Cassell's Book of In-door Amusements, Card Games, and Fireside Fun

by Various

VENTRILOQUISM AND POLYPHONY.

These are two distinct branches of the same art or science of sounds, which may be cultivated by all, but with a success that will vary according to the special gifts or endowments of the student. Those possessed of ventriloquial powers have the opportunity of considerably annoying their fellow mortals if so inclined, but on the other hand they have also the means of affording them very considerable amusement and entertainment.

Ventriloquism is a vocal mimicry of sounds, by which an illusion is produced on the hearer that the sound comes, not from the mimic, but from some external source. The various descriptions of vocal mimicry are usually treated under two heads, namely:—1st, The simple imitation of the voices of persons, animals, musical instruments, and other sounds and noises of every description, in which no illusion is intended, and which is generally known by the name of Polyphony; 2nd, the imitation of those voices, sounds, and noises not as originating in the mimic, but in some other and appropriate source at a given or varying distance, in any or even in several directions successively, and which goes by the more general designation of Ventriloquism.

The above may be taken as a scientific and fairly accurate definition of the terms in question; and if in the treatment of this subject the distinctions above laid down are not strictly adhered to, they will be departed from only so far as it will be necessary to make the subject interesting to the reader and easily understood by the student. For the encouragement of all, we would say that more or less success as a ventriloquist may be attained by any one. Indeed, Professor Lee states that he attained the art without a single lesson and as the result merely of observation and practice. He says further that the chief requisites for its acquirement are—"A throat and lungs of average strength, ability to retain sounds in the memory, and the faculty of mimicry as to tone, look, and even gait, for these in no small degree contribute to the effect which the artist desires to produce." It is not at all an unusual thing to meet persons able to describe and imitate minutely a conversation carried on between half a dozen persons. To a certain extent this is ventriloquism, and the gift is capable of very considerable development. In short, the young practitioner must have the power of enunciating well, and that as far as possible without any perceptible motion of the lips; of disguising his voice, so as to imitate other voices and sounds, and of adapting the degree to the apparent source of the sound.

The relative properties of sound and capacity of hearing are so little understood, that it is generally supposed a ventriloquist throws his voice somewhere or other, as it is loosely expressed; a ventriloquist is often asked, for example, to throw his voice up a chimney or outside the house. This, of course, is a feat impossible to perform; all the ventriloquist can do is to speak and utter sounds with precisely similar organs to those possessed by every one. A ventriloquist does, however, imitate sounds that strike the ear, as if caused by some object at a distance. For example, a ventriloquist in imitating the music which cats so much delight to indulge in on the roofs during a summer's night, does not trouble himself to make the fearful row the cats make, but only the sound of the row as it comes to the ear subdued by distance and by passing through the intermediate ceilings and walls. It is most important that this distinction between noises as they are and noises as they are heard, should be constantly borne in mind during the practice of ventriloquism, and it should be remembered, as an axiom by all learners of the art, that "near sounds are louder than distant ones, and vice versâ." The fact that loudness as a property of sound is so little understood is one of the main causes of the success of so many ventriloquists. The performer by his speech or his acting leads the audience to expect to hear sounds as from a given quarter, and the sounds being heard as from an unknown quarter are believed to be from the quarter indicated. A strange sound being heard by a roomful of people will elicit cries all round of, "What was that?" hardly two of the company attributing the sound to the same cause, and possibly all to the wrong one. One of the commonest and easiest of ventriloquial deceptions is that of making a man's voice issue as it were from the chimney. As, however, no one present will be likely ever to have heard an actual voice proceeding from a chimney, it will, nine cases out of ten, be the speech or action of the practitioner accompanied by a strange or unknown sound that will give the real force to the deception. As a consequence, therefore, it follows that a ventriloquist, to amuse his audience, must have powers over and beyond those needed for mimicking sounds; he must be somewhat of an actor; and as in conjuring, so in this, he must indulge in abundance of what we then termed "patter." The ventriloquist's deceptions must be well practised and frequently rehearsed, but he must also well prepare and study the discourse of which his ventriloquial powers will be but the illustration.

Baron Mengen, a celebrated ventriloquist, says of himself, that to make sounds appear muffled or to come from a distance he presses his tongue against the teeth, and thus "circumscribes a cavity between the left cheek and the teeth, in which cavity the voice is produced by the air held in reserve." He furthermore adds, that it is necessary to well manage the breath, and to respire as seldom as possible.

The ventriloquist must understand the difference between vocal and other sounds, as embodying the distinction between ventriloquism in its highest development and mere polyphony. Mere sounds, that are not vocal sounds, can be produced in the vocal tube apart from the larynx. Some of them are of a definite and uniform pitch, while others are mere noises, such as rustling, whispering, gurgling, snoring, and many others. On the contrary, phonation, or the production of voice, is a result of actions taking place under mechanical laws of acoustics, combined with the physiological laws of muscular movement. The pitch of the voice essentially depends on the tension of the vocal ligaments, the loudness of their vibration, and the quality depends on the form and size of the vocal tube and the organisation of the larynx. The form and size of the vocal tube may be altered by dilating or contracting the pharynx, by dilating or contracting the mouth, by contracting the communication between the pharynx and the mouth, by altering the form of the mouth's cavity, and in other minor ways; and it will be found that each of these modifications of the vocal tube confers a peculiarity of quality to the voice.

The mimicry of mere sounds will be found by the young practitioner to be a comparatively easy matter, and he may soon be able to entertain his friends with fairly accurate imitations of the buzzing and humming of flies, bees, wasps, and other insects; of knife-grinding, of sawing and planing of wood, of falling objects, of cats mewing, of dogs barking, &c. &c. Instructions as to how to imitate these various sounds would be of little use; each one must find out for himself. In fact, an ear acutely perceptive to the nice distinctions of sound is about the only real qualification needed for the attainment of success in the practice of polyphony, as distinct from ventriloquism.

In treating the higher part of the subject, which deals with these illusions in which the voice counterfeits sounds, and also represents them in such a manner that they appear to issue from their appropriate source, some further remarks are needed on the questions of direction and distance of sounds. A little way back we repudiated the idea that ventriloquists threw their voices anywhere; and we return now to the subject to explain away the delusion, or rather the ignorance out of which the idea has grown. Man does not hear the distance which a sound has travelled; he only judges the distance from experience, by comparing the loudness with which he hears with the known distance and corresponding loudness of similar sounds. Experience proves, as previously stated, that error is generally the result of attempting off-hand to decide either the distance or the direction of an unknown sound. Bearing in mind, then, that near sounds are louder than distant ones, sounds having the same pitch, quality, and duration, may be produced with a graduated reduction or increase of loudness, which, falling in succession on the ear, will suggest to the mind a varying distance of the sound's source. The young practitioner should put this theory into practice, and, at the same time, imitate the sounds of voices and objects heard at different known distances. By these means he will the more readily be able to reproduce such sounds when they are required to form some part of his entertainment. For his encouragement he should also remember that slight defects in the imitation of distant voices and sounds may be expected to pass without question. Further, if the distance from which a sound has travelled is rarely accurately judged, the would-be ventriloquist will be still further encouraged by learning that the judgment as to the direction whence a sound comes is still more fallible. It is notorious, for example, that a person in a house cannot, by the noise made by an approaching carriage, judge with any degree of certainty whether it is coming from the right or the left. The direction whence a sound comes seems to be judged of by the right or left ear receiving the stronger impression; but this, of course, can only be when the sounds come from the level, or thereabouts, of the ear; if above, this mode of judgment, however accurate it may be made by practice, fails; hence it is that professed ventriloquists make so many of their unseen characters speak either from above or below the audience. The practice of holding an apparent conversation with some imaginary person, or persons, on the roof or below the floor, almost invariably forms parts of a ventriloquial entertainment, the performer indicating, either directly or indirectly, the direction from which he wishes his audience to believe the sound is coming. Directly, by asking questions such as "Are you up there?" "Are you down below?" or indirectly, by holding the hand to the ear and straining, as if listening for sounds from above or below, as the case may be. By these and similar means, before a sound is produced, the audience will be prepared to expect it to come from the suggested direction, and the ventriloquist has merely, by his adjustment of the vocal loudness, to indicate the necessary distance, when the error in, or want of judgment of the audience, will complete the illusion which he has thus already commenced. It has been observed by careful students of the art that the effect which is produced on sound by its travelling a distance from any direction is—

1. That its loudness is reduced in proportion to the distance.

2. That its pitch remains unaltered.

3. That its quality or tone is somewhat softened.

4. That its duration remains unaltered.

5. That human speech is somewhat obscured, chiefly in the consonant sounds.

It is very necessary that the student should study and bear in mind the full meaning and bearing of these five observations, and that his action should be guided thereby, remembering that the ventriloquist imitates the sound, not as it is heard at its source, but as it is heard after travelling from its source to the ear, that is, as it strikes the ear. A skilful ventriloquist will effect his imitations without any scarcely perceptible movement of his lips, jaws, or features; but when such movements are absolutely necessary, he will contrive not to let the audience see them, by turning away for the moment, his face from the audience, sometimes even not showing so much as the profile. With a little practice it will soon become easy to speak without moving the jaw, and it is the movements of the jaw which disturb the features. The labial sounds, such as b, p, m, when the jaw is thus fixed, can be made with the slightest possible motion of the lips. During ventriloquy, the lips and jaws being always more or less open, this slight labial movement generally remains unnoticed, unless special attention be directed to it. Practice, too, should be made to produce all the modifications of the voice without distorting the features or moving the lips more than is absolutely necessary.

The preceding outline of the philosophy of ventriloquism is sufficient to exhibit the nature of the art, and we will now proceed with a few hints as to how certain sounds are to be produced, premising, however, that they will not be numerous, as no definite rules can be laid down.

A bass and somewhat sepulchral tone is produced in the lower part of the throat, in much the same manner as when attempting to gurgle, except that the lips should remain closed, and the head kept in its natural position.

The greater the distance from which a sound has apparently to come, the nearer must the tip of the tongue be brought to the front of the mouth, the greater must be the contraction of the muscles, and the articulation must be made in the upper part of the throat.

The natural voice may be easily disguised by wearing a pair of pince-nez spectacles, with a very strong spring. The spring pressing on the air-passages of the nose will considerably alter the tone of the voice.

To make the sound of a voice appear as coming from the other side of a partition, or through a door, it is only necessary to open the mouth slightly, to fix the jaws fast, to draw back and roll the tongue, and then to speak; the sound then, instead of being formed in the mouth, will be formed in the pharynx, and appear to come from beyond such material as may be indicated by the action or natural speech of the performer.

To imitate the sound of the same voice after the door has been opened, or the partition removed, requires somewhat different management. The voice must not, of course, be altered from the original pitch, but must be made in another part of the mouth. To do this, the lips should now be tightly closed, one corner of the mouth (that away from the audience) should be drawn downwards towards the ear, the lips opened at that corner only, and the words to be spoken breathed out of the opening so formed.

To make a sound seem as coming from a distance is accomplished in a similar manner to that in which a sound is made to appear as coming from the other side of a door or wall, except that according to the distance from which the sound is represented as coming, must the palate of the mouth be thrown more or less back towards the pharynx, when the sound will be reflected in the cavity so formed, and appear to come from above or below, or according to the direction in which the ventriloquist holds his mouth and face. The voice, of course, may be made to come nearer or to recede, according to the varying size of the cavity described.

A ventriloquist should always have in his mind the knowledge that distant or muffled sounds are more or less indistinct, and as certain consonant sounds are ventriloquially difficult to utter, they may safely be slurred over, rather than risk the success of the illusion by moving the lips. For example: if the imitated voice is to be made say, "See what you are doing there, you bad boy," it should be spoken as if the labial consonants were omitted, and as if it were written "See 'ot you're doing there, you' ad whoy." A little careful preparation will soon enable the performer to dispense with such consonant sounds as those mentioned, except for his own natural voice.

As a general rule, it may be said that insect-sounds are produced more by the lips than the throat; but most sounds that are not phonetic may be produced in various ways, and the discovery of them must be left to the imitative powers of the reader.

It has already been observed that ventriloquism will be found of great service in making entertainments of parlour magic, clairvoyance, and the like more lively. It is related of Comte, the celebrated French conjurer, that ventriloquism added a great charm to his performances, but that he made the chief use of his powers in that direction when on his travels, as he found that they served as puffs for his public entertainments, and were a great help in attracting crowds. At Tours, for instance, it is stated he induced the people to break in four doors, to rescue a man supposed to be dying of hunger. At another place he renewed the miracle of the prophet Balaam's ass, by making a donkey, carrying an exceedingly stout man, complain of his excessive weight. Upon another occasion, at a fair, Comte saw a countryman driving a pig in order to offer it for sale. The pig was so fat that it could hardly move, and the following dialogue took place:—

Comte: "What's the price of your pig, my good man?"

Man: "A hundred francs, sir, at your service."

Comte: "The price is too much; seventy francs is abundance."

Man: "One hundred francs is the price, neither more nor less; take the pig at that or leave it."

Comte: "Stay (and approaching the animal); I am sure your pig is more reasonable than are you. (Addressing the pig) Tell me on your conscience, my fine fellow, are you worth one hundred francs?"

To which the pig was believed to reply in a hoarse and hollow voice: "You are a long way out; I'm not worth the half—I'm measled, and, if you buy me, you will be taken in."

Finally, we would recommend our young friends to practise those few sounds we have mentioned, and others will soon come naturally; to bear in mind our observations as to sounds from a distance and from various directions; and before attempting anything like a set entertainment, to write out beforehand and to rehearse over and over again the dialogues to be introduced. Strange sounds may sometimes be tried, secretly, in order to try the effect on others; but care must be taken, if ever ventriloquism is used for practical joking, and the nerves and feelings of those against whom the joke is to be directed well considered, or mischief may attend what would otherwise be perfectly innocent.