Useful Hints to Public Speakers.
It is a curious fact in the history of sound, that the loudest noises always perish on the spot where they are produced, whereas musical notes will be heard at a great distance. Thus if we approach within a mile or two of a town or village, in which a fair is held, we may hear very faintly the clamor of the multitude, but more distinctly the organs and other musical instruments which are played for their amusement. If a Cremona violin, a real Amati, be played by the side of a modern fiddle, the latter will sound much louder of the two; but the sweet brilliant tone of the Amati, will be heard at a distance, the other cannot reach. Dr. Young, on the authority of Derham, states that, at Gibraltar, the human voice is heard at the distance of ten miles. It is a well known fact that the human voice may be heard at a greater distance than that of any other animal. Thus, when the cottager in the woods, or in the open plain, wishes to call her husband, who is working at a distance, she does not shout, but pitches her voice to a musical key, which she knows from habit, and by that means reaches his ear. The loudest roar of the largest lion could not penetrate so far. "This property of music in the human voice," says the author, "is strikingly shown in the cathedrals abroad. There the mass is entirely performed in musical sounds, and becomes audible to every devotee, however placed in the remotest part of the church; whereas, if the same mass had been read, the sounds would not have traveled beyond the precincts of the choir." Those orators who are heard in large assemblies most distinctly, and at the greatest distance, are those who, by modulating the voice, render it more musical. Loud speakers are seldom heard to advantage.