Musical, joyous tones constitute 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 butterfly 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 passages 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 illustrated 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.
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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, joy-ous, lyric poetry."
The joyous tones are the bright tones. Develop them by exercise. Practise your voice exercises in an attitude of joy. Under the influence of pleasure the body expands, the tone passages 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 attitude of mind, of viewing life from the right angle. The optimistic attitude 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 classics you are to give sole attention to two things: a joyous attitude 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 passages again and again. It would be bet-ter 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 cock with lively din Scatters the rear of darkness thin, And to the stack, or the barn-door, Stoutly struts his dames before;
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Oft listening how the hounds and horn Cheerly rouse the slumbering Morn, From the side of some hoar 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 shore
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
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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 God 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.
THE LARK
Bird of the wilderness, Blithesome and cumberless,
Sweet be thy matin o'er moorland and lea! Emblem of happiness,
Blest is thy dwelling-place:
Oh, to abide in the desert with thee!
Wild is thy lay, and loud, Far in the downy cloud,--
Love gives it energy; love gave it birth. Where, on thy dewy wing
Where art thou journeying?
Thy lay is in