The Speaking Voice
There are still many persons who think of the speaking voice as an endowment of nature, and that all attempts to cultivate it are worthless and superfluous. The specious excuse is offered that conscious training leads to artificiality. The consequence is that, instead of hearing full-toned, melodious speaking voices, we are subjected on every side to instruments that are nasal, high-pitched, discordant, or otherwise disagreeable.
It is surprising that intelligent men should be satisfied to express their thoughts and feelings by means of an untrained and totally inadequate vehicle. A great violinist must have a Stradivarius, a pianist a Steinway, and even the ordinary workman demands the best tools for his particular trade. Why, then, should a man neglect to train his voice, the most wonderful instrument of all, and to make it responsive to his varied thought and emotion?
It is said that a well-modulated voice testifies to a strain of good blood in the speaker’s ancestry. It is the most distinguishing mark of a refined and cultivated mind. The instant the tone of a man’s voice is heard he is estimated, set down, and thereafter known by that first involuntary proclamation. The voice is one of the greatest revealers of a man’s inmost nature. There you may observe his strength or weakness of character, the peculiarities of his temperament, the lack or possession of self-confidence, and the hundred-and-one disclosures of mind and heart.
The first thing for one to learn to do is to use the voice without strain. The throat should have free play, and all effort should be made at the abdominal muscles. The tone should be low rather than high, and soft rather than loud. Especially should a speaker learn to speak in tune. That is to say, he should know how to adapt his voice to the subject and the occasion. For ordinary conversation a moderate volume is most desirable, but in public speaking larger treatment is necessary.
The student of self-confidence should accustom himself to speak in slow, easy, deliberate tones. This will not only enable him to keep better control of his powers, but will make a more favorable impression upon others. A distinct enunciation has an important bearing upon the speaking voice, bringing out more completely its qualities of purity and resonance. The student should listen carefully to his own voice and check undesirable tendencies. The common faults of nasality, throatiness, and speaking through half-closed lips, are unconsciously acquired, and these and like faults of speech should be constantly guarded against.
A most excellent way to train the voice is to read aloud for a few minutes daily. It may be an extract from an English stylist, or part of a great poem. If a man feels sensitive about practicing before others, he may read aloud from his newspaper, in this way getting actual vocal practice while at the same time interesting those who may listen to him. Time spent in cultivating the voice will be amply repaid. One who is thoroughly in earnest will be able to find the time for practice.
It is detrimental to a good speaking voice to talk when under nervous excitement. In our large cities it is often a contest between a person’s voice and noise of the street to see which can best be heard. The noise in the street is usually victorious. This develops in a speaker sharpness and hardness of tone, and unnaturalness in the speaking style. Elapid speech and high pitch are wearing alike to speaker and hearer. The voice is an instrument of delicate and wonderful adjustment, and although it will sometimes stand abuse for a while, it will sooner or later rebel against ill treatment.
Energy of thought should manifest it-self not in loudness but in intensity of voice. If a man put the proper earnestness into his utterances, naturalness and reality will necessarily follow. The voice must be colored from within, so that the vividness and intensity with which the speaker himself sees and feels will be communicated to others. In connection with this subject, one may be reminded that the mouth is capable of infinite degrees of expression, Delsarte placing its variations at over 2,000.
In every good speaking voice there should be sympathy, or heart-force. This produces geniality and frankness in the speaker which instantly commend him to the listener. He seems to take the hearer into his confidence, speaking to him as man to man, and impressing him with the force and conviction of what he says. A well-trained voice imparts satisfaction to the man himself, and gives him a self-confidence he might not otherwise possess.
When a man attempts to speak in public, especially for the first time, what startles him most is the strange and inadequate effect of his own voice. If it has not been trained, he realizes his deficiency and at once becomes self-conscious and uncomfortable. It is a sad commentary upon a grown man that he can not speak loud enough to be heard at the end of a large hall. He mumbles, and whispers, and pipes his tones, but all to no purpose. Cries of “louder” only embarrass him the more, and at last perchance he must sit down covered with confusion.
The whisper of William Pitt, the younger, could be heard in the most remote parts of the House of Commons. It is said that, at the age of twenty-one, his wonderful speaking voice really ruled the British nation. All the great English orators developed their voices to the highest efficiency. Many a man, credited with great natural ability in this respect, has privately and patiently trained his voice through practice. Webster’s voice was so full and resonant in quality that it would ring in the hearer’s ear long after the actual sounds had died away. On one occasion he uttered a phrase with such power of voice that several of his nearest auditors were observed to half rise from their seats.
For purposes of public speaking a voice must be of wide range and flexibility. The student is recommended to “try all methods, from the sledge-hammer to the puff-ball. Be as gentle as a zephyr, and as furious as a tornado. Be, indeed, just what every common sense person is, in his speech, when he talks naturally, pleads vehemently, whispers confidentially, appeals plaintively, or publishes distinctly. Alter the key frequently, and vary the strain constantly. And so, let the bass, the treble, and the tenor take their turn.” It is difficult to atone for a poor voice in a public speaker. An unfavorable impression once made will not be effaced sometimes even by the most superior mental endowments.
Next in importance we name the element of sympathy, which lends a peculiar charm to the speaking voice. This quality more than any other reaches the minds and hearts of men. We like to be able to say of a speaker: “There is a man who knows and understands me; he has a message for me, perhaps; I will listen to him.” A well-trained voice should be capable of expressing the entire gamut of human emotions, since men are often reached through the heart and imagination when all other means fail.
“Not a heart,” says Amiel, “but has its romance; not a life which does not hide a secret which is either its thorn or its spur. Everywhere is grief, hope, comedy, tragedy; even under the petrifactions of old age, as in the twisted forms of fossils, we may discover the agitations and tortures of youth. This thought is the magic wand of poets and preachers.” This sympathy can be cultivated by intimate touch with human suffering, by sincere and heartfelt interest in the welfare of others. It is an emanation of the heart, by which the speaker is himself moved before he attempts to influence others.
Combined with authority and sympathy, the voice should be trained for adequate expression. The demands upon it may be great and varied, ranging from gentle conversation to vociferous appeal. Like a vast cathedral organ, it must be responsive to every touch of the master–now light as a tinkling bell, then deep as the cannon’s roar; here sweet as the shepherd’s flute, there shrill as the trumpet’s blast; rising and falling, receding and swelling, heaving higher and still higher with its “thrilling thunders, compressing air into music, and rolling it forth upon the soul.”
Then, as Washington Irving speaks of the organ, “What long-drawn cadences! What solemn sweeping concords! It grows more and more dense and powerful, it fills the vast pile, and seems to jar the very walls, the ear is stunned, the senses are overwhelmed. And now it is winding up in full jubilee; it is rising from earth to heaven; the very soul seems wrapped away and floating upward on this swelling tide of harmony.” Such is the wonderful power of the human voice, and it should be every man’s richest possession.