By raising the back of the tongue toward the soft palate and lowering the soft palate toward the tongue, we produce nasal sound, such as is heard in the pronunciation of the word "hanger," for instance. The air is then expelled chiefly through the nose. The nasal sound can be much exaggerated—something that very rarely happens; it can be much neglected—something that very often happens. Certain it is that it is not nearly enough availed of. That is my own everyday experience.

We Germans have only small opportunity to make the acquaintance of the nasal sound; we know it in only a few words: "Engel," "lange," "mangel," etc.,—always where ng occurs before or after a vowel.

The French, on the contrary, always sing and speak nasally, with the pillar of the fauces raised high, and not seldom exaggerate it. On account of the rounding up of the whole soft palate, which, through the power of habit, is cultivated especially by the French to an extraordinary degree, and which affords the breath an enormous space as a resonating surface to act upon, their voices often sound tremendous. The tenor Silva is a good example of this. Such voices have only the one drawback of easily becoming monotonous. At first the power of the organ astonishes us; the next time we are disappointed—the tone color remains always the same. The tone often even degenerates into a hollow quality.

nasal tone

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On the other hand, voices that are not sufficiently nasal sound clear and expressionless. Madame Melba, for instance, whose voice is cultivated to favor the head tones, and sounds equally well in all its ranges, apparently lowers the pillars of the fauces too much, and has her chief resonance in the head cavities; she cannot draw upon the palatal resonance for single accents of expression. Consequently she loses in vocal color. This procedure, as soon as it becomes a habit, results in monotony.

In the first case somewhat less, in the second somewhat more, nasal resonance would help to a greater variety of effect.

There are singers, too, who pursue the middle path with consummate art. Thus Madame Sembrich, in recent years, appears to have devoted very special study to nasal tones, whereby her voice, especially in the middle register, has gained greatly in warmth.

To fix the pupil's attention on the nasal tone and the elasticity of the palate, he should often be given exercises with French words.