Betty Bouncer.
There is a cheaper figure, however, called “The Talking Hand,” which may be bought at almost any large toy shop for about half-a-crown. As great fun can be got from this figure, we shall now tell our boys how to make it at the cost of a few pence. Get a quarter-yard of unbleached calico, fold it double and trace upon it an outline of the right hand and wrist. Then cut round the outline, taking care to leave a broad margin and a long thumb. Stitch round the glove, turn it inside out, and insert the hand. Now close the hand, and, with a soft blacklead, mark in roughly the eyes, nose, etc. The projecting knuckles will form the nose and the thumb the lower jaw. To give the latter a better appearance fill out the tip with wadding and sew it to that part of the glove just above it. Having withdrawn your hand, flatten the glove, and proceed to mark in the features more carefully with good writing-ink and a quill pen. The furrows in the face and the hair should also be marked with black ink, but the wide mouth and the tip of the nose with red ink. Colour the face with powdered chalk (yellow ochre and red) rubbed in with pellets of blotting-paper. Take care to make the eyes extra large and paint them with Chinese white. To complete the figure, sew to the glove a cap-frill, a shawl of red flannel, and a large bow under the chin, and “Betty Bouncer” becomes one of the most comical creatures you ever saw, ready to talk, laugh, or cry to order, while as to singing—well, you should just see the old lady getting her top note!
The chief subject of our next section will be polyphonism, or the imitation of various musical instruments, cries of animals, and other sounds. Meanwhile the young ventriloquist will find quite enough to do in practising: (a) Sentences containing labials and spirants; (b) voices saying “Good-night,” etc., in a monotone, whilst approaching or receding; (c) voices at the door, on the roof, up the chimney, in the cellar; (d) the “talking hand” or other figures.
Polyphony.—Polyphony is the art of imitating sounds of various kinds, usually, without attempting to deceive the hearer as to their direction. It may therefore be studied independently of ventriloquism. Already the art is much in vogue. We all know the boy who occasionally alarms the street with the yelp of an injured dog, or imitates the “cock’s shrill clarion” cleverly enough to deceive half the roosters in the neighbourhood and make quiet people mutter of canes and constables.
As in ventriloquism, so now the learner must first of all study closely the sounds he wishes to imitate. Very often they may be roughly indicated in words or syllables, and this is very helpful. Indeed, many words in our language, such as buzz, bang, tinkle, thud, crash, splash, and the like, originated in this very way. Let us begin with a few easy examples.
Knife-grinding sounds like the combination of a bur-r-r—made by fluttering the lips—with a prolonged ss. Sawing may be indicated by the syllables shuh-szee uttered alternately with the difference of a semitone. Planing can be effectively rendered by strongly whispering shee-yick, shee-ic-yick, ll-ll-luc, and then yu-yu-yook as a long shaving curls out of the plane. With regard to musical instruments, there is the ta-ra-ra of the trumpet, the pangka-bongka of the banjo, the zhing-sching of the cymbals, the pom-pome of the trombone, the r-rhumbu-dhumba of the drum, the explosive plim-blim of the harp, and the floo-lu-loo of the flute, whilst the notes of a clarionet may be imitated by the player’s running rapidly down the scale from a sharp nasal pli-li-li-plan-plah into a deeper glug-lu-lu-glah. Syllables like the foregoing give, as it were, an outline for the polyphonist to fill in with sound of the right colour or quality. Thus, a tune on the cornet should be sung to a ra-ra-ra forced through the tightly compressed lips, and the flu-lu-loo of the flute, with its roundness of tone and breathiness, should be vocalised in the falsetto while the cheeks are distended with air. An amusing and realistic imitation of the Jew’s-harp can be given in the following manner. Stiffen the first and second fingers of the left hand and place them firmly over the lips, but lightly, so as to allow the lips perfectly free play. Then give a strongly nasal rendering of some monotonous air whilst ringing the changes as rapidly as possible on the syllables whanga-whonga whee-whaw whoodle-ongle eedle-ongle whow-zeedle oodle-ee whay-whonga whaw, during which beat time upon the projecting fingers with the right forefinger as if twanging the tongue of the instrument. By following on the lines now laid down the apt learner may even become skilful enough to imitate an entire brass band, a feat which has been performed by at least one ventriloquist of our acquaintance. Some sounds, of course, it is almost impossible to reduce to writing, as, for example, the hollow “skaw” and murmur produced by a multitude of skaters, or the roar of an excited crowd, but in listening to these sounds, it is useful to remember that we may often obtain a key tone to work upon by partly closing the ears—just as a painter can often find the prevailing tint of a confused mass of objects by partly closing the eyes.
Phantom Poodles.