The speech organs are passive in the vowels and active in the consonants.

THE TONGUE must be trained to lie flat in the mouth and not be allowed to take a whale-back shape in the back middle of the mouth; rather the reverse shape. This is the unruly member, but it must not be allowed to rise up and obstruct the tone. While it is unruly, exercise with a

or

mirror shows it too can be trained.

THE THROAT must be open and free.

A stiff jaw puts

a strain on the throat and closes it, giving hard tones and makes voice production tiresome and injurious to the throat, mangles the words, making them indistinct.

A complete list of exercises for each set of muscles separately might be given for opening the mouth, for lowering the tongue, for opening the throat, for relaxing the jaw, but all may be condensed into one simple exercise, thus saving time and producing better results.

Yawning relaxes all the muscles of the throat and jaw, relaxes and flattens the tongue and opens the

draw in the breath, yawn, making the

Now the muscles are in readiness for

Still another idea to secure relaxation, open throat and open mouth: try to think the lower jaw is useless in making tone. It is physical, so drop the jaw and tongue as if not needed, especially in song; the voice being produced above the larynx then resounding in the roof of the mouth.

THE LIPS must not be allowed to be drawn tightly over the teeth as they slightly prevent the unobstructed tone. Practice with a smile to lift the lip from the teeth. Let it be a smile from within and from the eyes; not altogether a “grin. " With a clear passage from the vocal cords, tone has the right of way and will grow in strength and beauty.

After once securing a clear understanding of the reasons of the foregoing Voice Exercises, all may be summed up in short gymnastics of the voice to be used in daily voice drill, requiring only a few minutes at each practice time. Daily, systematic work, even though little time is given to it, will yield better results than irregular exercise. Repetition, repetition, repetition with thoughtful practice will transform the natural into the cultured, beautiful, responsive voice. Remember "the constant dropping wears the rock.”

In this brief space we have not exhausted the subject of voice exercise, but have given the fewest possible of the best and the most essential exercises for voice building.

ORDER OF DAILY VOICE DRILL.

I. Panting.

II. Breathing Exercise. (Exercise IV. with pipe.)
III. Voice Exercise I-

IV.
Voice Exercise II
V. Voice Exercise III

VI. Voice Exercise IV

"knee. "

VII, Voice Exercise V-
VIII. Voice Exercise VI-
IX. Voice Exercise VII-

with the relaxed, pear Take the panting be

Do not

Practice the above voice exercises shaped throat as if ready to yawn. fore each breathing and before each voice exercise. Keep up the breathing exercises, the work for resonance, for the proper action of the jaw, tongue, lips, and throat. be discouraged because of the many things to be done. Take plenty of time to do this work well, giving the voice time enough to grow and become established. It is to be your own for life. It necessarily requires time to train these delicate, wonderful muscles of the voice to respond in a new

way, naturally. We may be surprised to find how readily the muscles go back to the old way of producing tone, especially is this true when one is not in the best humor. The old muscles are so used to responding they spring into action before one is aware.

Much may be gained by silent practice, by thought, and by gently whispering and humming the voice exercises, using care to bring into play the proper muscles as when practicing aloud. The whispering and humming have the advantage of no strain on the throat. In the early part of this work do not use the voice in singing or speaking carelessly or loudly, but treat the voice organs while learning, to yield themselves to be awakened and trained as delicate creatures, newly born requiring gentle nurture in their infancy. It is best to leave the heavier exercises of the voice- especially the impure qualities found in some readings, till the voice has become well established. But should it be found necessary to do some of this heavy work, the voice may be saved much strain by putting the expression on to the body instead of the voice. To illustrate — In the quarrel scene between Cassius and Brutus in Shakespeare's" Julius Cæsar," Cassius sayɛ,— Urge me no more, I shall forget myself: have mind upon your health, tempt me no further. " In this threat the muscles of the body should be tense, the fists clenched in anger. This bodily action relieves the voice and is as if the expression were from life and natural; but if in making this angry threat the muscles are relaxed and the strain of this assumed feeling comes on the voice this agent of expression would be overloaded and thereby injured. Should it be necessary

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to overload any part, let it be the large muscles of the body as in gesture rather than the most delicate muscles of all, the muscles of the voice. Let the action of the body lead. This helps to give natural expression to the voice.

We may wonder why we are hedged in with such caution as to the use of the voice but a child can kick and scream all day and come out with a voice uninjured for the next day. Let an adult try to imitate the child's cry and he has rasped the throat and made himself hoarse in five minutes. It would seem in this the child has superior skill to the man. But the child obeys natures laws and kicks and screams all over. The man screams only with his throat which is unnatural to put on the voice alone. The child's scream comes from his innermost, from the man it is a cry "put on," so it instantly makes him hoarse.

Great care should be exercised in expressing the baser passions and emotions. No person should undertake to render selections of this character who has a throat trouble, only as the body is able to lead in the expression.

The mechanical drill and gymnastics of the voice are of great value which may be increased by associating noble thought and feeling with the practice for voice building, but all artistic, magnetic effects come from the thought and feeling, expressions of the mind and soul. Let us think of the vibrations and resonance of the voice as the physical medium the telegraph wire, if you please, over which travel the magnetic messages from the mind and soul. Though the voice be the medium, important as it is, yet the messages to be sent out are far greater. The voice is the mystic hand with which we reach out from our minds and souls and touch the very minds and souls of those around us. If the spirit within be gentle and filled with the love of human welfare, then will the touch of this hand be most gracious and charming, blessing whatever it touches, and attracting by its magnetic sweetness. If, on the other hand, the life within be a den of wild beasts, then the touch of the voice will be as the sting of the serpent, the growl, the snarl that cause anxiety and fear.

Voice culture should begin with soul and mind culture and should end with mind and soul culture. The voice is like the perfume of a flower, subtle and mysterious in its influence, yet ever certain in effectiveness. A beautiful voice is more to be coveted than costly jewels, yet is within the reach of nearly every person who will appreciate its worth and cultivate the voice organs and develop the latent possibilities within. A good voice is often thought to be a gift. In reality, vocal cords, diaphragm and voice organs are gifts common to all. All own a musical instrument far superior to any mechanical instrument ever produced by mechanical skill, in the human voice. No one has a right to own a disagreeable voice, when a little study and drill will result in improvement to any one.

The student will note as he progresses that the more resonant the voice grows the less breath is used in making tone. Breath control helps to make the voice resonant. It will be found that breathing exercises aid the voice and voice exercises aid the breath. The progress of both may be tested by inhaling and counting aloud as far as possible.

nares.

Volume of voice: deep, rich tones should be cultivated. Chest resonance should be cultivated with resonance of the Chest resonance may be felt by placing the hand on the chest and in lowest pitch repeat "awe, awe, awe. Volume of voice comes from the mind side. Drill for this element of voice is found under Volume of Voice in the "Studies in Rendering. "

Scientific experiments reveal the fact that there are flowers of speech not only in a literary but in a real sense made by vibrations of the voice. The cultured voice vibrates in waves producing varied flowers and geometric shapes. The following illustrations are of the voice vibrations on a delicate film, given in the famous lecture" Harp of the Senses," by John B. DeMotte, A. M. PH. D.