There are certain essential differences between ideas which are shown by Vocal Expression, and those expressed by words. Some contend that the tone of voice can indicate the size or distance of an object; others even go so far as to say that, by the mere tone, we may indicate the time of day in which SID ation or event is conceived. No one who has observed the facts of Vocal Expression can doubt that there is some truth in this. Let us see how the voice can manifest this difference. By the ordinary elocutionary method, the voice shows these differences by representation, or "imitative modulation"; but Vocal Expression is not primarily a representative art. Painting can show the difference in size, color, and texture of objects; but Vocal Expression is confined to an entirely different and more important class of differences. As an illustration of this, take two lines from Longfellow's "Building of the Ship," and place them side by side: "Sail forth into the sea, O Ship," "Thou, too, sail on, O Ship of State." What are the differences between these two ships? They differ in size, one carrying, say, a thousand passengers, the other about sixty millions; but the size is the smallest difference. Painting can reveal these objective differences, it can represent, by means of light and shade and color, a scene or object objectively to the eye. Music is entirely different. While music may represent or imitate actions and sounds, this is not its primary aim. Descriptive music is of a low order; it is apt to become ridiculous. The "Barn Yard Symphony," for example, is a comical perversion of the true use and aim of music. The true function of music is to manifest subjective experience. Ideas have subjective as well as objective differences; they awaken different feelings and emotions in the human soul. The two ships referred to in Longfellow's poem have more important differences than size or shape. One is literal, the other is figurative. The first ship awakens joy: as we see it glide out into the water, we rejoice at the triumph of man's power; but the other ship awakens the nobler emotion of patriotism. One ship has its vocation in commerce, the other in history; one is a part of man's business life, the other is a part of his deeper, spiritual, national life. The one will pass away, and grow old; the other is something which will last for centuries. Now, of these two classes of ideas, with which is Vocal Expression more concerned? Like music, it is a manifestive art; like music, it only represents the object occasionally, and then as an additional association or suggestion. Vocal Expression manifests the feeling in the man who observes the object, and centres in the man. The true function of Vocal Expression, therefore, is to manifest the effect of a true and adequate conception of a truth as directly and simply as possible. Words are symbolic, but the voice is suggestive; and when the voice is cramped and strained to imitate or represent something objective, it is not acting in its highest sphere, and the result is artificiality and weakness. One of the leading faults of Vocal Expression is that it is too objective. It is the most subjective aspect of art. Such subjective differences as are seen in the extract from Longfellow, with reference to the three ships, should be studied and rendered with perseverance until the subjective transitions spontaneously modulate the voice, and simply, directly, and truthfully reveal themselves. If Vocal Expression does not manifest such differences, if it is made to represent objective things, it loses its natural power to reveal such subjective differences, and becomes mere mechanical elocution. Instead of such an indirect method being weak, it is strongest, because it manifests the man. Words are representative of ideas; but tone, except occasionally and suggestively, shows the man himself. Tone manifests feelings and exalted ideals, which will only be degraded by representative methods. In the four lines from Scott, No. 51, we have a true use of representative expression. Just as we have at times a place for true descriptive music, so here we have a sympathetic, suggestive use of vocal description. This, however, must never be strained. They must be imaginative, not imitative, — the result of sympathy, and not of mechanical copying. In practicing such contrasts as were presented in the last lesson, therefore, the student should not strain to represent differences; he must, rather, sympathetically identify himself with each idea and situation. The differences will then be true, and not artificial. They will be far more suggestive and expressive, for they will grow out of the same heart in unity and harmony. Only by such practice can contrasts test the adequacy of conception, the directness and genuineness of response, and true and harmonious abandon. A mechanical and representative mode of practice will vitiate these ends. The student should centre everything in each successive idea: a response, and not will, must cause expression. Imitation is volitional and mechanical. Assimilation and sympathetic identification alone can cause manifestation and spontaneous expression. Problem X. Take some sublime passage, keep the point of view of a sympathetic observer, and manifest the emotion which awakens in response to it. 50 SAIL forth into the sea, O ship! through wind and wave, right onward steer! the moistened eye, the trembling lip, are not the signs of doubt or fear. Sail forth into the sea of life, O gentle, loving, trusting wife, and, safe from all adversity, upon the bosom of that sea, thy comings and thy goings be! For gentleness, and love, and trust, prevail o'er angry wave and gust; and in the wreck of noble lives something immortal still survives! Thou, too, sail on, O Ship of State! sail on, O UNION, strong and great! humanity, with all its fears, with all the hope of future years, is hanging breathless on thy fate! We know what Master laid thy keel, what Workmen wrought thy ribs of steel, who made each mast, and sail, and rope, what anvils rang, what hammers beat, in what a forge, and what a heat, were shaped the anchors of thy hope! Fear not each sudden sound and shock: 'tis of the wave, and not the rock; 'tis but the flapping of the sail, and not a rent made by the gale! In spite of rock and tempest's roar, in spite of false lights on the shore, sail on, nor fear to breast the sea! Our hearts, our hopes, are all with thee, - our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears, our faith triumphant o'er our fears, are all with thee, are all with thee. 66 'Building of the Ship." Longfellow. Problem XI. Read some passage where the words represent certain ideas objectively, but keep such a sympathetic attitude that all objective representation shall be caused by a sympathetic identification, rather than by any conscious imitation. Let manifestation transcend representation. 51 TRAMP! tramp! along the line they rode, Splash! splash! along the sea; The scourge is wight, the spur is bright, The flashing pebbles flee. Scott. 52 NOVEMBER'S sky is chill and drear, November's leaf is red and sear; late, gazing down the steepy linn, that hems our little garden in, low in its dark and narrow glen, you scarce the rivulet might ken, so thick the tangled greenwood grew, so feeble trill'd the streamlet through. Now, murmuring hoarse, and frequent seen, through bush and briar no longer green, an angry brook, it sweeps the glade, brawls over rock and wild cascade, and, foaming brown with doubled speed, hurries its waters to the Tweed. "Marmion." 53 POEMS are painted window panes. If one looks from the square into the church, Dusk and dimness are his gains; Sir Philistine is left in the lurch! The sight, so seen, may well enrage him, Nor anything henceforth assuage him. But come just inside what conceals; A gracious splendor truth reveals. Scott. Goethe. 54. IN BLOSSOM TIME. It's O my heart, my heart, to be out in the sun and sing, To sing and shout in the fields about, in the balm and blossoming. And honey-bees, blacken the clover seas; there are none of you glad as I For O but the world is fair, and O but the world is sweet! I will out of the gold of the blossoming mold, and sit at the Master's feet. 55 I HIDE in the solar glory, I am dumb in the pealing song, I rest on the pitch of the torrent, in slumber I am strong. No numbers have counted my tallies, no tribes my house can fill, I sit by the shining Fount of Life, and pour the deluge still. . . . Let war and trade and creeds and song blend, ripen race on race, the sunburnt world a man shall breed of all the zones and countless days. No ray is dimmed, no atom worn, my oldest force is good as new, and the fresh rose on yonder thorn gives back the bending heavens in dew. THE development of expression requires objective as well as subjective study. Every art must have a technique: to improve any form of art we must not only stimulate the cause, but also secure better control of those actions by means of which the idea is expressed. Execution in Vocal Expression must be founded upon the study of conversation. Every art must be |