The Art of Public Speaking Part 19

2. Tell why each one is necessary for good voice production.

3. Give some exercises for development of these conditions.

4. Why is range of voice desirable?

5. Tell how range of voice may be cultivated.

6. How much daily practise do you consider necessary for the proper development of your voice?

7. How can resonance and carrying power be developed?

8. What are your voice faults?

9. How are you trying to correct them?

CHAPTER XIII

VOICE CHARM

A cheerful temper joined with innocence will make beauty attractive, knowledge delightful, and wit good-natured.

--JOSEPH ADDISON, _The Tattler_.

Poe said that "the tone of beauty is sadness," but he was evidently thinking from cause to effect, not contrariwise, for sadness is rarely a producer of beauty--that is peculiarly the province of joy.

The exquisite beauty of a sunset is not exhilarating but tends to a sort of melancholy that is not far from delight The haunting beauty of deep, quiet music holds more than a tinge of sadness. The lovely minor cadences of bird song at twilight are almost depressing.

The reason we are affected to sadness by certain forms of placid beauty is twofold: movement is stimulating and joy-producing, while quietude leads to reflection, and reflection in turn often brings out the tone of regretful longing for that which is past; secondly, quiet beauty produces a vague aspiration for the relatively unattainable, yet does not stimulate to the tremendous effort necessary to make the dimly desired state or object ours.

We must distinguish, for these reasons, between the sadness of beauty and the joy of beauty. True, joy is a deep, inner thing and takes in much more than the idea of bounding, sanguine spirits, for it includes a certain active contentedness of heart. In this chapter, however the word will have its optimistic, exuberant connotation--we are thinking now of vivid, bright-eyed, laughing joy.

Musical, joyous tones const.i.tute voice charm, a subtle magnetism that is delightfully contagious. Now it might seem to the desultory reader that to take the lancet and cut into this alluring voice quality would be to dissect a b.u.t.terfly wing and so destroy its charm. Yet how can we induce an effect if we are not certain as to the cause?

_Nasal Resonance Produces the Bell-tones of the Voice_

The tone pa.s.sages of the nose must be kept entirely free for the bright tones of voice--and after our warning in the preceding chapter you will not confuse what is popularly and erroneously called a "nasal" tone with the true nasal quality, which is so well ill.u.s.trated by the voice work of trained French singers and speakers.

To develop nasal resonance sing the following, dwelling as long as possible on the _ng_ sounds. Pitch the voice in the nasal cavity.

Practise both in high and low registers, and develop range--_with brightness_.

Sing-song. Ding-dong. Hong-kong. Long-thong.

Practise in the falsetto voice develops a bright quality in the normal speaking-voice. Try the following, and any other selections you choose, in a falsetto voice. A man's falsetto voice is extremely high and womanish, so men should not practise in falsetto after the exercise becomes tiresome.

She perfectly scorned the best of his clan, and declared the ninth of any man, a perfectly vulgar fraction.

The actress Mary Anderson asked the poet Longfellow what she could do to improve her voice. He replied, "Read aloud daily, joyous, lyric poetry."

The joyous tones are the bright tones. Develop them by exercise.

Practise your voice exercises in an att.i.tude of joy. Under the influence of pleasure the body expands, the tone pa.s.sages open, the action of heart and lungs is accelerated, and all the primary conditions for good tone are established.

More songs float out from the broken windows of the negro cabins in the South than from the palatial homes on Fifth Avenue. Henry Ward Beecher said the happiest days of his life were not when he had become an international character, but when he was an unknown minister out in Lawrenceville, Ohio, sweeping his own church, and working as a carpenter to help pay the grocer. Happiness is largely an att.i.tude of mind, of viewing life from the right angle. The optimistic att.i.tude can be cultivated, and it will express itself in voice charm. A telephone company recently placarded this motto in their booths: "The Voice with the Smile Wins." It does. Try it.

Reading joyous prose, or lyric poetry, will help put smile and joy of soul into your voice. The following selections are excellent for practise.

_REMEMBER_ that when you first practise these cla.s.sics you are to give sole attention to two things: a joyous att.i.tude of heart and body, and bright tones of voice. After these ends have been attained to your satisfaction, carefully review the principles of public speaking laid down in the preceding chapters and put them into practise as you read these pa.s.sages again and again. _It would be better to commit each selection to memory._

SELECTIONS FOR PRACTISE

_FROM MILTON'S "L'ALLEGRO"_

Haste thee, Nymph, and bring with thee Jest, and youthful Jollity, Quips and Cranks and wanton Wiles, Nods and Becks, and wreathed Smiles, Such as hang on Hebe's cheek, And love to live in dimple sleek,-- Sport that wrinkled Care derides, And Laughter holding both his sides.

Come, and trip it as ye go On the light fantastic toe; And in thy right hand lead with thee The mountain nymph, sweet Liberty: And, if I give thee honor due, Mirth, admit me of thy crew, To live with her, and live with thee, In unreproved pleasures free;

To hear the lark begin his flight, And singing, startle the dull Night From his watch-tower in the skies, Till the dappled Dawn doth rise; Then to come in spite of sorrow, And at my window bid good-morrow Through the sweetbrier, or the vine, Or the twisted eglantine; While the c.o.c.k with lively din Scatters the rear of darkness thin, And to the stack, or the barn-door, Stoutly struts his dames before;

Oft listening how the hounds and horn Cheerly rouse the slumbering Morn, From the side of some h.o.a.r hill, Through the high wood echoing shrill; Sometime walking, not unseen, By hedge-row elms, on hillocks green, Right against the eastern gate, Where the great Sun begins his state, Robed in flames and amber light, The clouds in thousand liveries dight, While the plowman near at hand Whistles o'er the furrowed land, And the milkmaid singing blithe, And the mower whets his scythe, And every shepherd tells his tale, Under the hawthorn in the dale.

_THE SEA_

The sea, the sea, the open sea, The blue, the fresh, the fever free; Without a mark, without a bound, It runneth the earth's wide regions round; It plays with the clouds, it mocks the skies, Or like a cradled creature lies.

I'm on the sea, I'm on the sea, I am where I would ever be, With the blue above and the blue below, And silence wheresoe'er I go.

If a storm should come and awake the deep, What matter? I shall ride and sleep.

I love, oh! how I love to ride On the fierce, foaming, bursting tide, Where every mad wave drowns the moon, And whistles aloft its tempest tune, And tells how goeth the world below, And why the southwest wind doth blow!

I never was on the dull, tame sh.o.r.e But I loved the great sea more and more, And backward flew to her billowy breast, Like a bird that seeketh her mother's nest,-- And a mother she was and is to me, For I was born on the open sea.

The waves were white, and red the morn, In the noisy hour when I was born; The whale it whistled, the porpoise rolled, And the dolphins bared their backs of gold; And never was heard such an outcry wild, As welcomed to life the ocean child.

I have lived, since then, in calm and strife, Full fifty summers a rover's life, With wealth to spend, and a power to range, But never have sought or sighed for change: And death, whenever he comes to me, Shall come on the wide, unbounded sea!

--BARRY CORNWALL.

The sun does not shine for a few trees and flowers, but for the wide world's joy. The lonely pine upon the mountain-top waves its sombre boughs, and cries, "Thou art my sun." And the little meadow violet lifts its cup of blue, and whispers with its perfumed breath, "Thou art my sun." And the grain in a thousand fields rustles in the wind, and makes answer, "Thou art my sun."

And so G.o.d sits effulgent in Heaven, not for a favored few, but for the universe of life; and there is no creature so poor or so low that he may not look up with child-like confidence and say, "My Father! Thou art mine."

--HENRY WARD BEECHER.