Public Speaking | Page 5

early chapters and exercises, members of the class are attaining a feeling of ease in speaking among themselves which will later eradicate a great deal of the nervousness usually experienced when speaking before the class. In addition, some attention to such topics as voice, tone, pronunciation, common errors, use of the dictionary, vocabulary, may instil habits of self-criticism and observation which may save from doubt and embarrassing mistakes later.
EXERCISES
1. Recall some recent speech you heard. In parallel columns make lists of its excellences and deficiencies.
2. Give the class an account of the occasion, the purpose of the speaker, and his effect upon his audience, or upon you.
3. Explain how children learn to speak.
4. From your observation give the class an account of how young children enlarge their vocabularies.
5. Using the material of this chapter as the basis of your remarks, show the value of public speaking.
6. Of what value is public speaking to women?
7. What effects upon speeches by women will universal suffrage have?
8. Choose some profession--as law, engineering--and show how an ability to speak may be of value in it.
9. Choose some business position, and show how an ability to speak is a decided advantage in it.
10. What is the best method of acquiring a foreign language? For example, how shall the alien learn English?
11. Choose some great man whom you admire. Show how he became a speaker. Or give an account of one of his speeches.
12. Show the value of public speaking to a girl--in school; in business; in other careers.
13. Explain the operation of a dictaphone.
14. How can training in public speaking help an applicant for a position?
15. Explain the sentence quoted from Bacon's essay on studies.
CHAPTER II
THE VOICE
Organs of Speech. Although the effects produced by the human voice are myriad in their complexity, the apparatus involved in making the sounds which constitute speech is extremely simple. In construction it has been usually compared to an organ pipe, a comparison justifiable for imparting a non-technical understanding of its operation.
An organ pipe is a tube in which a current of air passing over the edge of a piece of metal causes it to vibrate, thus putting into motion the column of air in the pipe which then produces a note. The operating air is forced across the sounding piece of metal from a bellows. The tube in which the thin sounding plate and the column of air vibrate acts as a resonator. The resulting sound depends upon various sizes of the producing parts. If the tube is quite long the sound is low in pitch. If the tube is short the sound is high. Stopping the end of the pipe or leaving it open alters the pitch. A stopped pipe gives a note an octave lower than an open pipe of the same length. The amount of the vibrating plate which is allowed to move also determines the pitch of a note. If the air is under great pressure the note is loud. If the air is under little pressure the note is soft.
It is quite easy to transfer this explanation to the voice-producing apparatus in the human body.
To the bellows correspond the lungs from which the expelled air is forced upwards through the windpipe. The lungs are able to expel air regularly and gently, with no more expense of energy than ordinary breathing requires. But the lungs can also force air out with tremendous power--power enough to carry sound over hundreds of yards. In ordinary repose the outward moving breath produces no sound whatever, for it meets in its passage no obstruction.
Producing Tone. At the upper end of the windpipe is a triangular chamber, the front angle of which forms the Adam's apple. In this are the vocal cords. These cords are two tapes of membrane which can be brought closely together, and by muscular tension stretched until passing air causes them to vibrate. They in turn cause the air above them to vibrate, much as the air in an organ pipe vibrates. Thus tone is produced.
The air above the vocal cords may fill all the open spaces above the larynx--the throat, the mouth, the nasal cavity in the head, the nostrils. This rather large amount of air, vibrating freely, produces a sound low in pitch. The larger the cavities are made the lower the pitch. You can verify this by producing a note. Then place your finger upon your Adam's apple. Produce a sound lower in pitch. Notice what your larynx does. Sing a few notes down the scale or up to observe the same principle of the change of pitch in the human voice.
Producing Vowels. If the mouth be kept wide open and no other organ be allowed to modify or interrupt the sound a vowel is produced. In speech every part of the head