Part 7

The best part of my life has been spent in this, my adopted country. Though I experience no difficulty in expressing myself in the English language, still it is not my native tongue, and I sometimes feel as if I might have said some things better if I had said them in German.

* * * * *

Looking at the many volumes written on the subject of the larynx alone, and considering that during all this time its associate, the replica, without whose assistance not one vocal sound can ever be uttered, has remained unknown, though in plain sight and "in everybody's mouth," one cannot help but think of Goethe's lines:

"Ein Kerl der speculirt Ist wie ein Thier, auf duerrer Haide Von einem boesen Geist im Kreis herum gefuehrt, Und ringsumher liegt schoene gruene Waide."

("A theorist is like unto a beast On barren soil by evil sprite led round and round Within a narrow circle, though beyond there is a feast Of pasture green on fertile ground.")

"THE BASIC LAW OF VOCAL UTTERANCE"

My earlier work, entitled as above, was written under peculiar circumstances. After discovering the fact that sounds proceed from beneath as well as from above the tongue, light streamed in upon me on so many subjects I had previously attempted to solve that I was almost dazed thereby. I thought it my duty to make these matters known, and attempted to describe them as they appeared to me. They were all perfectly clear to me, and even to-day there is scarcely a thing I then said that does not wholly stand its ground. Still, to-day, viewing things from an advanced point of view, much of that which was then expressed pragmatically, almost in a single sentence, and which then appeared to be sufficient, I am convinced requires considerable elaboration and elucidation.

Take, for instance, this dictum: "The manner in which we breathe for speech is by raising and lowering the tongue," etc. This is perfectly correct, and positive proof will be advanced hereafter as to its being so.

I thought these matters would be readily understood, not knowing at that time that between the manner in which I had reached conclusions and the one in which conclusions had been reached by others who had also made a study of these matters, there was a vast difference. Unknown to myself I had lived a life of my own. I had given myself up to these matters in a manner no one ever had before; having been everlastingly at it, holding on with a tenacity that knew no restraint. In this manner I wrung facts from nature that may have never been intended to be revealed.

There was something Faust-like in it all, and I sometimes shudder at my own temerity. Still, I had no such thought when I so persistently continued trying to fathom the mystery of vocal sounds. Viewing it in its proper light it was a narrow and every-day undertaking. I was fairly staggered, therefore, when I reached such unlooked-for results.

The reader, however, may ask, and I feel it incumbent upon me, as well, to tell him, What was the nature of these results? Wherein consisted these discoveries? They covered a large field and whole range of knowledge. They had reference more particularly to vocal sounds. These, in fact, had almost exclusively occupied my mind for many years. These apparently simple factors, vocal sounds, I have since ascertained are the outcome of laws, forces, and agencies, and combinations of all these, which largely make up the sum and substance of our spiritual existence. The direct nature of vocal sounds, therefore, cannot be well treated upon till some understanding has been arrived at of the nature of the elements out of which they are composed. I was rash enough to attempt to explain them, especially the consonant sounds, in this little book of mine, from a standpoint I had then arrived at. Others have tried to explain them from a much narrower standpoint still. From that standpoint I offered explanations as to our mode of speaking, breathing, as to defective speech, etc. Although this was an advanced standpoint, and well worthy the consideration of scientists, it was a standpoint far beneath the one I have arrived at since.

In attempting to scale a mountain I had reached a point from which I could overlook the valley immediately beneath my feet. I have since gone up much higher. Yet there are towering heights still above me which I shall never be able to reach. From this it will be seen how difficult it would be for me to state in a few paragraphs what I had actually ascertained. That book, however, will increase in value in the course of time, not only for the knowledge it contains, but historically, so to say, as the beginning of an evolution which, it seems to me, will eventually embrace all sciences in regard to man; when treated, as they will be, from a standpoint of inner as against one of outer consciousness, from the standpoint of the soul and the heart, as in the inadequacy of our expressions I have to call them, as against that of the head and the senses.

I have since arrived at a plan according to which these matters will be treated in a more systematic manner. In this volume, besides many novel subjects, I have been enlarging upon and elucidating many superficially mentioned in my book, The Basic Law of Vocal Utterance. Still, the matters treated upon even in this book cover so much ground, and had to be condensed to such an extent, that many of these also will require further enlargement and elucidation. This will be attempted to be done in future publications. Meantime I trust these matters will be taken in hand by others, who by their writings will relieve me of some of this additional labor. Take it all in all, there is so much of this work that I feel as if I had swallowed the ocean and was now called upon to give an account of its contents.

THE VOICE OF THE ŒSOPHAGUS AND ITS VOCAL CORDS

Among the discoveries mentioned in my former publication one stands out most prominent, and it is the basis of all my other discoveries; namely, "that the voice is of a dual nature." I had ascertained that sounds circulate around the radix of the tongue; that they, or rather the air wave which carries them, enters either at the upper surface of the tip of the tongue and recedes back, to come out again from beneath its lower surface, or vice versa. I had also ascertained that the former process is the English, the latter the German, for breathing and vocal expression.

I was convinced that this signified a circulation of vocal sounds; and though I had finally also reached this conclusion and intimated it, namely, "that we breathe and speak through the œsophagus," I did not express it in so many words, as I meant to leave this expression for a future publication. I was at first under the impression that both waves belonged to the trachea, the one that was ingoing as well as the one which was outgoing.

Meantime I had discovered the "larynx or voice-box to the œsophagus," but considered this at first also as belonging to the trachea. I thought inspiration and ingoing sounds belonged to the vocal cords of the trachea, expiration and outgoing sounds to this "new" vocal cord located beneath the tongue. To study these first attempts, by which I was trying to find my way, and which culminated in these wonderful discoveries, I presume would be of interest to the student. I can here mention only the main points.

I have found beyond a doubt, and my future statements will more fully establish this fact, that the frænum linguæ and the parts of the mucous membrane surrounding the same are relatively of the same nature in regard to the voice of the œsophagus that the vocal cords and other parts of the larynx are in relation to that of the trachea.

In contradistinction to the larynx, I named these entire surroundings the "replica," as, in conjunction with the tip of the tongue resting upon the same, they conform to the shape of the oral cavity, of which in their general appearance they are almost a counterpart. In a similar manner I named the special part thereof, which "regulates" the intonation, the "vocal lip," in contradistinction to the vocal cords of the larynx, which perform the same service for the voice of the trachea.

After making such positive assertions regarding the replica as I did in my previous publication--now more than four years ago--I was more than surprised that no one should have deemed it worth his while to look into the value of these assertions. If any one had, he could not have helped but acknowledge their correctness. It is but necessary to utter any vocal sound whatsoever, either vowel or consonant, and while doing so watch the vocal lip and the frænum, to become at once convinced that their motions are of precisely the same order as those of the larynx and the vocal cords.

So many have spent year after year upon the difficult and "fruitless" endeavor to study the motions of the larynx; while here is an opportunity plainly before every one's eyes to study, without effort, the most interesting phenomena in voice production. We must be obliged to seek for a thing high and low before we deem it worthy of our attention.

THE HUMAN VOICE

What is the voice--a spirit, or "an expiratory current of air set into vibration by purely physical agencies"? It does not seem to me to be either, but something which is of the nature of both: our dual nature, embodied in the sounds of speech; our body and soul joining hands to produce the miracle of the voice. Regarding the materialistic view quoted above, which is held by most of the investigators, who make the larynx their point d'appui, I think that if there is anything in our composition or emanating therefrom that is not produced by "purely physical agencies," it is the voice.

In my opinion there is nothing purer, more "spiritual," in the world than a beautiful voice. Did you ever see a spirit? Perhaps not. But you have often heard one. You hear them daily, hourly, constantly; other spirits as well as your own--the spirits represented by the voice; the soul incorporated in the sounds of speech. When you converse, it is soul to soul; when you hear an anthem sung, it is the soul of the singer to the soul of the universe. The soul reveals itself most prominently through the voice when there is anguish in it, or joy; tears or laughter; love or hate.

An attempt to get at the truth in matters of the voice is an attempt at getting at the truth in matters of life. If you will tell me all that a vocal sound is, I will tell you what your soul is.

To examine into the anatomical construction of the larynx, to watch it physiologically and learn to understand the motions of the vocal cords in their relation to vocal sounds, is not much more than looking at the dial of a clock (a simile already used, but worth repeating). The movements of the hands will give you no cue to the construction of the intricate works hidden behind the face of the clock. Nor will the careful examination and observation of the "dials" which serve the voice of the œsophagus in the same manner as those of the larynx serve the voice of the trachea, measurably increase the knowledge of vocal phenomena. I do believe, however, that, inasmuch as the movements of the replica, the frænum, and the vocal lip fit into and complement those of the larynx and its vocal cords, and vice versa, lessons of great benefit to the knowledge and the improvement of vocal utterance may be learned, after we have once begun to understand what these movements imply.

That we cannot now derive any benefit from the observation of these motions is due to the fact that they are reflex, involuntary, uncontrolled and uncontrollable by the will. Or, as Mme. D'Arona expresses it:

"They are not the cause of the perfect tone, but are simply acted upon by the cause."