nd singer hinge upon
the above-mentioned facts. It follows, for example, that it is
impossible to give a vowel its _perfect_ sound in any but one
position of the mouth parts, so that for a singer to utter a word
containing the vowel _[=u]_ (_oo_) at a high pitch is a practical
impossibility. The listener may know what syllable is meant, and
overlook the defect either from habit or from an uncritical attitude,
but composers of vocal music should bear such facts in mind and not
impose impossibilities on singers. At the same time, the vocalist, in
order to satisfy a modern audience, is obliged to sound every word and
every syllable as correctly as possible, even if the tone suffer
somewhat thereby. It is wonderful how fully the best poets have, with
the insight of genius, adapted their words (vowels) to the ideas they
wish to convey, and had all composers of vocal music done the same,
the path of the singer would not have been strewn with so many
thorns. The difficulties in the case of the speaker are similar, but
less marked, as his range is so much more limited as regards pitch.

[Illustration: FIG. 58 (Beaunis). Shows the relative position of the
parts in sounding _OU_.]

This subject has also most important bearings on the learning of
languages. One is born with tendencies toward certain mouth positions,
etc., and from infancy he is constantly using the resonance-chambers
in certain characteristic ways. In the course of years these
positions, etc., become such fixed habits that it is difficult to
change them, so that for this as well as many other reasons the
learning of languages by persons beyond a certain age is a difficult
matter. But to all students of a foreign tongue it is really essential
to explain the physical mechanism by which the various sounds are
made. The author has known an adult to struggle for months with French
and German pronunciation, and get into a state of discouragement,
fearing that he never would be able to learn the languages in which he
wished to speak and sing, when a few moments spent in explaining just
what we have written above for vowels, and what we have earlier and
shall now more fully set forth in this chapter as regards consonants,
have been followed by the lifting of the cloud from the mind and of a
load of heaviness from the heart.

The learner should (1) hear the sound (elemental--a vowel, say) from
the lips of the teacher, and actually perceive just what that sound
is--_i.e