QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES
1. In the following, speak the words "long, long while" very slowly; the rest of the sentence is spoken in moderately rapid tempo.
When you and I behind the Veil are past,
Oh but the long, long while the world shall last,
Which of our coming and departure heeds,
As the seven seas should heed a pebble cast.
Note: In the following selections the passages that should be given a fast tempo are in italics; those that should be given in a slow tempo are in small capitals. Practise these selections, and then try others, changing from fast to slow tempo on different parts, carefully noting the effect.
2. No MIRABEAU, NAPOLEON, BURNS, CROMWELL, NO man ADEQUATE to DO ANYTHING but is first of all in RIGHT EARNEST about it—what I call A SINCERE man. I should say SINCERITY, a GREAT, DEEP, GENUINE SINCERITY, is the first CHARACTERISTIC of a man in any way HEROIC. Not the sincerity that CALLS itself sincere. Ah no. That is a very poor matter indeed—A SHALLOW, BRAGGART, CONSCIOUS sincerity, oftenest SELF-CONCEIT mainly. The GREAT MAN'S SINCERITY is of a kind he CANNOT SPEAK OF. Is NOT CONSCIOUS of.—THOMAS CARLYLE.
3. TRUE WORTH is in BEING—NOT SEEMING—in doing each day that goes by SOME LITTLE GOOD, not in DREAMING of GREAT THINGS to do by and by. For whatever men say in their BLINDNESS, and in spite of the FOLLIES of YOUTH, there is nothing so KINGLY as KINDNESS, and nothing so ROYAL as TRUTH.—Anonymous.
4. To get a natural effect, where would you use slow and where fast tempo in the following?
FOOL'S GOLD
See him there, cold and gray,
Watch him as he tries to play;
No, he doesn't know the way—
He began to learn too late.
She's a grim old hag, is Fate,
For she let him have his pile,
Smiling to herself the while,
Knowing what the cost would be,
When he'd found the Golden Key.
Multimillionaire is he,
Many times more rich than we;
But at that I wouldn't trade
With the bargain that he made.
Came here many years ago,
Not a person did he know;
Had the money-hunger bad—
Mad for money, piggish mad;
Didn't let a joy divert him,
Didn't let a sorrow hurt him,
Let his friends and kin desert him,
While he planned and plugged and hurried
—Herbert Kaufman. Used by permission of Everybody's Magazine.
Change of Tempo Prevents Monotony
The canary in the cage before the window is adding to the beauty and charm of his singing by a continual change of tempo. If King Solomon had been an orator he undoubtedly would have gathered wisdom from the song of the wild birds as well as from the bees. Imagine a song written with but quarter notes. Imagine an auto with only one speed.