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.