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<P><FONT COLOR="#000080" SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">I asked an acquaintance who is a ventriloquist about the production of labials by ventriloquists. Her answer, copied below, corroborates Mike Salovesh's post of Feb. 20</FONT></P>
<P><FONT COLOR="#000080" SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">Mary Beth Breland</FONT>
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<P><FONT COLOR="#000080" SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">The answer in my opinion is that in one sense the teacher's statement is correct. No one can really make those liable sounds.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT COLOR="#000080" SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">We use a series of sound substitutes. They are listed as follows:</FONT>
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<P><FONT COLOR="#000080" SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">B = D</FONT>
<BR><FONT COLOR="#000080" SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">M = N</FONT>
<BR><FONT COLOR="#000080" SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">P = T</FONT>
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<P><FONT COLOR="#000080" SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">With lots of practice and terrific air control, a ventriloquist learns to soften the substituted sound against back of his teeth.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT COLOR="#000080" SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">A sentence such as, 'A boy bounces a basketball.', would be said ventriloquilly , 'A doy dounces a dasketdall.' Yet due to the lack of facial muscled movement, the air control, the softening of the attack on the liabels, and the fact that it is used in conversation, a listener believes that is what is being said.(Also partly because the listener really wants to believe the dummy is "talking")</FONT></P>
<P><FONT COLOR="#000080" SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">Michelle</FONT>
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<P><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">----------------------------------------------------------------------</FONT>
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<P><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">Date: Mon, 21 Feb 2000 00:09:18 -0600</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">From: Mike Salovesh <t20mxs1@CORN.CSO.NIU.EDU></FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">Subject: Re: Ventriloquists and labial sounds</FONT>
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<P><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">Gerald Cohen wrote:</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">></FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">> Yesterday I confidently told one of my classes that it is impossible</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">> to make the sounds m, p, or b without using the lips. And I invited the</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">> students to test this out at leisure when they're alone somewhere.</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">></FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">> One of my students then raised his hand and asked how ventriloquists</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">> can make a labial sound. Hmmm. Can someone help me out with an answer to</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">> this?</FONT>
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<P><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">Answer: they don't. They substitute other sounds that are misperceived</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">by their audiences. A large part of the successful ventriloquist's</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">training comes in learning how to manipulate secondary features of</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">labials so as to give the impression that they have actually pronounced</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">a labial without moving their lips.</FONT>
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<P><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">I don't have the citations at hand, but my statement is based on books I</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">acquired in boyhood attempts to learn both ventriloquism and stage</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">magic. For what it's worth, I confirmed the existence of the technique</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">by carefully observing actual ventriloquists at work. (Your students</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">could do that, too, if your audio-visual library happens to have any</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">footage of ventriloquists . . . )</FONT>
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<P><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">One trick that was widely suggested in how-to-do-it ventriloquism</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">manuals was to move part of the inside of the lower lip to bring it</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">between the upper and lower teeth, then to bite lightly to keep it</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">there. That was supposed to make it easier to control a tendency to move</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">the lips. Look at ventriloquists at work and you can usually detect</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">this trick in operation each time they switch from normal voice to</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">dummy's voice.</FONT>
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<P><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">Those manuals usually had a substitution table, suggesting /n/ for /m/,</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">/d/ for /b/, /t/ for /p/. I remember one manual that gave page after</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">page of things to read out loud, making those substitutions in otherwise</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">normal speech. The readings were intended as practice drill that would</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">make substitution automatic.</FONT>
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<P><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">The novice ventriloquist was then advised to adopt a special voice set,</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">much tenser and at a higher pitch than "normal" speech, as the voice of</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">the ventriloquist's dummy. This "strange" voice was a form of</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">misdirection: the audience was supposed to focus so much on the</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">strangeness that little things like the substitution of /d/ for /b/</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">would fade unnoticed into the background.</FONT>
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<P><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">Advanced manuals recommended learning full routines to use verbatim.</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">One of the big pitfalls they tried to teach novices to avoid was any</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">string that repeated a lot of labials. The idea was to avoid trying to</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">say "Teter Titer Ticked a Teck of Tickled Tetters."</FONT>
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<P><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">-- mike salovesh <salovesh@niu.edu></FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">PEACE !!!</FONT>
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<P><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">------------------------------</FONT>
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