CHAPTER VII.

Exercises on the Tonic Elements. To Correctly Extend the Vanish of the Equable Concrete through the various Intervals and Waves.

61. THE former exercises, for the correct execution of the initial or radical part of the tonic elements, will develop the power and flexibility of the organs, and prepare

them for the more delicate effects to be executed on the vanishing movement. An educated control over the latter gives a complete command of the entire concrete through its various degrees of extension.

The long tonics are the elements of quantity, and are extendible to the utmost limit of piercing interrogation and all natural cries, through the rising and falling intervals, and the different forms of the wave. Hence their employment on the extension of the concrete in the following tables.

62. Table I.—The interval of a second is represented first rising and then falling, repeated a number of times for the purpose of practice. Each of the long tonics. should be given on this interval as indicated by the table, and afterwards the monosyllables in which they occur, the student taking care to give the radical with distinctness and to make the movement equable throughout.

63. Table II extends the intervals a third, as in the interrogative, I did it? Repeat the falling movement on the same interval of a third through elements and then words.

64. Table III carries the voice through the more earnest interrogative movements of a rising fifth, and then falls on the same interval.

IV.

Rising Octaves.

Falling Octaves.

65. Table 11' extends the interval an octave upward, as it would pass in a piercing interrogation on the vowel sounds as given in the above tables. Then exercise the voice on the same interval with downward move

ment.

66. The voice has now been made to traverse the intervals of speech: first, the simple second, through which the syllabic utterances of unimpassioned reading or speaking will be found to proceed; and, afterwards, through those more extended concretes, which are used to express interrogation, denial, surprise, command, and other more earnest states of the mind.

In each exercise thus far, following the table of notation, the radical has opened upon the same line of pitch (which should, in the rising concretes, be at first several degrees below the middle), and the vanish has also terminated in the same manner, the voice proceeding from concrete to concrete by discrete steps.

The student must next proceed to acquire greater command over these concrete movements by exercising the rising and falling movements alternately. In this case, the radical of the downward concrete will open at the degree of pitch where the vanish of the upward concrete ends.

67. The object of the exercise in Table V is to familiarize the student with the contrasted rising and falling movements of the voice, in uttering the tonic elements with their radical and vanish, as they would occur on the syllables of a simple sentence of complete sense, when uttered with distinctness, and as a deliberate, unimpassioned statement of facts. The extension of the sound in an upward direction will be readily observed on the elements, while the words containing the same tonic element will as clearly exhibit the falling radical and vanish.

Let each element and word marked be given with a clear, full, radical opening, avoiding undue loudness or force, and then let the sound gradually diminish in volume until it is lost in the delicate vanish.

In this, as in the following exercises of this chapter, there must be no application of force to the vanish; no break or unsteadiness between the initial and final movement, but a sustained smoothness in the utterance, by which the radical and vanish are blended imperceptibly together.

68. Pronounce the elements and words in the following table with a moderately forcible abruptness of the

initial part, and prolong the sounds in the rising movement of an unimpassioned or unexcited interrogation until the delicate termination of the tonic is heard in the extreme vanish.* Next, allow it to fall through the same interval, in a tone of denial. The same elements and words can be used in the interval of the fifth, and afterwards in that of the octave.

The exercises may be varied; e. g., a-a-ar'm-ar'm; i-i-ice-ice. First in seconds, then in thirds, fifths, and octaves, until the ear of the pupil can execute and recognize the rising and falling movements himself.

The tables of tonic sounds are the easiest to execute; but after the organs are rendered pliant on these, the subtonics should be practiced in the same manner.

A very common error in uttering the dipthongal tonics is, to use the words of Prof. William Russell, that of "giving this complex sound in a manner too analytical; as, fai-eel, fai-eeth, etc." This overnicety must be carefully avoided, especially in the exer cise in prolonging these sounds.