BRILLIANCY To secure brilliancy or a musical quality of voice, practise daily upon exercises containing long vowel sounds. 1. Hear the mellow wedding bells- What a world of happiness their harmony foretells! Oh, from out the sounding cells, What a gush of euphony voluminously wells! How it swells! How it dwells On the future! how it tells To the rhyming and the chiming of the bells! 2. Inhale deeply, force the breath against the closed lips until they burst open on the word "bell," prolonging the "1" as long as possible and allowing the tone to gradually die away in imitation of bell vibrations. Repeat with variations. 3. Laughing exercises will add brilliancy and strength to the voice. Practise m-m-m-m-m-m-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo-ho-ho-hoho-ho-ho-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha. Aim to produce a hearty, spontaneous laugh. Practise with varied feeling, such as merry, rippling, polite, silly, angry, appreciative, sad, scornful, etc. Resonance is the increase of sound by reflection or the co-vibration of other bodies. Exercises should be selected containing a redundance of open vowels. 1. Open the mouth and throat as wide as possible, inhale deeply, close the lips only, and endeavor to keep the throat open. Imagine the body a deep well and commence at its lowest depth a soft rumbling sound. Practise at first on low pitch; force and high pitch are to be added only after some time. 2. Repeat with rising inflection awe, ah, e, noting the change in register. The first is a chest-tone, the second a throat-tone and the third a head-tone. Begin at low pitch and aim at smoothness. Repeat with falling and circumflex inflection. 3. Hum b, l and m, singly and in combination. 4. Pronounce the following words on various pitches, bringing out the head resonance as much as possible: Bingle, dingle, jingle, mingle, ringle, single, tingle, klingle. VOLUME Volume depends upon the extension and regularity of expiration, energy and resonance combined in a given tone. The voice grows with use, and daily practise is therefore necessary to acquire roundness and volume. The abdom inal muscles should be developed by daily respiratory and physical exercises. 1. Inhale deeply, and with an abrupt action of the abdominal muscles explode the voice upon be, ba, baw, bah, bo, boo. Avoid using much force at first. 2. The following should be combined with the same vowel sounds, first in loud whisper, then in loud voice, exhausting the breath on each sound: P, t, d, v, k, bl, br, ch, dr, dw, fl, fr, gl, gr, kl, kr, pl, pr, sl, sm, sn, sp, sq, sk, sh, st, sw, tr, th, tw, wh. 3. In calling tone repeat: Ship ahoy! Thou, too, sail on, O Ship of State. Forward the Light Brigade! Charge, Chester, charge! On, Stanley, on! Katherine, Queen of England, come into the Court. Stand by the wheel five minutes yet and we will reach the shore. Oyez! oyez ! All-persons-having-business-to-do-with-the-Circuit Court-of-the-United-States-for-the-Southern-district-of-New-York draw-near-give-your-attention-and-you-shall-be-heard. Char-coal. Char-co-al. Char-coooooooo-al. 4. Project the following: It is the King. Every inch a King. Armor on his back. State the State. On, ye brave. Over, over I say. Up from the south. 5. Repeat the following with gradually increasing force: The war must go on! We must fight it through. |