French authors), by which it is recognised, even when singing in unison with others. The terms which aro adopted to describe the qualities of the voice are vague : they are descriptive, such as nasal, guttural; descriptive by comparison with other sounds, as silvery, flutelike, musical; and metaphorically descriptive, as pure, clear, deep, brilliant, flexible, attractive, mellow, &c. Attempts have been made to connect certain qualities of the voice, as fulness with the bass, brilliancy with the soprano, fie., but without success. It is however quite true that those who are accustomed to hear much singing would mostly recognise any voice to be a bass, tenor, fie., although singing in unison with contraltos or sopranos. The essential distinction however between voices, as the bass and tenor, is not the quality, as stated by some physiological writers; for a voice is classed among basses or contraltos, as the case may be, solely in consequence of its compass lying within the limits of the boas or contralto scales.
Each voice has its natural and falsetto qualities, which belong respectively to the natural and falsetto registers. Besides these there is in song an improved quality named pure tone, and in speech a cor responding improved quality named the oratorical tone.
Song-roiee.—The aong.note is a musical sound of some fixed pitch in the musical scale. When a clear resonant voice produces a song-note, the accompanying harmonic sound may be heard just as it is with the sound of a vibrating string. The song-sounds of the human voice are arranged into the chromatic, and enharmonic scales. [Music.] speech-note is not a true musical sound, because its pitch varies throughout its duration. These notes are termed slides, accents, and inflexions ; and they may be imitated on the violiu by sliding a finger up the finger-board while the bow is applied. These notes may have an ascending or descending course in pitch, end some times, they have both on a syllable. The varying pitch of a speech note will be illustrated if the reader, with an intense feeling of inquiry utter aloud Hamlet's interrogatory " Pale, or red I" Tho speech-note on the word "polo" will consist of an upward movement of the voice; while that on " red " will be a downward movement, and in both the voice will traverse so wide an interval of pitch as to be con spicuous to ordinary ears ; while the cultivated perception of the musician will detect the voice moving through a less interval of pitch while he is uttering the word " or " of the same sentence. And he
who can record in musical notation the sounds which he hears will perceive the musical interval traversed in these vocal movements, and the place also of these speech-notes on the musical staff Speech-notes are of two kinds, namely, simple and compound. The simple consist of a single rising or falling movement of the voice. These movements may be of any extent from a semitone up to an octave. These differences of extent give eight simple rising speech notes, namely, semitone, tone, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, octave, and as many simple falling speech-notes, making a total of sixteen distinct simple speech-notes. Mr. Steele accurately repre sented these notes by diagonal lines on the musical staff. The length of the line indicates the interval or dimension of the note; and its situation on the staff indicates Its local pitch, as in the annexed diagram, Nos. 1 and 2, where the eight notes ascending and descending are in accordance with Mr. Steele's notation.
In those notes the sliding movement of the voice is equable, that is' it passes through equal spaces in equal times. The voice however in some notes is retarded In some part of its course, au that it passes through unequal spaces in equal times. Mr. Steele noted this retar dation of the voice by slightly curving the diagonal line at the part, as In the above diagram, No. 3. Now the voice may be retarded at the beginning, at the middle, or at the end of a speech-note. And the voice may be accelerated in each of those parts. It will be seen that those modifications of pitch greatly multiply the number of speech. notes. And this number can be again greatly increased by success ively giving to each note all the various forms of loudness of voice of which it is capable.