Public Speaking: Principles and Practice

by Irvah Lester Winter

One fact that needs to be impressed upon governing bodies of school and college is that the cultivation of good speaking cannot but be unsatisfactory when it is continued over only a very brief time. It may only do mischief. A considerable period is necessary, as is the case with other subjects, for reaching the student intelligence, for molding the faculties, for maturing the powers, for adapting method to the individual, and for bringing the personality out through the method, so that method disappears. Senator George F. Hoar once gave very sensible advice in an address to an audience of Harvard students. He did not content himself with dwelling on the inevitable platitude, first have something to say, and then say it; he said he had been, in all his career, at a special disadvantage in public speaking, from the want of early training in the use of his voice; and he urged that students would do well not only to take advantage of such training in college, but to have their teacher, if it were possible, follow them, for a time, into their professional work. This idea was well exemplified in the case of Phillips Brooks—a speaker of spontaneity, simplicity, and splendid power. It is said that, in the period of his pulpit work, in the midst of his absorbing church labors, he made it a duty to go from time to time for a period of work with his teacher of voice, that he might be kept from falling back into wrong ways. It is often said that, if a man has it in him, he will speak well anyway. It is emphatically the man who has it in him, the man of intense temperament, like that of Phillips Brooks, who most needs the balance wheel, the sure reliance, of technique. That this technique should not be too technical; that form should not be too formal; that teaching should not be too good, or do too much, is one of the principles of good teaching. The point insisted on is that a considerable time is needed, as it is in other kinds of teaching, for thoroughly working out a few essential principles; for overcoming a few obstinate faults; for securing matured results by the right process of gradual development.

There is much cause for gratification in the evidences of a growing appreciation, in all quarters, of the place due to spoken English, as a study to be taught continuously side by side with written English. Much progress has also been made toward making youthful platform speaking, as well as youthful writing, more rational in form, more true in spirit, more useful for its purpose. In good time written and spoken English, conjoined with disciplinary training in thought and imagination, will both become firmly established in their proper place as subjects to be thoroughly and systematically taught. Good teaching will become traditional, and good teachers not rare. And among the specialized courses in public speaking an important place should always be given to an exact training in voice and in the whole art of effective delivery.

PART ONE

A DISCUSSION OF PRINCIPLES

TECHNICAL TRAINING

ESTABLISHING THE TONE

The common trouble in using the voice for the more vigorous or intense forms of speaking is a contraction or straining of the throat. This impedes the free flow of voice, causing impaired tone, poor enunciation, and unhealthy physical conditions. Students should, therefore, be constantly warned against the least beginnings of this fault. The earlier indications of it may not be observed, or the nature of the trouble may not be known, by the untrained speaker. But it ought to have, from the first, the attention of a skilled teacher, for the more deep-seated it becomes, the harder is its cure. So very common is the "throaty" tone and so connected is throat pressure with every other vocal imperfection, that the avoiding or the correcting of this one fault demands constant watchfulness in all vigorous vocal work. The way to avoid the faulty control of voice is, of course, to learn at the proper time the general principles of what singers call voice production. These principles are few and, in a sense, are very simple, but they are not easily made perfectly clear in writing, and a perfect application of them, even in the simpler forms of speaking, often requires persistent practice. It will be the aim here to state only what the student is most likely to understand and profit by, and to leave the rest to the personal guidance of a teacher.

The control of the voice, so far as it can be a conscious physical operation, is determined chiefly by the action of the breathing muscles about the waist and the lower part of the chest. The voice may be said to have its foundation in this part of the physical man. This foundation, or center of control, will be rightly established, not by any very positive physical action; not by a decided raising of the chest; not by any such marked expansion or contraction as to bring physical discomfort or rigid muscular conditions. When the breath is taken in, by an easy, natural expansion, much as air is taken into a bellows, there is, to a certain degree, a firming of the breathing muscles; but this muscular tension is felt by the speaker or singer, if felt at all, simply as a comfortable fullness around, and slightly above, the waistline, probably more in front than elsewhere. An eminent teacher of singing tells his pupils to draw the breath into the stomach. That probably suggests the sensation. When the breath has been taken in, it is to be gently withheld,—not given up too freely,—and the tone is formed on the top, so to speak, of this body of breath, chiefly, of course, in the mouth and head. For the stronger and larger voice the breath is not driven out and dissipated, but the tone is intensified and given completer resonance within—within the nasal or head cavities, somewhat within the pharynx and chest. This body of breath, easily held in good control, by the lower breathing muscles, forms what is called the vocal "support." It is a fixed base of control. It is a fundamental condition, and is to be steadily maintained in all the varied operations of the voice.

Since this fundamental control of voice is so important, breathing exercises are often prescribed for regular practice. Such exercises, when directed by a thoroughly proficient instructor, may be vocally effective, and beneficial to health. Unwisely practiced, they may be unfitted to vocal control and of positive physical harm. Moderately taking the breath at frequent intervals, as a preparation or reėnforcement for speaking, should become an unconscious habit. Excessive filling of the lungs or pressing downward upon the abdomen should be avoided. In general, the hearing of the voice, and an expressional purpose in making the voice, are the better means of acquiring good breathing. For the purposes of public speaking, at least, it is seldom necessary to do much more, in regard to the breathing, than to instruct a student against going wrong. The speaker should have a settled feeling of sufficiency; he should hold himself well together, physically and morally, avoiding nervous agitation and physical collapse; he should allow the breath freedom rather than put it under unnatural constraint. Perfect breathing can only be known by certain qualities in the voice. When it is best, the process is least observed. The student learns the method of breathing mainly by noting the result, by rightly hearing his voice. He must, after all, practice through the hearing.

The discussion of vocal support has brought us to the second main principle, the government of the throat. The right control of the voice, by placing a certain degree of tension upon the breathing muscles, tends to take away all pressure and constraint from the throat, leaving that passage seemingly open and free, so that the breath body or column; as some conceive it, seems almost unbroken in continued speech, much as it is, or should be, in prolonging tone in singing. The throat is opened in a relaxed rather than a constrained way, so as to give free play for the involuntary action of the delicate vocal muscles connected with the larynx, which determine all the finer variations of voice. Whatever kind of vocal effort is made, the student should constantly guard himself against the least throat stiffening or contraction, against what vocalists call a "throat grip." He is very likely to make some effort with the throat, or vocal muscles, when putting the voice to any unusual test—when prolonging tone, raising or lowering the pitch, giving sharp inflections, or striking hard upon words for emphasis. In these and other vocal efforts the throat muscles should be left free to do their own work in their own way. The throat is to be regarded as a way through; the motive power is below the throat; the place for giving sound or resonance, to voice, for stamping upon words their form and character, is in the mouth, front and back, and especially in the head.