Expressive Voice Culture | Page 9

personal expression rather than expression through some limited mode of action--if, indeed, this were so, his voice would scarce need training,--certainly not corrective training,--nor would he need "culture" of any kind, being already a perfect human being.
Those who postulate the "perfectly natural" voice, _i.e._, one that is unconscious of its own art, either presuppose this condition of innate perfection or assume that the simple wish to speak--and its exercise--will be sufficient to overcome wrong habits and conditions. Will it? Let us see.
The culture of expression is a very different thing from the artful imitation of the signs of feeling and purpose. If we are to have a real education along lines of expression we must begin with the "content," or cause, of expression. We may for the moment postpone discussion as to the relative power of the sign to evoke the feeling, and the power of the feeling or condition to evolve the most effective sign. There is something to be said upon both sides; and, surely, the truth lies in the adoption of all good means to produce the desired end.
First, then, to the basis. All oratorical values are measured primarily from the standpoint of the "what;" the "how" is important, too, but only in its relation to the "what" and "wherefore." The voice of the orator must be an influence--a sincere vibration of the motive within. Theoretically it is so naturally, but practically it is so only when the voice is free from bias and is responsive through habit or spontaneous inspiration to the thought of the speaker.
We will admit that genius sometimes is great enough to bring into harmonious action all powers of the individual under its sway; but education mainly strives to unfold the imperfect, to balance, the ununified elements. Even genius, however, needs direction and adjustment to secure the most perfect and reliable results. How, then, shall we develop the motive, how enlarge the content?
There is such a subtle relation between motive and action that it has been said, "The effect of any action is measured by the depth of the motive from which it proceeds." [Footnote: Ralph Waldo Emerson.] And so this is why the clever performer cannot reproduce the effect of a speech of Demosthenes or Daniel Webster. This is a reason aside from that arising from the difference in the occasion. Great men and great artists make the occasion in the hearts of their hearers. The voice of the orator peculiarly should be free from studied effects, and responsive to motive. It is not the voice of entertainment, but of influence above all. The orator should be taught self-mastery. The orator who is not moved by high moral sense is a trickster or a hypocrite; the former juggles with human susceptibility for unworthy or inadequate ends, and the latter poses for motives he has not. So complex is human nature that this can be done by a good actor so as to deceive the judgment and feelings; but the influence will ultimately reveal the truth, if the auditor will use intuition and not be taken off guard by the psychic influence of a strong will bent on a given effect.
The sincere endeavor to express a quality, with the aspiration to make it real, has the tendency to focus the power of that quality and concentrate the mind upon it. This, by repetition of effort, both increases the power and facilitates its expression. One must come to think vividly in terms of expression. In the instance before us it should be in terms of vocal expression. Anything well expressed--unconsciously--is to real art what innocence is to virtue, or what the spontaneous grace of a child is to that grace as applied to forms definitely intended to communicate an ideal to others. Self-consciousness must precede super-self-consciousness.
Unconsciousness is childishness in art, and leads to vagueness of meaning, to the perpetuation of personal idiosyncrasies; and while a larger consciousness may be induced from the mind side, positive and overwhelming inspiration will be needed to overcome habitual limitations. A musician must love music itself, as well as its meanings, and a voice cannot be made the best of by one who does not love its music. Self-consciousness represents the stage of work and endeavor where faults are being overcome, power enlarged, and new forms of activity mastered. This may be at first a hindrance to spontaneity, and seem to hamper the imagination; but as facility is acquired joy comes back, and the joy of conquest with the adustment of means to ends is a stage of self-consciousness dangerous for the egotist, but is inspiration and incitement to larger effort. This is a stage where many artists remain--most of the time. But the super-conscious stage is that state in which with perfected facility and power of self-mastery the