to a deep, low,
resolute tone which settled the issue at once, as though she had said:
'If we fail, why then we fail, and all is over.'"

Think how vitally the total impersonation is affected by your choice of
inflections at this point. Compare the effects of the three, Mrs.
Siddons tested. Are there other possible intonations of the words? What
are they? Do you realize the vital effect upon the voice of such vocal
analysis and experimentation? Devote ten minutes of the time you take
for reading each day to this phase of vocal interpretation, and at the
end of a week note its effect upon your silent reading and upon your
voice.

Remember, with inflection, as with every other phase of the training,
the greatest immediate benefit will come from holding the question of
its peculiar significance constantly in mind. Study the temperament of
the people about you by noting this element in their speech. Study the
attitude of every interlocutor you face, by studying the inflection of
his replies to the questions of life and death you propound. But, above
all, study your own use of this element. Do not let your own attitude go
undetected. It may help you to alter an unfortunate attitude to realize
its effect upon your own voice.

III

STUDY IN TONE-COLOR

And now we must turn to our last point of discussion, tone-color. What
is the nature of this element of our vocabulary--this _Klangfarbe_, this
_Timbre_? Upon what does it depend? You will say, "It is a property of
the voice depending upon the form of the vibrations which produce the
tone." True! And physiologically the form of the vibrations depends
upon the condition of the entire vocal apparatus. _Tone-color_, then, is
a modulation of resonance. But what concerns us is the fact that it is
an _emotional_ modulation of resonance. What concerns us is the fact
that, as a change of thought instantly registers itself in a change of
pitch, so a change of emotion instantly produces a change in the color
of the tone--if the voice is a free instrument. And so, as before, I
want you not to think of the physiological aspect, but to yield to the
emotion, noting the character of the resultant tone, regardless of what
has happened in the larynx to produce that result.

As Browning affords us the best material for our study in change of
pitch, so the poems of Sidney Lanier offer to the voice the richest
field for exercise in tone-color. Musician and poet in one, Lanier's
peculiar