I am crouching in a candy-striped booth with a wet swazzle, a slapstick and a string ofsausages.
The main character was Pulcinella (Little Chicken) who had a beaky nose and squeaky cry produced by a reed kept in the performer's mouth, known as a swazzle. We Brits mispronounced it as Punchinello -- Punch for short.
Now, I've promised not to reveal the secrets of the
swazzle - how a Prof actually makes Punch's sound.
His high-pitched voice comes from a
swazzle and he carries a slapstick.
Where would you find a 'professor' using a
swazzle? 8.
Now, if you think you have the ability to project your voice with a
swazzle in your throat, we have the very things for you in our David Dickinson auction on April 7.We have what we believe to be some of Prof Codman's early puppets.
The Miser had a
swazzle in his mouth such as a Punch and Judy man uses, so he could not sing, only squeak.
Punch's distinctive squawking voice is produced by a contraption known as a '
swazzle' or 'swatchel' which the professor holds in his mouth
[Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989], 2:153-295.) What we don't know is whether the puppeteers used an artificial device, such as was called a pivetta or sifflet de la pratique in the eighteenth century, or a "
swazzle" in the nineteenth century and modern period, to produce this sound.
Dr Chris Upton has swallowed his
swazzle at Newman College of Higher Education in Birmingham.
It also takes time to get used to the
swazzle, which you put in your mouth in order to create the right voices.
You have to put a little instrument in your mouth called a
swazzle. Once I'd mastered it, I was off.