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PUBLIC SPEAKING
PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICE
BY IRVAH LESTER WINTER
IN OFFERING A BOOK TO STUDENTS OF PUBLIC SPEAKING
THE AUTHOR WOULD PAY WHAT TRIBUTE IS HERE POSSIBLE
TO
CHARLES WILLIAM ELIOT
WHO FOR MANY YEARS HAS TAUGHT BY EXAMPLE
THE POWER AND BEAUTY OF PERFECTED SPEECH
PREFACE
This book is designed to set forth the main principles of effective
platform delivery, and to provide a large body of material for student
practice. The work laid out may be used to form a separate course of
study, or a course of training running parallel with a course in
debating or other original speaking. It has been prepared with a view
also to that large number who want to speak, or have to speak, but
cannot have the advantage of a teacher. Much is therefore said in the
way of caution, and untechnical language is used throughout.
The discussion of principles in Part One is intended as a help towards
the student's understanding of his task, and also as a common basis of
criticism in the relation between teacher and pupil. The preliminary
fundamental work of Part Two, Technical Training, deals first with the
right formation of tone, the development of voice as such, the securing
of a fixed right vocal habit. Following comes the adapting of this
improved voice to the varieties of use, or expressional effect,
demanded of the public speaker. After this critical detailed drill, the
student is to take the platform, and apply his acquired technique to
continued discourse, receiving criticism after each entire piece of
work.
The question as to what should be the plan and the content of Part
Three, Platform Practice, has been determined simply by asking what are
the distinctly varied conditions under which men most frequently speak.
It is regarded as profitable for the student to practice, at least to
some extent, in all the several kinds of speech here chosen. In thus
cultivating versatility, he will greatly enlarge his power of
expression, and will, at length, discover wherein lies his own special
capability.
The principal aim in choosing the selections has been to have them
sufficiently alive to be attractive to younger speakers, and not so
heavy as to be unsuited to their powers. Some of them have proved
effective by use; many others are new. In all cases they are of good
quality.
It is hoped that the new features of the book will be found useful. One
of these is a group of lighter after-dinner speeches and anecdotes. It
has been said that, in present-day speech-making, humor has supplanted
former-day eloquence. It plays anyway a considerable part in various
kinds of speaking. The young speaker is generally ineffective in the
expression of pleasantry, even his own. Practice in the speaking of
wholesome humor is good for cultivating quality of voice and ease of
manner, and for developing the faculty of giving humorous turn to one's
own thought. It is also entertaining to fellow students. Other new
features in the book are a practice section for the kind of informal
speaking suited to the club or the classroom, and a section given to
the occasional poem, the kind of poem that is associated with speech-
making.
A considerable space is given to argumentative selections because of
the general interest in debating, and because a need has been felt for
something suited for special forensic practice among students of law.
Some poetic selections are introduced into Part Two in order to give
attractive variety to the student's work, and to provide for the
advantage of using verse form in some of the vocal training. The few
character sketches introduced may serve for cultivating facility in
giving entertaining touches to serious discourse. All the selections
for platform practice are designed, as seems most fitting, to occupy
about five minutes in delivery. Original speeches, wherein the student
presents his own thought, may be intermingled with this more technical
work in delivery, or may be taken up in a more special way in a
subsequent course.
It should, perhaps, be suggested that the plan of procedure here
prescribed can be modified to suit the individual teacher or student.
The method of advance explained in the Discussion of Principles is
believed to be the best, but some who use the book may prefer, for
example, to begin with the second group of selections, the familiar,
colloquial passages, and proceed from these to those more elevated and
sustained. This or any other variation from the plan here proposed can,
of course, be adopted. For any plan the variety of material is deemed
sufficient, and the method of grouping will be found convenient and
practical.
The making of this kind of book would not be possible except for the
generous privileges granted by many authors and many publishers of
copyrighted works. For the special courtesies of all whose writings
have a place here the editor would make the fullest acknowledgment of
indebtedness. The books from which extracts are taken have been
mentioned, in every case, in a prominent place with the title of the
selection, in order that so far as possible students may be led
carefully to read the entire original, and become fully imbued with its
meaning and spirit, before undertaking the vocal work on the selected
portion. For the purpose of such reading, it would be well to have
these books collected on a section of shelves in school libraries for
easy and ready reference.
The publishers from whose books selections have been most liberally
drawn are, Messrs. Houghton Mifflin Company, Messrs. Lothrop, Lee and
Shepard, Messrs. Little, Brown, and Company, of Boston, and Messrs.
Harper and Brothers, Messrs. Charles Scribner's Sons, Messrs. G. P.
Putnam's Sons, Messrs. G. W. Dillingham Company, Messrs. Doubleday,
Page and Company, and Mr. C. P. Farrell, New York. Several of the
after-dinner speeches are taken from the excellent fifteen volume
collection, "Modern Eloquence," by an arrangement with Geo. L. Shuman
and Company, Chicago, publishers. In the first three volumes of this
collection will be found many other attractive after-dinner speeches.
I. L. W. CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS.
CONTENTS
PREFACE
INTRODUCTION
PART ONE
A DISCUSSION OF PRINCIPLES
TECHNICAL TRAINING
Establishing the Tone
Vocal Flexibility
The Formation of Words
Making the Point
Indicating Values and Relations
Expressing the Feeling
Showing the Picture
Expression by Action
PLATFORM PRACTICE
The Formal Address
The Public Lecture
The Informal Discussion
Argumentative Speech
The After-Dinner Speech
The Occasional Poem
The Making of the Speech
PART TWO
TECHNICAL TRAINING
ESTABLISHING THE TONE
O Scotia!.......................... _Robert Burns_
O Rome! My Country!................ _Lord Byron_
Ring Out, Wild Bells!.............. _Alfred Lord Tennyson_
Roll On, Thou Deep!................ _Lord Byron_
Thou Too, Sail On!................. _Henry W. Longfellow_
O Tiber, Father Tiber!............. _Lord Macaulay_
Marullus to the Roman Citizens..... _William Shakespeare_
The Recessional.................... _Rudyard Kipling_
The Cradle of Liberty.............. _Daniel Webster_
The Impeachment of Warren Hastings. _Edmund Burke_
Bunker Hill........................ _Daniel Webster_
The Gettysburg Address............. _Abraham Lincoln_
VOCAL FLEXIBILITY
Cęsar, the Fighter................. _Henry W. Longfellow_
Official Duty...................... _Theodore Roosevelt_
Look Well to your Speech........... _George Herbert Palmer_
Hamlet to the Players.............. _William Shakespeare_
Bellario's Letter.................. _William Shakespeare_
Casca, Speaking of Cęsar........... _William Shakespeare_
Squandering of the Voice........... _Henry Ward Beecher_
The Training of the Gentleman...... _William J. Tucker_
MAKING THE POINT
Brutus to the Roman Citizens....... _William Shakespeare_
The Precepts of Polonius........... _William Shakespeare_
The High Standard.................. _Lord Rosebery_
On Taxing the Colonies............. _Edmund Burke_
Justifying the President........... _John C. Spooner_
Britain and America................ _John Bright_
VALUES AND TRANSITIONS
King Robert of Sicily.............. _Henry W. Longfellow_
Laying the Atlantic Cable.......... _James T. Fields_
O'Connell, the Orator.............. _Wendell Phillips_
Justification for Impeachment...... _Edmund Burke_
Wendell Phillips, the Orator....... _George William Curtis_
On the Disposal of Public Lands.... _Robert Y. Hayne_
The Declaration of Independence.... _Abraham Lincoln_
EXPRESSING THE FEELING
Northern Greeting to Southern Veterans.
................................... _Henry Cabot Lodge_
Matches and Overmatches............ _Daniel Webster_
The Coalition...................... _Daniel Webster_
In His Own Defense................. _Robert Emmet_
On Resistance to Great Britain..... _Patrick Henry_
Invective against Louis Bonaparte.. _Victor Hugo_
SHOWING THE PICTURE
Mount, the Doge of Venice!......... _Mary Russell Mitford_
The Revenge........................ _Alfred Lord Tennyson_
A Vision of War.................... _Robert G. Ingersoll_
Sunset Near Jerusalem.............. _Corwin Knapp Linson_
A Return in Triumph................ _T. De Witt Talmage_
A Return in Defeat................. _Henry W. Grady_
EXPRESSION BY ACTION
In Our Forefathers' Day............ _T. De Witt Talmage_
Cassius against Cęsar.............. _William Shakespeare_
The Spirit of the South............ _Henry W. Grady_
Something Rankling Here............ _Daniel Webster_
Faith in the People................ _John Bright_
The French against Hayti........... _Wendell Phillips_
The Necessity of Force............. _John M. Thurston_
Against War with Mexico............ _Thomas Corwin_
The Murder of Lovejoy.............. _Wendell Phillips_
DEPICTING CHARACTER
A Tale of the Plains............... _Theodore Roosevelt_
Gunga Din.......................... _Rudyard Kipling_
Address of Sergeant Buzfuz......... _Charles Dickens_
A Natural Philosopher.............. _Maccabe_
Response to a Toast................ _Litchfield Moseley_
Partridge at the Play.............. _Henry Fielding_
A Man's a Man for a That........... _Robert Burns_
Artemus Ward's Lecture............. _Charles Farrar Brown_
Jim Bludso, of the Prairie Belle... _John Hay_
The Trial of Abner Barrow.......... _Richard Harding Davis_
PART THREE
PLATFORM PRACTICE
THE SPEECH OF FORMAL OCCASION
The Benefits of a College Education _Abbott Lawrence Lowell_
What the College Gives............. _Le Baron Russell Briggs_
Memorial Day Address............... _John D. Long_
William McKinley................... _John Hay_
Robert E. Lee...................... _John W. Daniel_
Farewell Address to the United States Senate.
...................................._Henry Clay_
The Death of Garfield.............. _James G. Blaine_
The Second Inaugural Address....... _Abraham Lincoln_
The Death of Prince Albert......... _Benjamin Disraeli_
An Appreciation of Mr. Gladstone... _Arthur J. Balfour_
William E. Gladstone............... _Lord Rosebery_
The Soldier's Creed................ _Horace Porter_
Competition in College............. _Abbott Lawrence Lowell_
THE PUBLIC LECTURE
A Master of the Situation.......... _James T. Fields_
Wit and Humor...................... _Minot J. Savage_
A Message to Garcia................ _Elbert Hubbard_
Shakespeare's "Mark Antony"........ _Anonymous_
André and Hale..................... _Chauncey M. Depew_
The Battle of Lexington............ _Theodore Parker_
The Homes of the People............ _Henry W. Grady_
General Ulysses S. Grant........... _Canon G. W. Farrar_
American Courage................... _Sherman Hoar_
The Minutemen of the Revolution.... _George William Curtis_
Paul Revere's Ride................. _George William Curtis_
The Arts of the Ancients........... _Wendell Phillips_
A Man without a Country............ _Edward Everett Hale_
The Execution of Rodriguez......... _Richard Harding Davis_
THE INFORMAL DISCUSSION
The Flood of Books................. _Henry van Dyke_
Effectiveness in Speaking.......... _William Jennings Bryan_
Books, Literature and the People... _Henry van Dyke_
Education for Business............. _Charles William Eliot_
The Beginnings of American Oratory. _Thomas Wentworth Higginson_
Daniel Webster, the Man............ _Thomas Wentworth Higginson_
The Enduring Value of Speech....... _Thomas Wentworth Higginson_
To College Girls................... _Le Baron Russell Briggs_
The Art of Acting.................. _Henry Irving_
Address to the Freshman Class at Harvard University
...................................._Charles William Eliot_
With Tennyson at Farringford....... _By His Son_
Notes on Speech-Making............. _Brander Matthews_
Hunting the Grizzly................ _Theodore Roosevelt_
ARGUMENT AND PERSUASION
DEBATES AND CAMPAIGN SPEECHES
On Retaining the Philippine Islands _George F. Hoar_
On Retaining the Philippine Islands _William McKinley_
Debate on the Tariff............... _Thomas B. Reed_
Debate on the Tariff............... _Charles F. Crisp_
South Carolina and Massachusetts... _Robert Y. Hayne_
South Carolina and Massachusetts... _Daniel Webster_
The Republican Party............... _John Hay_
Nominating Ulysses S. Grant........ _Roscoe Conkling_
The Choice of a Party.............. _Roscoe Conkling_
Nominating John Sherman............ _James A. Garfield_
The Democratic Party............... _William E. Russell_
The Call to Democrats.............. _Alton B. Parker_
Nominating Woodrow Wilson.......... _John W. Wescott_
Democratic Faith................... _William E. Russell_
England and America................ _John Bright_
On Home Rule in Ireland............ _William E. Gladstone_
THE LEGAL PLEA
The Dartmouth College Case......... _Daniel Webster_
In Defense of the Kennistons....... _Daniel Webster_
In Defense of the Kennistons, II... _Daniel Webster_
In Defense of John E. Cook......... _D. W. Voorhees_
In Defense of the Soldiers......... _Josiah Quincy, Jr._
In Defense of the Soldiers, II..... _Josiah Quincy, Jr._
In Defense of the Soldiers, III.... _Josiah Quincy, Jr._
In Defense of Lord George Gordon... _Lord Thomas Erskine_
Pronouncing Sentence for High Treason
................................... _Sir Alfred Wills_
The Impeachment of Andrew Johnson.. _George S. Boutwell_
The Impeachment of Andrew Johnson.. _William M. Evarts_
The Impeachment of Andrew Johnson, II
................................... _William M. Evarts_
THE AFTER-DINNER SPEECH
At a University Club Dinner........ _Henry E. Howland_
The Evacuation of New York......... _Joseph H. Choate_
Ties of Kinship.................... _Sir Edwin Arnold_
Canada, England and the United States
................................... _Sir Wilfred Laurier_
Monsieur and Madame................ _Paul Blouet (Max O'Rell)_
The Typical American............... _Henry W. Grady_
The Pilgrim Mothers................ _Joseph H. Choate_
Bright Land to Westward............ _E. O. Wolcott_
Woman.............................. _Theodore Tilton_
Abraham Lincoln.................... _Horace Porter_
To Athletic Victors................ _Henry E. Howland_
THE OCCASIONAL POEM
Charles Dickens.................... _William Watson_
The Mariners of England............ _Thomas Campbell_
Class Poem......................... _Langdon Warner_
A Troop of the Guard............... _Hermann Hagedorn, Jr._
The Boys........................... _Oliver Wendell Holmes_
THE ANECDOTE
The Mob Conquered.................. _George William Curtis_
An Example of Faith................ _Henry W. Grady_
The Rail-Splitter.................. _H. L. Williams_
O'Connell's Wit.................... _Wendell Phillips_
A Reliable Team.................... _Theodore Roosevelt_
Meg's Marriage..................... _Robert Collyer_
Outdoing Mrs. Partington........... _Sidney Smith_
Circumstance not a Cause........... _Sidney Smith_
More Terrible than the Lions....... _A. A. McCormick_
Irving, the Actor.................. _John De Morgan_
Wendell Phillips's Tact............ _James Burton Pond_
Baked Beans and Culture............ _Eugene Field_
Secretary Chase's Chin-Fly......... _F. B. Carpenter_
INDEX OF TITLES
INDEX OF AUTHORS
INTRODUCTION
Happily, it is no longer necessary to argue that public speaking is a
worthy subject for regular study in school and college. The teaching of
this subject, in one form or another, is now fairly well established.
In each of the larger universities, including professional schools and
summer schools, the students electing the courses in speaking number
well into the hundreds. These courses are now being more generally
placed among those counted towards the academic degrees. The demand for
trained teachers in the various branches of the work in schools and
colleges is far above the present supply. Educators in general look
with more favor upon this kind of instruction, recognizing its
practical usefulness and its cultural value. The question of the
present time, then, is not whether or not the subject shall have a
place. Some sort of place it always has had and always will have.
Present discussion should rather bear upon the policy and the method of
that instruction, the qualifications to be required of teachers, and
the consideration for themselves and their work that teachers have a
right to expect.
Naturally, public speaking in the form of debating has received favor
among educators. It seems to serve the ends of practice in speaking and
it gives also good mental discipline. The high regard for debating is
not misplaced. We can hardly overestimate the good that debating has
done to the subject of speaking in the schools and colleges. The rigid
intellectual discipline involved in debating has helped to establish
public speaking in the regular curriculum, thus gaining for it, and for
teachers in it, greater respect. To bring training in speech into close
relation with training in thought, and with the study of expression in
English, is most desirable. This, however, does _not_ mean that
training in speech, as a distinct object in itself, should be allowed
to fall into comparative neglect. It is quite possible that, along with
the healthy disapproval of false elocution and meaningless declamation,
may come an underestimation of the important place of a right kind and
a due degree of technical training in voice and general form.
In a recent book on public speaking, the statement is made that it is
all well enough, if it so happens, for a speaker to have a pleasing
voice, but it is not essential. This, though true in a sense, is
misleading, and much teaching of this sort would be unfortunate for
young speakers. It would seem quite unnecessary to say that beauty of
voice is not in itself a primary object in vocal training for public
speaking. The object is to make voices effective. In the effective use
of any other instrument, we apply the utmost skill for the perfect
adjustment or coordination of all the means of control. We do this for
the attainment of power, for the conserving of energy, for the insuring
of endurance and ease of operation. This is the end in the training of
the voice. It is to avoid friction. It is to prevent nervous strain,
muscular distortion, and failing power, and to secure easy response to
the will of the speaker. The point not wholly understood or heeded is
that, as a rule, the unpleasing voice is an indication of ill
adjustment and friction. It denotes a mechanism wearing on itself--it
means a voice that will weaken or fail before its time--a voice that
needs repair.
Since speech is to express a speaker's thought, training in speech
should not be altogether dissociated from training in thinking. It
ought to go hand in hand, indeed, with the study of English, from first
to last. But training in voice and in the method of speech is a
technical matter. It ought not to be left to the haphazard treatment,
the intense spurring on, of vocally unskilled coaches for speaking
contests. Discussions about the teaching of speaking are often very
curious. We are frequently told by what means a few great orators have
succeeded, but we are hardly ever informed of the causes from which
many other speakers have been embarrassed or have failed. A book or
essay is written to prove, from the individual experience of the
author, the infallibility of a method. He was able to succeed, the
argument runs, only by this or that means; therefore all should do as
he did. It seems very plausible and attractive to read, for instance,
that to succeed in speaking, it is only necessary to plunge in and be
in earnest. But another writer points out that this is quite absurd;
that many poor speakers have not lacked in intense earnestness and
sincerity; that it isn't feeling or intense spirit alone that insures
success, but it is the attainment as well of a vocal method. Yet he
goes on to argue that this vocal method, this forming of a public
speaking voice and style, cannot be rightly gained from the teachers;
it must be acquired through the exercise of each man's own will; if a
man finds he is going wrong he must will to go right--as if many men
had not persistently but unsuccessfully exercised their will to this
very end. It is so easy, and so attractive, to resolve all problems
into one idea. President Woodrow Wilson, of Princeton University, once
said that he always avoided the man or the book that proclaimed one
idea for the correcting of society's ills. These ideas on which books
or essays are written are too obviously fallacious to need extended
comment; the wonder is that they are often quoted and commended as
being beneficial in their teaching. If we want to row or sprint or play
golf, we do not simply go in and do our utmost; we apply the best
technical skill to the art; we seek to learn how, from the experience
of the past, and through the best instructors obtainable. Both common
sense and experience show that the use of the human voice in the art of
speaking is not the one thing, among all things, that cannot be
successfully taught. The results of vocal teaching show, on the
contrary, from multitudes of examples, from volumes of testimony, that
there are few branches of instruction wherein the specially trained
teacher is so much needed, and can be so effective as in the art of
speaking.
In an experience extending over many years, an experience dealing with
about all the various forms of public speaking and vocal teaching, the
present writer has tried many methods, conducted classes on several
different plans, learned the needs, observed the efforts, considered
the successes and failures, of many men and women of various ages and
of many callings. The constant and insistent fact in all this period of
experience has been that skillful, technical instruction, as such, is
the one kind of instruction that should always be provided where public
speaking is taught, and the one that the student should not fail to
secure when it is at hand. Other elements in good speech-making may, if
necessary, be obtained from other sources. The teacher of speaking
should teach speech. He should teach something else also, but he
should, as a technician, teach that. The multitude of men and women
who, in earlier and later life, come, in vocal trouble, to seek help
from the experienced teacher, and the abundance of testimony as to the
satisfactory results; the repeated evidences of failure to produce
rightly trained voices wholly by so-called inspirational methods; the
frequent evidences of pernicious vocal results from the forcing of
young voices in the overintense and hasty efforts made in preparing for
prize speaking, acting, and debating,--all these may not come to the
understanding of the ordinary observer; they may not often, perhaps,
come within the experience of the exceptionally gifted individuals who
are usually cited as examples of distinguished success; they cannot
impress themselves on educators who have little or no relation with
this special subject; they naturally come into the knowledge and
experience of the specially trained teacher of public speaking, who is
brought into intimate relations with the subject and deals with all
sorts and conditions of men. Out of this experience comes the strong
conviction that the teacher of public speaking should be a vocal
technician and a vocal physician, able to teach constructively and to
treat correctively, knowing all he can of all that has been taught
before, but teaching only as much of what he knows as is necessary to
any individual.
For the dignity and worth of the teaching, the teacher of speaking
should be trained, and should be a trainer, as has been indirectly
said, in some other subject--in English literature or composition, in
debating, history, or what not. He should be one of the academic
faculty--concerned with thought, which speech expresses. He should not,
for his other subject, be mainly concerned with gymnastics or
athletics; he should not, for his own good and the consequent good of
his work, be wholly taken up merely with the teaching of technical form
in speaking. He should not be merely--if at all--a coach in inter-
collegiate contests; nor should his service to an institution be
adjudged mainly by the results of such contests. He should be an
independent, intellectually grown and growing man, one who--in his
exceptionally intimate relations with students--will have a large and
right influence on student life. The offer recently held out by a
university of a salary and an academic rank equal to its best, to a
sufficiently qualified instructor in public speaking, was one of the
several signs of a sure movement of to-day in the right direction--the
demand for a man of high character and broad culture, specially skilled
in the technical subject he was to teach, and the providing of a worthy
position.
One fact that needs to be impressed upon governing bodies of school and
college is that the cultivation of good speaking cannot but be
unsatisfactory when it is continued over only a very brief time. It may
only do mischief. A considerable period is necessary, as is the case
with other subjects, for reaching the student intelligence, for molding
the faculties, for maturing the powers, for adapting method to the
individual, and for bringing the personality out through the method, so
that method disappears. Senator George F. Hoar once gave very sensible
advice in an address to an audience of Harvard students. He did not
content himself with dwelling on the inevitable platitude, first have
something to say, and then say it; he said he had been, in all his
career, at a special disadvantage in public speaking, from the want of
early training in the use of his voice; and he urged that students
would do well not only to take advantage of such training in college,
but to have their teacher, if it were possible, follow them, for a
time, into their professional work. This idea was well exemplified in
the case of Phillips Brooks--a speaker of spontaneity, simplicity, and
splendid power. It is said that, in the period of his pulpit work, in
the midst of his absorbing church labors, he made it a duty to go from
time to time for a period of work with his teacher of voice, that he
might be kept from falling back into wrong ways. It is often said that,
if a man has it in him, he will speak well anyway. It is emphatically
the man who has it in him, the man of intense temperament, like that of
Phillips Brooks, who most needs the balance wheel, the sure reliance,
of technique. That this technique should not be too technical; that
form should not be too formal; that teaching should not be too good, or
do too much, is one of the principles of good teaching. The point
insisted on is that a considerable time is needed, as it is in other
kinds of teaching, for thoroughly working out a few essential
principles; for overcoming a few obstinate faults; for securing matured
results by the right process of gradual development.
There is much cause for gratification in the evidences of a growing
appreciation, in all quarters, of the place due to spoken English, as a
study to be taught continuously side by side with written English. Much
progress has also been made toward making youthful platform speaking,
as well as youthful writing, more rational in form, more true in
spirit, more useful for its purpose. In good time written and spoken
English, conjoined with disciplinary training in thought and
imagination, will both become firmly established in their proper place
as subjects to be thoroughly and systematically taught. Good teaching
will become traditional, and good teachers not rare. And among the
specialized courses in public speaking an important place should always
be given to an exact training in voice and in the whole art of
effective delivery.
PART ONE
A DISCUSSION OF PRINCIPLES
TECHNICAL TRAINING
ESTABLISHING THE TONE
The common trouble in using the voice for the more vigorous or intense
forms of speaking is a contraction or straining of the throat. This
impedes the free flow of voice, causing impaired tone, poor
enunciation, and unhealthy physical conditions. Students should,
therefore, be constantly warned against the least beginnings of this
fault. The earlier indications of it may not be observed, or the nature
of the trouble may not be known, by the untrained speaker. But it ought
to have, from the first, the attention of a skilled teacher, for the
more deep-seated it becomes, the harder is its cure. So very common is
the "throaty" tone and so connected is throat pressure with every other
vocal imperfection, that the avoiding or the correcting of this one
fault demands constant watchfulness in all vigorous vocal work. The way
to avoid the faulty control of voice is, of course, to learn at the
proper time the general principles of what singers call voice
production. These principles are few and, in a sense, are very simple,
but they are not easily made perfectly clear in writing, and a perfect
application of them, even in the simpler forms of speaking, often
requires persistent practice. It will be the aim here to state only
what the student is most likely to understand and profit by, and to
leave the rest to the personal guidance of a teacher.
The control of the voice, so far as it can be a conscious physical
operation, is determined chiefly by the action of the breathing muscles
about the waist and the lower part of the chest. The voice may be said
to have its foundation in this part of the physical man. This
foundation, or center of control, will be rightly established, not by
any very positive physical action; not by a decided raising of the
chest; not by any such marked expansion or contraction as to bring
physical discomfort or rigid muscular conditions. When the breath is
taken in, by an easy, natural expansion, much as air is taken into a
bellows, there is, to a certain degree, a firming of the breathing
muscles; but this muscular tension is felt by the speaker or singer, if
felt at all, simply as a comfortable fullness around, and slightly
above, the waistline, probably more in front than elsewhere. An eminent
teacher of singing tells his pupils to draw the breath into the
stomach. That probably suggests the sensation. When the breath has been
taken in, it is to be gently withheld,--not given up too freely,--and
the tone is formed on the top, so to speak, of this body of breath,
chiefly, of course, in the mouth and head. For the stronger and larger
voice the breath is not driven out and dissipated, but the tone is
intensified and given completer resonance within--within the nasal or
head cavities, somewhat within the pharynx and chest. This body of
breath, easily held in good control, by the lower breathing muscles,
forms what is called the vocal "support." It is a fixed base of
control. It is a fundamental condition, and is to be steadily
maintained in all the varied operations of the voice.
Since this fundamental control of voice is so important, breathing
exercises are often prescribed for regular practice. Such exercises,
when directed by a thoroughly proficient instructor, may be vocally
effective, and beneficial to health. Unwisely practiced, they may be
unfitted to vocal control and of positive physical harm. Moderately
taking the breath at frequent intervals, as a preparation or
reėnforcement for speaking, should become an unconscious habit.
Excessive filling of the lungs or pressing downward upon the abdomen
should be avoided. In general, the hearing of the voice, and an
expressional purpose in making the voice, are the better means of
acquiring good breathing. For the purposes of public speaking, at
least, it is seldom necessary to do much more, in regard to the
breathing, than to instruct a student against going wrong. The speaker
should have a settled feeling of sufficiency; he should hold himself
well together, physically and morally, avoiding nervous agitation and
physical collapse; he should allow the breath freedom rather than put
it under unnatural constraint. Perfect breathing can only be known by
certain qualities in the voice. When it is best, the process is least
observed. The student learns the method of breathing mainly by noting
the result, by rightly hearing his voice. He must, after all, practice
through the hearing.
The discussion of vocal support has brought us to the second main
principle, the government of the throat. The right control of the
voice, by placing a certain degree of tension upon the breathing
muscles, tends to take away all pressure and constraint from the
throat, leaving that passage seemingly open and free, so that the
breath body or column; as some conceive it, seems almost unbroken in
continued speech, much as it is, or should be, in prolonging tone in
singing. The throat is opened in a relaxed rather than a constrained
way, so as to give free play for the involuntary action of the delicate
vocal muscles connected with the larynx, which determine all the finer
variations of voice. Whatever kind of vocal effort is made, the student
should constantly guard himself against the least throat stiffening or
contraction, against what vocalists call a "throat grip." He is very
likely to make some effort with the throat, or vocal muscles, when
putting the voice to any unusual test--when prolonging tone, raising or
lowering the pitch, giving sharp inflections, or striking hard upon
words for emphasis. In these and other vocal efforts the throat muscles
should be left free to do their own work in their own way. The throat
is to be regarded as a way through; the motive power is below the
throat; the place for giving sound or resonance, to voice, for stamping
upon words their form and character, is in the mouth, front and back,
and especially in the head.
The last of the three main considerations, the concentration of tone
where it naturally seems to be formed, is often termed voice "placing,"
or "placement." The possible objection to this term is that it may
suggest a purely artificial or arbitrary treatment or method. Rightly
understood, it is the following of nature. Its value is that it
emphasizes the constancy of this one of the constant factors in voice.
Its result is a certain kind and degree of monotony; without that
particular kind of monotony the voice is faulty. When the tone is
forced out of its proper place, it is dissipated and more or less lost.
A student once told the writer, when complimented on the good placement
of his voice, that he learned this in his summer employment as a public
crier at the door of a show tent. He said he could not possibly have
endured the daily wear upon the voice in any other way. Voices are
heard among teamsters, foremen on the street, and auctioneers, that
conform to this and other principles perfectly. We may say that in such
cases the process of learning is unconscious. In the case of the
untaught student it was conscious, and was exactly what he would have
been instructed to do by a teacher. The point is that many cannot learn
by themselves, and our more unconscious doings are likely to become our
bad habits.
Just what this voice placement is can perhaps be observed simply by
sounding the letter "m," or giving an ordinary hum, as the mother sings
to the child. It is merely finding the natural, instinctive basal form
of the voice, and making all the vowels simply as variations of this
form. The hum is often practiced, with a soft pure quality, by singers.
It is varied by the sound of "ng," as in "rung" or "hung," and the
elemental sound of "l." The practice should always be varied, however,
by a fuller sounding of the rounder vowels, lest the voice become too
much confined or thinned. The speaker, like the singer, must find out
how, by a certain adjustment all along the line from the breathing
center to the point of issue of the breath at the front of the mouth,
he can easily maintain a constant hitting place, to serve as the hammer
head; one singing place for carrying the voice steadily through a
sustained passage; one place where, as it were, the tone is held in
check so it will not break through itself and go to pieces,--a "placing
of the voice," which is to be preserved in every sort of change or play
of tone, whether in one's own character or an assumed character; a
constant focus or a fixed center of resonance, a forming of tone along
the roof of the mouth and well forward in the head, the safeguard and,
practically, the one most effective idea in the government of voice.
And now it should be hastily stated that this excellent idea, like
other good things, may be easily abused. If the tone is pushed forward
or crowded into the head or held tight in its place, in the least
degree, there is a drawing or a cramping in the throat; there is a
"pressing" of the voice. It should be remembered that the constancy of
high placement of tone depends upon the certainty of the tone
foundation; that, after all, the voice must rest upon itself, and must
not sound as if it were up on tip-toe or on stilts; that tone placement
is merely a convenient term for naming a natural condition.
As a final word on this part of the discussion, the student should of
course be impressed with the idea that though these three features of
vocal mechanism have been considered separately, all ideas about voice
are ultimately to become one idea. The voice is to be thought of as
belonging to the whole man, and is to become the spontaneous expression
of his feelings and will; it should not draw attention to any
particular part of the physical man; whatever number of conditions may
be considered, the voice is finally to be one condition, a condition of
normal freedom.
A lack of freedom is indicated in the voice, as in other kinds of
mechanism by some sign of friction--by a harsh tone from a constrained
throat; by a nasal or a muffled tone, from some obstruction in the
nasal passages of the head, either because of abnormal physical
conditions, or because of an unnatural direction of the breath, mainly
due probably to speaking with a closed mouth; by a bound-up, heavy,
"chesty" tone, resulting from a labored method of breathing.
Voice in its freer state should be pure, clear, round, fairly musical,
and fairly deep and rich. Its multitude of expressive qualities had
better be cultivated by the true purpose to express, in the simplest
way, sentiments appropriated to one's self through an understanding and
a comprehensive appreciation of various passages of good literature. As
soon as possible all technique is to be forgotten, unless the
consciousness is pricked by something going wrong.
Voices in general need, in the larger development, to be rounded. The
vowel forms "oo" as in moon, "o" as in roll, and "a" as in saw, greatly
help in giving a rounded form to the general speech; for all vowels can
be molded somewhat into the form of these rounder ones. The vowels "e"
as in meet, "a" as in late, short "e" as in met, short "a" as in sat,
are likely to be made very sharp, thin, and harsh. When a passage for
practice begins with round vowels, as for example, "Roll on, thou deep
and dark blue ocean, roll!" the somewhat rounded form of the lips, and
the opened condition of the throat produced in forming the rounder
vowels, can be to some extent maintained through the whole of the
passage, in forming all the vowels; and this will give, by repeated
practice, a gradually rounded and deepened general character to the
voice. On the other hand the thinner, sharper vowels may serve to give
keenness and point to tones too thick and dull. In applying these
suggestions, as well as all other vocal suggestions, moderation and
good sense must be exercised, for the sake of the good outward
appearance and the good effect of the speaking. The chief vowel forms
running from the deepest to the most shallow are: "oo" as in moon, "o"
as in roll, "a" as in saw, "a" as in far, "a" as in say, "e" as in see.
Since the making of tones means practically the shaping of vowels,
something should here be said about vowel forms. The mouth opening
should of course be freely shaped for the best sounding of the vowels.
For the vowel "a" as in far, the mouth is rather fully opened; for "a"
as in saw, it is opened deep, that is, the mouth passage is somewhat
narrowed, so as to allow increased depth. The vowel "o," as in no, has
two forms, the clear open "o," and the "o" somewhat covered by a closer
form of the lips, Commonly, when the vowel is prolonged, the initial
form, that is the open "o," is held, with the closed form, like "oo" in
moon, touched briefly as the tone is finished. So with long "i" (y), as
in thy, and "ou," as in thou--the first form is like a broad "a" as in
far, with short "i" (sit) ending the "i" (y), and "oo" (moon) ending
the "ou." This final sound, though sometimes accentuated for humorous
effect, is usually not to be made prominent. The sound of "oi," as in
voice, has the main form of "aw" as in saw, and the final form in short
"i," as in pin. The vowel "u" is sounded like "oo" (moon) in a few
words, as in rule, truth. Generally, it sounds about like "ew" in new
or mew. In some of the forms the front of the mouth will be open, in
some half open, and in some, as in the case of long "e" (meet), nearly
closed. Whatever the degree of opening, the jaw should never be allowed
to become stiffly set, nor the tongue nor lips to be held tight, in any
degree or way. These faults cause a tightening in the throat, and
affect the character of the tone. It will generally be advantage to the
tone if the lips are trained to be very slightly protruding, in bell
shape, and if the corners of the mouth be not allowed to droop, but be
made very slightly to curve upward. The tongue takes of course various
positions for different vowels. For our purposes, it may be sufficient
to say that it will play its part best if it be not stiffened but is
left quite free and elastic, perhaps quite relaxed, and if the tip of
it be made to play easily down behind the lower teeth.
Since voice has here been discussed in an objective sort of way, it is
fitting to emphasize the importance of what is called naturalness, or
more correctly, simplicity. Everybody desires this sort of result. It
can readily be seen, however, that about everything we do is a second
nature; is done, that is to say, in the acquired, acceptable,
conventional way. Voice and speech are largely determined by
surrounding influences, and what we come to regard as natural may be
only an acquired bad habit, which is, in fact, quite unnatural. Voice
should certainly be what we call human. Better it should have some
human faults than be smoothed out into negative perfection, without the
true ring, the spunk of individuality. There is, nevertheless, a best
naturalness, or second nature, and a worst. The object of training is
to find the best.