The Art of Reading Aloud in Pulpit, Lecture Room; Or Private Reunions with a Perfect System of Economy Voice (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1878. Excerpt: ... Of man's first disobedience, and the fruit Of that forbidden tree whose mortal taste, &c. There can be no rest or appreciable pause of any kind at the end of the first line, it is so intimately connected with, and runs into the second by grammatical construction. So in the well-known speech in ' Douglas ' My name is Norval, on the Grampian hills My father feeds his flocks, a frugal swain, &c. The close of the first line can have no pause or intermission. The voice may indeed dwell upon the two ll's in hills, with the rise of a di-tone, which will give to the ear almost the effect of a pause, without a break. So in Othello's speech at Cyprus: If after every tempest come such calms, May the winds blow till they have wakened death, And let the lab'ring bark climb hills of seas, Olympus high, and duck again as low As hell's from heaven In this case a pause or rest of any kind at the close of the last line but one would be a manifest breach of the continuity of the sense, and the flow of the feeling. If the reader has gone carefully and patiently with me thus far, he will be prepared to go to the final and crowning grace of elocution, the VOCAL EXPRESSION OF PASSION. Some Emotional Qualities Op Voice: The Head-Voice, The Tbemolo, And The Whisper. The orotund we have already studied and practised. The three qualities or characters of voice above named are almost entirely confined to highly dramatic dialogue; and belong exclusively, almost, to the dramatic art. I shall briefly touch on these here. The Head-voice (voce di testa) as distinguished from the chest-voice (voce di petto), is so called because it is produced, apparently, in the head, and not from the chest. It is thin, feeble, and inefficient for ordinary speech; it has not, nor can it have, the full, ...