VOCAL CULTURE. PRELIMINARY. No voice is so good that it may not be improved; nor is any voice so bad that it may not be improved, unless the organs of speech and hearing are wanting or essentially impaired. The condition of improvement is intelligent and systematic practice, long continued. We often hear the genuine and beautiful voices of children; but only at rare intervals do we hear an adult's voice, man's or woman's, that is developed to its full possibilities in music and expressive power. The demand for quiet in the home and the enforced quiet of the schoolroom gradually suppress. the exuberance and spontaneity of the child's tones, and what remains, is a relic and a possibility. The average man. lives his allotted span,-his threescore and ten, perhaps,and goes to his grave, without ever having heard his own voice, after his early childhood. The voice that he thinks his, that he uses to talk and read with, is but a beggarly patch of the goodly realm which it was his privilege and right to possess. Without cultivation, the latent riches lie undeveloped and unsuspected, and the voice is a mere tool, or implement, instead of the glorious instrument it might have been. A poor voice, wrongly used, inevitably grows worse, especially if employed in the arduous sphere of public speaking. Throat ailments and vitiated utterance are the penalties that must follow persistent violation of vocal economy. On the other hand, with regular and normal exercise, the voice grows in beauty, ease, and adaptability, until it becomes ade-i quate to express every lightest and strongest shade of thought. (3) and feeling, and lacks no note to make each tune complete.' The voice, so developed and maintained, often survives the enfeeblement, or even the wreck, of other physical functions. Let me take for granted that you wish to gain, use, and keep, the best voice possible for you. Your early practice should be directed toward two prime objects: a. Control of respiration, especially of the issue of breath; b. An easy, open throat. Control of expiration will induce, in great measure, the correct adjustment of the throat. |