have the largest share in giving color and meaning to sounds--_i.e._,
they are the organs most important in the formation of the elements of
words.

The "open mouth" should mean open mouth cavity and duly separated
lips.

It is important that there be control of all parts of the
resonance-chambers, and always in relation to other parts of the vocal
apparatus.

CHAPTER XV.

THE ELEMENTS OF SPEECH AND SONG.

The subject treated in this chapter may be made dry enough; but if the
student will, while reading the descriptions given, endeavor to form
the sounds described, observing at the same time his own
resonance-chambers (mouth parts) carefully in a hand-glass, and then
follow up the applications made, the reader's experience will be, in
all probability, like the author's: the more the subject is studied
the more interesting does it become, especially if one experiments
with his own resonance apparatus.

Vowels and consonants are the elements of syllables, and words are
composed of the latter. However pure a vowel is, it is accompanied in
its utterance by some noise; a consonant, by relatively a great deal
of noise.

A _noise_, in distinction to a musical tone, is characterized by
irregularity as regards the vibrations that reach the ear, while in
the case of a tone a definite number of vibrations strikes against the
drum-head of the ear within a given time; so that so far as syllables
and words, even vowels, are concerned, we are not dealing with pure
tones.

For the formation of each vowel a definite form of the
resonance-chambers is essential. In uttering, either for the purposes
of speech or song, the vowel _u_ (_oo_), the mouth cavity has the form
of a large flask such as chemists use for their manipulations, but the
neck in this case is short. The whole resonance cavity is elongated,
and the lips are protruded; the larynx is depressed, and the root of
the tongue and the fauces (folds from the soft palate, usually spoken
of as the "pillars of the fauces") approach. The pitch of this vowel
is very low.

[Illustration: FIG. 56 (Beaunis). Shows the position of parts in
sounding the vowel _a_. By comparing this illustration with those
following, the relatively greater size of the cavity of the mouth in
this case will be evident. The reader is recommended to at once test
the correctness of these representations by sounding the vowels, and
observing the parts of his own vocal mechanism with a hand-mir