From the box or closet illusion it is an easy step to the production of the voice overhead, from through a wall or under the floor, although in attempting either of these effects there are several striking points or essentials to be care­fully observed.

For the voice on the roof you do not use the drone pure and simple, although you retain the same formation of the vocal organs. This gives the distant effect, but instead of retaining the voice in the back of the throat, as it were, you force it against the back of the hard palate, or roof of the mouth. The quality of the voice should be a kind of gruff falsetto, elevated to a high pitch.

Byrolling back the tongue and keeping the jaws rigid, with the lips slightly apart, the palate will be elevated and drawn nearer to the pharynx, thereby forming a cavity in the back part of the mouth and throat. The consonant sounds need not be articulated plainly, all words being formed in the pharynx and exploded, as it were, against the roof of the mouth by sudden expulsions of the breath clear from the lungs at every word.

When you are ready to try this voice in public, take your position as far from the audience as possible, because, as already stated, the more removed you are from the listeners the better the effect will seem to them. If you are not entirely sure of yourself, deliberately turn your back on the company and direct their attention to the ceiling, either by looking upward or by pointing while calling loudly, as if you have reason to be­lieve some one is concealed above. Make your own voice very distinct and loud and as close to the lips as possible to give further contrast be­tween the natural and the ventriloquial voice. In fact, almost shout, and then in exactly the same tone and pitch, but as faint as possible con­sistent with audibility, answer in the manner already described.

Careful attention must be paid to the manner of breathing in order properly to get the right effect. When using the ventriloquial voice the breath must be allowed to escape from the lungs very slowly, when the sound will come in a subdued and muffled manner, hardly louder than a whisper, but still containing body enough to be well distinguished. As a beginning try the fol­lowing brief dialogue:

Vent. I say, is there any one up there?
Voice. Yes, I am.
Vent. What do you want?
Voice. I want to get down.
Vent. Well, why don't you come down?
Voice. 'Cause I can't.
Vent. How did you get up there?
Voice. I came up a ladder.
Vent. Why don't you come down the ladder?
Voice. Some one took it away.
Vent. Well, open the skylight and drop to the floor beneath; you can then easily find your way down by the stairs.
Voice. All right, much obliged to you, sir.
Vent. Oh, don't mention it!
Voice. All right, I won't. Good-night.
Vent. Good-night.

If the voice is made to repeat the words "good­night" several times, each time fainter than be­fore, ending with an almost inaudible "ha, ha, ha!" the climax is made much more effective if skilfully done. A more elaborate dialogue for this voice will be found in Section IV.

While you are talking with the imaginary man, speak and act earnestly as if you had completely forgotten your audience. With your face away from the listeners all necessity for concealing the movement of the lips is dispensed with, and the only things to attend to are the character and tone of the ventriloquial voice. Before you are quite ready to turn your face to the auditors again, be careful to graduate the assumed voice until it is well under command at the spot where the "cluck" is made in swallowing. Practice to shut off the sound at that spot and gradually raise the pitch as the voice becomes suppressed. Extend­ing the stomach at each "good-night" will help the effect.

The more artistic plan, however, is to keep your face toward the audience all the time, or at least in profile, and this should always be done on a stage. Stand with your left side to the au­dience and, throwing your head back, look directly upward toward the spot from which you wish the voice to sound. This pose carries conviction to the spectators, because it is the one that would naturally be taken when talking with some one overhead.

The two voices which have already been elucidated form the basis for nearly every effect pos­sible in ventriloquism. For instance, the first voice (which we will call No. 1) may be used for a box, closet or door effect, as already explained; while if you wish to imitate the sound of a person shouting from the opposite side of a river or road­way, you would use the voice for the "man on the roof," which we will label No. 2. In this case, however, it should be made a little louder than when apparently heard through an inter­vening obstacle like a ceiling or a wall.

These two voices may, in fact, be used in various ways, and formed into many apparently dissimilar voices by contraction and expansion of the glot­tis and by shortening or lengthening the cavities of the mouth and the throat. By making contor­tions of the mouth and voice in a room alone, the student will get a better idea than any descrip­tion can give him of the many peculiarities of sound and effect which may be created while holding the jaws and tongue in the manner neces­sary to produce the drone.

We will now take up the best method for pro­ducing the illusion of the " man under the floor," which is somewhat different than that used for either of the voices mentioned; and also show the student how he may merge one effect into another, so that he may cause the man above to descend to a level and finally to the cellar.

It sometimes happens that otherwise capable ventriloquists force the poor man on the roof to stay there for all time under the flimsy excuse that there is no ladder and no convenient sky­light. The real reason is because they them­selves do not know how to bring him down with­out danger of destroying the deception; and for the same reason their man in the closet or in the basement is left in either place to get out as best he may after the audience has dispersed. Like the self-taught violin player, such ventriloquists have never got beyond the first position, as they very easily could do by a little intelligent prac­tice, which would not only add to the technique of their art, but to the finish of their exhibitions as well.

The voice of the "man under the floor" is chiefly distinguished from voices No. 1 and No. 2 by its tonal quality. Instead of being a near voice muffled or a high-pitched falsetto, it is a guttural voice made as far down the throat as possible. To produce it forget all about No. 1 and No. 2, and shorten your neck until your chin touches your chest. This compresses the vocal cords and draws up your stomach in such a man­ner that when you speak the sound is prevented from rising and is forced down the throat. Of course you would not in public sink your chin to your chest any more than you would make the retching sound when using the drone, but it is necessary to do so in your preliminary practice in order to obtain the right result. When once you have accustomed your ear to the sound and your vocal organs to the right formation, it can be made naturally without difficulty.
The idea is to make the sound as far back in the pharynx as possible, and to prevent it from rising into the cavity of the mouth by compress­ing the vocal mechanism. Note well that this voice is low-pitched and is not exploded against the palate as in voice No. 2, or simply muffled as in voice No. 1.

In other words, you always send the sound originating in the larynx in the direction from which you desire it to come—if from above you pitch it high and force it against the roof of the mouth, or hard palate; if from near at hand you make it near by confining it in the cavity of the mouth; and if from below you pitch it low and send it downward. From this it follows that the ordinary drone effect represents distance, while the method used in the projection of that sound suggests direction. In developing these voices, use the vowel and consonant exercise already rec­ommended before taking up the vocabulary.

Some ventriloquists use one distance voice for every effect, and in justification of this plan ex­plain that it is so difficult to execute the distant voice in different keys that, where it is desirable to introduce a number of characters, it is best to do it by transition. That is, they alter the nat­ural tones of the voice so as to make a very ap­parent distinction between it and the mimetic voice. This, they aver, can be done so skillfully that the audience will not realize the change, and enthusiastically declare this to be one of the great­est secrets of the art.

According to this method, if your mimetic voice is to be low, you must raise the natural tone of your voice in your announcement relative to where the voice is to come from. By making the reply in the ventriloquial voice in a tone only a trifle lower than the natural one, the difference or transition will be so great that the mimetic voice will be verydeep in comparison. If the dialogue is to be continued, and the next voice is to be high, the natural tone should be only a trifle higher than the one just given as the low voice, which will make another marked differ­ence. The whole secret is in making these jumps or transitions without their being apparent to the audience. The transition idea may be used mod­erately to heighten the effect of the different ventriloquial voices, even if the whole procedure cannot be commended. It is undoubtedly a fact that an expert ventriloquist could successfully de­ceive an audience by the use of one voice alone, but it is doubtful if he could do this so effectively as by having a somewhat different method for each effect.