Home Arts for Old and Young

by Caroline L. Smith

Student. I believe you are a humbug.

Voice. Why don’t you let me out and see, before I am dead?

Student. (Opening and shutting the lid or door, and saying, the voice accordingly.) Dead! not you. When did you leave Canada?

Voice. Last week. O, I am choking!

Student. Shall I let him out? (Opening the door.) There is no one here.

Conversations can be held with pedlers at the door, or with some one in the cellar or basement; and as a rule the lower notes of the voice will be best for voices in the basement, and formed as low in the chest as possible.

The second kind of voice, or voice No. 2, we will call it, is more easy to be acquired. It is the voice by which all ventriloquists make a supposed person speak from a long distance, or from or through the ceiling. In the first place, with your back to the audience, direct their attention to the ceiling, by pointing to it, or by looking intently at it. Call loudly, and ask some questions, as though believed a person to be concealed there. Make your own voice very distinct, and as near the lips as possible, as that will help the illusion. Then, in exactly the same tone and pitch, answer; but, in order that the voice may seem to proceed from the point indicated, the words must be formed at the back part of the roof of the mouth. To do this, the lower jaw must be drawn back and held there, the mouth open, which will cause the palate to be elevated and drawn nearer to the pharynx, and the sound will be reflected in that cavity, and appear to come from the roof. Too much attention cannot be paid to the manner in which the breath is used in this voice. When speaking to the supposed person, expel the words with a deep, quick breath.

When answering in the imitative voice, the breath must be held back, and expelled very slowly, and the voice will come in a subdued and muffled manner, little above a whisper, but so as to be well distinguished. To cause the supposed voice to come nearer by degrees, call loudly, and say, “I want you down here!” or words to that effect; at the same time make a motion downwards with your hands. Hold some conversation with the voice, and cause it to say, “I am coming,” or “Here I am,” each time indicating the descent with the hand.

Let the voice, at every supposed step, roll, as it were, by degrees, from the pharynx more into the cavity of the mouth, and at each supposed step contracting the opening of the mouth, until the lips are drawn up as if you were whistling. By so doing, the cavity of the mouth will be very much enlarged. This will cause the voice to be obscured, and so to appear to come nearer by degrees. At the same time care must be taken not to articulate the consonant sounds plainly, as that would cause the disarrangement of the lips and cavity of the mouth; and in all imitation voices the consonants must scarcely be articulated at all, especially if the ventriloquist faces the audience. For example, suppose the imitative voice is made to say, “Mind what you are doing, you bad boy,” it must be spoken as if it were written, “ind ot you’re doing, you ’ad whoy.” (It is rarely a ventriloquist shows a full face to his audience, unless at a great distance from them. It would help to destroy the illusion if the jaws were seen to move.) This kind of articulation is made by forming the words in the pharynx, and then sending them out of the mouth by sudden expulsions of the breath clean from the lungs at every word. This is often illustrated by a ventriloquist pretending to talk to a man on the roof.