VOICE CULTURE | AdventAI

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Mar 5, 1902

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 28, No. 10.

VOICE CULTURE.

Most of us dislike what the children of the last generation used to call “a company voice.” An artificially sweet voice in speaking is as disagreeable to some listeners as the plaint of a screech owl. There are those who contend that it is the never-failing sign of a bad temper, and even more charitably disposed listeners are apt to say to themselves on hearing it, “Too sweet to be wholesome.” To keep a different voice for company from the one in every-day use argues a lack of civilization that few of us would care to plead guilty to, in this generally progressive age, but if we are to have only one voice for all occasions, it would seem to be highly desirable that that voice should be a pleasant one.

The old saw tells us that it is never too late to mend one’s morals or manners, and to this may be added that it is never too late to repair, to some extent, natural or acquired defects in the human voice. We do not mean that toward the middle or end of one’s threescore and ten years of life, one can derive any benefit from practising one’s do re me, etc. It is the speaking not the singing voice which should be mended where mending is needed. Few of us have singing voices that would make us famous either in church or opera; but as the speaking voice, except in the case of professional musicians, is the more important of the two, it is well for us all that the harshest utterance ever inflicted by nature on human speaker can be so modified by determined endeavor to speak gently that, in time, no one will notice its jangles.

The music books tell us of “sympathetic” singing, and lay great stress on its acquirement, should it not be a natural gift. For teaching in regard to the sympathetic voice in speaking, we must look to that common sense, which, according to an old writer, “is of all senses the most uncommon.”

It seems odd that men and women who would not tolerate for a moment a creaking wheel on vehicle or sewing machine, will keep a worse than creaking voice about them all their lives, wondering from time to time why the little children with whom they have to do are inclined to shrink away from them.

“I know,” remarked a mild-mannered spinster to a mother who had just quieted one of her children with a harsh reproof, “that you love your little girl. I can see it in your eyes when you look at her as she plays about the room; but it seems to me that you take particular pains to keep your love out of your voice in speaking to her.”

“Would you have me let her go on teasing the cat in that style?” asked the mother, impatiently.

“Certainly not; but, as you see, your voice in reproving her frightened both her and the cat out of the room.”

“Yes,” returned the mother, looking around. “And I suppose she has gone to the kitchen as usual. I wonder at her having such taste.”

“If you will excuse my candor, I don’t wonder at it in the least. Your cook, if she is that German girl you had from us, has a very pleasant voice and manner. She would not, I am sure, speak harshly to her enemy’s dog, supposing she had an enemy, and naturally your little girl prefers a grown-up companion who does not scold to one who does.”

“And so I am a scold, am I? You speak as if I were one of those fishwives we read of in old novels, and perhaps you will be intimating that I need the ducking-stool.”

“No; the ducking-stool process might make your voice harsher than ever in uttering words of reproof. If you could always bear in mind the fact that you have brought a delicate and sensitive little girl into a world full of sorrow and trouble, it seems to me you would be at more pains to make life easier for her by cultivating a pleasant tone of voice in which to tell her of her little misdoings. A reproving voice that does not jar the nerves of the listener is, if I may improve upon Shakespeare, a super-excellent thing in a woman.”—Christian Work.