Voice, Song, and Speech

Abstract

THIS bulky handsome volume of 322 pages seems at first sight to present considerable difficulties to a reviewer, which begin with the very title-page, wherein its contents are said to be derived “from the combined view of vocal surgeon and voice trainer.” The latter occupation is fairly definite; but what exactly is the former? It might indeed be thought that the striking photograph, with wide-opened mouth and glaring eye-bails, which faces the title, represents the vocal surgeon in question, seen in the very act of giving tongue. But this explanation turns out to be incorrect; as it is an excellent though not a “combined” view of Mr. Emil Behnke's larynx, taken from nature and untouched by hand. This feature, if indeed the larynx can be correctly called a feature, of the work, is, it may be at once said, the best it contains. The gentleman just named has exhibited remarkable energy and perseverance in obtaining, for the first time, a series of autolaryngoscopic views of the vocal chords in the process of phonation, and in different registers of the voice. Four of these, given on an enlarged scale in the body of the volume, go some way towards settling the long debated question as to the different mechanism of the natural and the artificial or “falsetto voice.” In all other respects the book is very unequal, and contains little that cannot be as well or better obtained elsewhere. It has two prefaces: one of the usual kind, and in the usual place; the other at the opposite extremity of the work, quaintly termed a Preface to Advertisements, in which it is stated that “the authors have stipulated with the publishers that no advertisement whatever should be admitted without their express sanction.” The opening chapter is entitled “A Plea for Vocal Physiology,” and is followed by others on the laws of sound, the anatomy and physiology of the vocal organ, and on the larynx, which need no special notice except to remark that the nomenclature adopted in the description of the last-named organ, like that employed in another of Mr. Behnke's works, is somewhat un-English and clumsy. The old Greek names thyroid, cricoid, arytenoid, and the like are at least as graceful, and perhaps as easy to retain in the memory as the “ring-shield aperture,” the “shield-pyramid muscles,” and the “buffer cartilages.” In the chapter on vocal hygiene some characteristics, fortunately uncommon, begin to show themselves. We are told that “Better than a respirator is the veil invented by Mr. Lennox Browne, and sold by Messrs. Marshall and Snelgrove.” On turning to the selected and expurgated advertisements, we find one from the latter firm, adorned with a fascinating picture of a lady wearing the said invention, of which the price is 20s., or by post 51. zd. “On pp. no and in we meet two old friends, again ladies, one with a natural, another with a deformed, waist; and to our delight they reappear with farther internal detail on pp. 112 and 113. Four pages having been thus pleasantly got over, we learn with relief on p. 117, that “hygienic corsets, exactly of the kind we describe, can be obtained from Mr. Pratt (surgical mechanist of Oxford Street).” On turning to the advertisements, we, singularly enough, find Mr. Pratt also among the elect. Hutchinson's well-known spirometric experiments are then largely drawn upon, and freely quoted, by which means we reach p. 132, where we find four pages of illustrative cases, including those of the “Rev. Canon G,” who “broke down in voice”; “A. B., Esq., M.P.,” who “suffered from impediment in speech”; “C. W. P., Esq., Mus. Bac.,” who “spoke in a child's treble”; and “Miss D. M.,” who “was rapidly losing the upper and middle notes of her voice from faulty production.” All these, and others, to the number of eight, even a Scotch precentor among them, were happily cured.

Voice, Song, and Speech. A Practical Guide for Singers and Speakers, from the Combined View of Vocal Surgeon and Voice Trainer.

By Lennox Browne Emil Behnke, &c. 8vo, pp. 322. (London: Sampson Low, Marston, Searle, and Rivington, 1883.)