Abstract
WITH regard to the very interesting researches on vowel sounds by Prof. Scripture published in NATURE of January 13 (p. 632) and January 20 (p. 664), I beg to be permitted to state that the attempt of Helmholtz to produce vowels with smooth, simple tones has since been fully confirmed. Using, instead of tuning-forks, bottles caused to sound by currents of air blown over their orifices, which, as is well known, give almost perfectly simple tones, I have been able to demonstrate this myself. The remarkable and extended investigations of Prof. Miller described in his book, “Science of Musical Sound,” have fully proved the statement of Helmholtz to be true, as have also the researches of Prof. Stumpff, of Berlin. I am therefore of the opinion that the Helmholtz theory of vowel sounds can scarcely be doubted any longer. Hermann's and Scripture's method of producing vowels by sending puffs of air through a resonator does not contradict this. Whenever a complex vibration is set up which appears to be a mixture of simple tones corresponding to the sound of a vowel, there will be produced a vowel. However, it is very important to have repeated Hermann's experiments and extended them by using resonators with soft walls.
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DE WESENDONK, C. Nature of Vowel Sounds. Nature 107, 12 (1921). https://doi.org/10.1038/107012c0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/107012c0
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