1. If an ascending phrase encounters no repeated and no dissonant note it is progressive, and the culminating note is the most intense. It has one degree of intensity.
2. If we find a note repeated in the ascending phrase, that note, even if it be the lowest of all, must be made more important than the highest note and will have two degrees of intensity. In this case, the higher the voice rises the softer it must become; for there cannot be more than one culminating point in a musical phrase any more than in a logical or mimetic phrase. All sounds must, therefore, diminish in proportion to their distance from this centre of expression, from this repeated note. The reason of the intensity of a repeated note lies in the fact that we repeat only that thing which we desire, and this intensity gives it a greater value.
3. If the repeated note be at the same time the culminating note, it will require a new degree of intensity. It will have three degrees of intensity.
4. We may possibly find a dissonant note in the ascending phrase, with a repeated culminating note. (This note would, then, be more than an indication; it would receive an adjective form from the accident, assuming in the musical phrase the value that an adjective would have in a logical phrase.) Its intensity, therefore, would be greater than that of the highest repeated note, and it would have four degrees of intensity.
5. If the dissonant note is also the highest note, it acquires from that position a fifth degree of intensity.
6. It may happen that the dissonant note appearing in a rising phrase is repeated; by reason of this repetition it would receive a sixth degree of intensity.
7. Finally, if the dissonant note is at the same time culminating and repeated, it has seven degrees of intensity.
Pathetic Effects.
Pathetic effects are nine in number, the principal of which are as follows: The veiled tone; the flat or compressed tone; the smothered tone; the ragged tone; the vibrant tone. The last is the most powerful.
Vibration or tremolo, bad when produced involuntarily by the singer, becomes a brilliant quality when it is voluntary and used at an opportune time. Every break must be preceded by a vibration, which prepares the way for it.