Photographs of Seven Vocal Notes

Abstract

DR. A. O. RANKINE, by means of the invention described by him in NATURE of February 5, has placed me under a great obligation in furnishing ocular confirmation, desirable for those whose hearing is undisciplined or poor, of observations made by the unassisted ear on the inherent pitches of vowel sounds. No one who can hear harmonics of a sustained note from the larynx reinforced successively by a continuous change in the pitch of the mouth-cavity acting as a resonator should remain in doubt as to their place in the tablature, for, the pitch of the voice being known, if a harmonic sequence is heard, such as 4:5:6:7, the vibration number of any one of these overtones is the product of a simple multiplication. The well-known spherical resonators, applied in turn to the ear, cannot be changed instantaneously, destroy the all-important contrast, and have failed. The late Lord Rayleigh's compound resonator (Phil. Mag., 1907, p. 321) would do better service, but I do not know that anyone has used it for this purpose. The table in text-books of physics, physiology, etc., shows an extreme error of two octaves. The inherent pitches of the vowels of ordinary speech from oo to ee range from about fⁱⁱ to d^iv. Taking two octaves as the extreme compass of the mouth shaped for vowels, this supplies such “real characters” for vowel sounds as Bishop Wilkins and his friends looked for in vain, and the use of an alphabet thus rectified will make it unnecessary for English-speaking children to learn to spell, while the re-formed print writing will obviate spelling reform. I have explained this seeming paradox in a book now in the press.