Читать книгу Vocal Expression: A Class-book of Voice Training and Interpretation - Katherine Jewell Everts - Страница 15

Let us read this passage from Emerson's Experience:

To finish the moment, to find the journey's end in every step of the road, to live the greatest number of good hours, is wisdom. It is not the part of men, but of fanatics—or of mathematicians, if you will—to say that, the shortness of life considered, it is not worth caring whether for so short a duration we were sprawling in want or sitting high. Since our office is with moments, let us husband them. Five minutes of to-day are worth as much to me as five minutes in the next millennium. Let us be poised, and wise, and our own, to-day. I settle myself ever the firmer in the creed that we should not postpone and refer and wish, but do broad justice where we are, by whomsoever we deal with, accepting our actual companions and circumstances, however humble or odious, as the mystic officials to whom the universe has delegated its whole pleasure for us.

If you do not think your way through this paragraph clearly, concisely, logically, intensely, when you read it aloud your voice will betray you. In what way? Your tone will lack resonance, your speech will lack precision, your pitch will be monotonous, your touch will be uncertain, your inflections will be indefinite. Your reading will be unconvincing, because it will fail in lucidity and variety. In approaching this passage let us study first the question of proper emphasis. What is emphasis? The dictionaries tell us that, in delivery, it is a special stress of the voice on a given word. But we must use it in a broader sense than this. To emphasize a word is not merely to put a special stress of the voice upon that word. Such an attack might only make the word conspicuous and so defeat the aim of true emphasis. True emphasis is the art of voicing the words in a phrase so that they shall assume a right relation to one another and, so related, best suggest the thought of which they are the symbols. I do not emphasize one word in a phrase and not the others. I simply vary my stress upon each word, in order to gain the proper perspective for the whole sentence. Just so, in a picture, I make one object stand out, and others fall into the background, by drawing or painting them in proper relation to one another. I may use any or all of the "elements of vocal expression" to give that proper relation of values to the words in a single phrase. I may pause, change my pitch, vary my inflection, and alter my tone-color, in order to give a single word its full value. Let us try experiments in emphasis with some isolated sentences before analyzing the longer passage. Here is one of Robert Louis Stevenson's beautifully wrought periods:

"Every man has a sane spot somewhere."

Let us vary, vocally, the relative values of the words in this sentence, and study the effect upon the character of the thought. Let us look upon the statement as a theme for discussion. With a pause before the second word, "man," a lift of the voice on that word, a whimsical turn of the tone, and a significant inflection, we may convert an innocent statement of fact into an incendiary question for debate on the comparative sanity of the sexes. A plea for endless faith and charity becomes a back-handed criticism of women. Now let us read the sentence, giving it its true meaning. "Every man has a sane spot somewhere." Let your voice make of the statement a plea, by dwelling a bit on the first word and again on the last word. Hyphenate the first two words (they really stand for one idea). Compound also the words "sane" and "spot." Lift them as a single word above the rest of the sentence. Now put "somewhere" a little higher still above the level of the rest of the sentence. So, only, have we the true import of this group of words:

some

where.

sane-spot

Every-

man has a

Analyze the rest of these sentences from Stevenson in the same way, and experiment with them vocally.

That is never a bad wind that blows where we want to go.

For truth that is suppressed by friends is the readiest weapon of the enemy.

Some strand of our own misdoing is involved in every quarrel.

Drama is the poetry of conduct, romance the poetry of circumstance.

You cannot run away from a weakness; you must sometime fight it out or perish; and if that be so, why not now, and where you stand?

An aim in life is the only fortune worth the finding; and it is not to be found in foreign lands, but in the heart itself.

The world was not made for us; it was made for ten hundred millions of me, all different from each other and from us; there's no royal road, we just have to sclamber and tumble.

Now, once more, and this time with detailed analysis, let us study the passage from Experience. Let us first consider for a moment some of the words which make this passage powerful: finish, journey's-end, good hours, wisdom, fanatics, mathematicians, sprawling-in-want, sitting-high, firmer, poised, postpone, justice, humble, odious, mystic, pleasure. When spoken with a keen sense of its inherent meaning, with full appreciation of its form, and with delight in molding it, how efficient each one of these words becomes! When shall we, as a people, learn reverence for the words which make up our language—reverence that shall make us ashamed to mangle words, offering as our excuse that we are "Westerners" or "Southerners" or from New York or New England or Indiana. The clear-cut thought calls for the clean-cut speech. Let us say these words over and over until they assume full value. And now we pass from words to groups of words. The mind and the tone must move progressively through the first three phrases which make up this first sentence: "To finish the moment, to find the journey's end in every step of the road, to live the greatest number of good hours, is wisdom." The phrases must be held together by an almost imperceptible suspension and upward reach of the voice at the end of each group of words, and yet each phrase must be allowed to be momentarily complete. Read the sentence, making each phrase a conclusion, and then again letting each phrase look forward to the next. Each phrase is really a substantive, looking forward to its predicate through a second substantive which is a little more vital than the first, and again through a third substantive which is a little more vital than either of the other two. Bring this out in reading the sentence. The next sentence depends for its significance upon your contrasting inflections of the three words "men," "fanatics," and "mathematicians"; and again upon your sympathetic inflection of "sprawling-in-want" and "sitting-high." "It is not the part of men, but of fanatics—or of mathematicians, if you will—to say that, the shortness of life considered, it is not worth caring whether for so short a duration we were sprawling in want or sitting high." In your utterance of these words can you make "men" MEN, and "fanatics" fanatics, and consign "mathematicians" to the cold corner of human affairs designed for them? Can you so inflect "sprawling in want" and "sitting high" as to suggest a swamp and a mountain-top, or a frog and an angel? Let your voice leap from the swamp to the mountain-top. Let it climb. Now comes the swift, concise, admonitory sentence: "Since our office is with moments, let us husband them." Pause before you speak the word "husband," and husband it. "Five minutes of to-day are worth as much to me as five minutes in the next millennium." Make "five minutes of to-day" one word, and accent the last syllable, thus: five-minutes-of-to-day. Let the tone retard and take its time on the last seven words. Now poise your tone for the next sentence. "Let us be poised, and wise, and our own, to-day." The paragraph closes with a more complex statement of the theme. Let your voice search out the meaning. Let it settle down into the conclusion, and utter it convincingly. Give a definite touch to the words which I shall put in italics. "I settle myself ever firmer in the creed that we should not postpone and refer and wish, but do broad-justice where we are, by whomsoever we deal with, accepting our actual companions and circumstances, however humble or odious, as the mystic officials to whom the universe has dedicated its whole pleasure for us."

Analyze vocally the following paragraph: