Your blows make music sweeter far than any steeple’s chime;
But while ye swing your sledges, sing, and let the burden be,
The anchor is the royal king, and royal craftsmen we.
It is the energy of the mind which causes the energy of the muscles. The energy of the contraction of the muscles causes the report of that energy in the voice.
Under Vital Slide we consider the relation of the muscles of respiration to the vocal cords. There are two sets of respiratory muscles, the muscles of inspiration and the muscles of expiration. If the thought requires for expression an increase of vitality in the voice, the muscles of expiration contract more strongly, thus giving greater density to the air in the lungs. The air, being an elastic substance, in seeking egress or relief presses strongly against the vocal cords, which are forced apart with such energy as to give an expression of greater vitality to the tone produced.
It is not necessary to exert the will consciously on the different muscles which act upon the vocal organs. It is not necessary to call the roll and say, “Triangularis sterni, Diaphragm, Abdominal muscles, Intercostals, contract! Abdominal muscles, you must contract only just enough to overcome the contraction of the diaphragm. Now, all together—one, two, three, contract!” One should not think anything about these muscles. He should be no more conscious of their action than he is of the beating of his heart.
SLIDE IN VOLUME.
In giving Volume of voice, the vocal aperture is made as open as it can be and still have the elements of speech definitely formed; and the vibrating column of air is guided through the aperture without being biased by it. The chief agents which guide the voice through this aperture are the sides of the throat and the tongue in its proper relation to the pharynx, hard palate, and soft palate. When we combine Slide with Volume there must be an exact relation between the contraction of the vocal cords and the proper position and action of these vocal organs.
Freedom of will expressed in volume is that quality of voice which suggests no hindrance, no limitation. The “voice of thunder” is not known by its degree of noise, for it may be so distant as to be only perceptible to the senses, yet it is still recognized as thunder from its illimitable quality, in other words, its volume. Loudness is not a necessary quality of volume, but illimitation is. Listen to the voice of a young martyr, who has been condemned by the Roman emperor to be flung into the amphitheater, there to be devoured by ferocious beasts. Her father, who does not see the truth as she sees it, pleads with her to abjure her faith and worship the old gods. She turns to him and says, “Father, I would, but Christ in me will not.” Light shines in the eyes of the old man as he looks at her and says, “I believe God is in thee.” Her will was absorbed in the divine will, and that divinity spoke through her. Even He who made the world spoke in her voice. The roar of the lion, though terrible, could not drown her tones, though low, devout, and tender.