How should your voice be in the conversation?
The aim of one who would interpret literature for others, using the speaking voice. There can be no worthy or proper rendering of a great poem or prose selection without a keen preference for its inner meaning and content. This is the primary precaution against mechanical and meaningless declamation. The importance of this appreciation and understanding of the inherent spirit of thought will largely define the degree of life, reality, and impressiveness imparted to the spoken word.
The tight relationship between the voice and the spirit of the speaker indicates that one is necessary for the widest development of the other. The voice can clarify only what has been aroused and recognized within, accordingly, nothing reveals a speaker's hold of a subject so accurately and readily as his attempt to deliver its expression in his age. It is this spiritual power, cultivated primarily through reasoning and emotions, that conveys psychic force to speaking, and which more than logic, rhetoric, or learning itself facilitates the speaker to influence and convince men.
It is not sufficient that he expresses the truth with clearness and force; he must assert it with such passionate emotion as powerfully to move his hearers.
To assume that the study of the art of speaking will certainly generate consciousness of its principles while in the act of speaking in public, is as needless as to say that a knowledge of the rules of grammar, rhetoric, or logic leads to artificiality and self-consciousness in the teacher, writer, and thinker. There is an automated expertness foregoing all art, as Goethe explains, and this correlates to the orator no less than to the musician, the artist, the actor, and the litterateur.
The speaker will remember that he can make his own words glow and vibrate after he has first tested and trained himself in some such manner as this. Also, by thus fitting words to his mouth, and understanding the feelings of others, he will immeasurably gain facility and vocal responsiveness when he strives to utter his thoughts.
Music is a significant element in arousing emotion in the speaker and bringing to consciousness the mysterious inner voices of the soul. Therefore, the speaker should not only hear good music as often as possible, but he should train his ear to recognize the rhythm and melody in speech. One must listen much to amass much. Impression and realisation need time in which to grow. In this direction, the diverse sounds that arise from humanity and nature can be trapped in the soul of the speaker and thereafter voiced by him to others. weakness or affection of the throat may disqualify a speaker for meaningful work. The delicate and intricate machinery of the vocal equipment generates it peculiarly susceptible to misuse or orientation. The widespread weaknesses of nasality, throatiness, and harshness, are due to improper and careless use of the speaking appliance.
In the training of the public speaker, the 1st step is to give rise to the breathing machine under proper control. That is to explain, the speaker must accustom himself, through thorough practice, to use the abdominal method of breathing, and to protect his throat free from the stress to which it is commonly subjected. This pattern of breathing is not hard to acquire, since it just means that at the time of inhalation the abdomen is expanded, and during exhalation, it is contracted. It should be no longer necessary to instruct the speaker to breathe fully through the nose when not voice. While speaking he must so simply control the breath that not a particle of it can escape without giving up its match in sound.
Many speakers, in an endeavour to be heard at a great distance, employ too loud a tone, forgetting that the fundamental thing is a realistic and unique articulation. To speak continuously in high pitch, or through half-closed teeth, almost always causes distress to the throat. Most throat irritation is set down to a lack of proper elocutionary training. To keep the voice and throat in order there should be a usual daily practice, if just for ten minutes. The example might profitably be developed by certain actors who make practice active occasionally during the day while engaged in other duties, as a norm of maintaining the voice musical and vibrant.
When the throat becomes husky or tired it is an immediate warning from nature that it has to rest. To continue to engage in public speaking under these situations is continually followed with great danger, arising sometimes in total loss of voice. It is economy, in the end, to discontinue the use of the voice when there is an intense cold or the throat is otherwise caused. Uneasiness, tension, or odd mental exertion may prompt a vocal deterioration. For this circumstance, rest is advised, together with soft massaging of the throat with cold water mixed with a little vinegar.
A public speaker should not engage in a wordy conversation directly after a speech. The immediate shift from an auditorium to the outer air should recall the speaker to protect his mouth securely closed. The common physical condition of the speaker has much to do with the vigour and transparency of his voice. A daily plunge into cold water, or at least a sponging of the entire surface of the body, besides being a tonic luxury, particularly invigorates the throat and abdominal muscles. After the tub, a forceful rubbing with a towel and hands should produce a glow.
The diet of the public speaker should be very mild, and the extremes of hot and cold avoided. The use of ice water is to be prevented. Many drugs and pills are positively injurious to the throat. For habitual dryness of the throat, a glycerine or honey tablet will usually obviate the trouble. To muffle the throat with a scarf, unless required by special conditions, may bring it extremely sensitive and heighten the danger of taking cold when the head is twisted from side to side.
A dominant physician asserts the opinion that the nicest gargle for daily use is that of warm water and salt. This should be used every night and morning to cleanse and refresh the throat. Where there is a tendency to catarrh a solution made of peroxide of hydrogen, witch-hazel, and water, in equal parts, will substantiate efficaciously. Nothing should be snuffed up the nose except under the suggestion of a physician, lest it results in deafness.
Many speakers and singers have a favourite nostrum for enhancing their voice. The long and crazy list contains hot milk, tea, coffee, champagne, raw eggs, lemonade, apples, raisins,--and sardines! A satisfactory rule is to eat sparingly if the meal is taken just before speaking. It need scarcely be said that serious vocal damages, such as enlarged tonsils, elongated uvula, and abnormal growths in the throat and nose are subjects for the specialist.
Whenever feasible a speaker should test beforehand the auditory properties of the auditorium in which he is to speak for the first time. A practical plan is to have a friend seat himself at the back of the hall and deliver his opinion of the quality and casting power of the speaker's voice. It is hard to judge one's voice because it is revealed to him not only from the outside but also through the Eustachian tube and modified by the vibratory parts of the throat and head. A speaker never hears his voice as it is heard by another.
Nothing, probably, is so troublesome to the throat as long-continued speaking in one quality of tone. There are 2 diverse indexes which should be judiciously switched by the speaker. These are the chest register, in which the vocal cords vibrate their whole length, and the quality of tone originates most of its character from the chest cavity; and the head register, in which the vocal cords vibrate only in part, and the quality of tone is supported by the resonators of the face, mouth, and head. The first of these registers is sometimes called the orotund voice from its quality of roundness and is assigned primarily in the language of reverence, sublimity, and grandness.
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