Charles Wesley Emerson

“ There is a voice of fact and a voice of power. The voice of fact gives information; the voice of power appeals to the imagination. The artistic voice is the voice of the imagination. One of the offices of the imagination is that of image making. ”

“ Rhythm is an act of the feelings more than it is of the intellect. The student should allow the feeling of rhythm to take full possession of him while he executes the musical variations. Rhythm causes the force of the voice to exert itself melodically. Were it not for rhythm, the tone would move forward in a sort of sameness in force. One can no more endure to listen to a voice that is not rhythmical in force than he can to one that is monotonous in pitch. ”

“ There is a sudden explosion, then a silence, as the vibrating waves of mighty amplitude pass over the valley to wake the voice of the mountain beyond, which, standing like a sentinel on guard, speaks in thunder tones to the next, and that repeats the sublime echo until all the mountains join in the chorus, answering back to the heavens. ”

“ No animal excels the house cat in the correct use of the voice. She begins her tone as a nares resonance, and when her mouth opens, the tone which is moving in the right direction indicates that her vital energies are fully aroused. She acts upon the same principle that a man does in aiming a gun. He aims before he fires. Nature aims the tone before she gives the explosion. The mightiest of all voices is that of the lion. He distinctly guides his tone with the nares resonance. If he did not so direct it, the blast of tone which shakes the very earth would rend his throat. ”

“ One speaking while inspired with a sense of its sublimity need not be told not to speak on a high pitch, for he will feel no impulse so to do. Education means to draw out; therefore all true education is from within. If there ever was an age of the world in which this needed to be said, it is to-day. Materialism has spread all over the civilized world, influencing men in religion and in education. I admit that man is influenced by environment, but it must be remembered that man is not confined to material environment alone, his immediate environment is Spirit. ”

“ If the vocal cords are sound and healthy we are perfectly unconscious of their existence. We cannot teach the vocal cords how much to contract or lengthen when giving a certain pitch. We are compelled to leave it to the mind not only to hear the pitch, but to impel the proper contraction of the vocal cords in its production.
If the mind can control unconsciously the contraction of the muscles of the larynx, it can as easily control the tongue, the size of the throat, the pectoral muscles, and, in short, all the muscles that influence the voice. ”

“ In this treatise I shall consider the human voice as the natural reporter of the individual, his character, and his physical and mental states. I am not considering the individual in any narrow sense, but in the sense of his entire being—body and mind.
Modern research shows that the mind affects all parts of the body,—the brain most immediately. I would not be understood, however, to imply that the brain thinks, or that any part of the body thinks; but that the soul uses the body in this world as a medium through which to manifest its thoughts, emotions, and purposes. ”

“ Without the Infinite Mind in the universe there could be no evolution. No man can be broadly and fully educated unless there is joined in his mind both the light of science and the light of revelation. ”

“ It is only when an unusual amount of air is required that the healthiest men and women ever move the upper part of the chest during respiration; then the diaphragm is exercised vigorously, and the movements of the ribs take place only for the purpose of enlarging the cavity of the thorax beyond what it is possible for the diaphragm alone to accomplish. During the last twenty-five years I have cured hundreds of people, both men and women, of dyspepsia and its attendant weaknesses by teaching them how to exercise the diaphragm in respiration, and in the production of tone. ”

“ If there is an elixir of life in the material world surely it is oxygen, for it has to do minutely and intimately with every power of the human body. The more a person breathes this oxygen as it is mixed in the common air, the more life and power he possesses.
It is essential to perfect health that every avenue to the lungs should be kept open and free, and that the air cells should be kept clear, for if the walls of the cells thicken, oxygen cannot penetrate them. ”

“ The cultivation of the voice is produced, first, through perfecting the forms of the transient chambers of resonance; second, through establishing perfect freedom and regularity in the action of the vocal cords; third, through developing the rhythmic impulses of the tone. No person ever speaks continuously in a perfect monotone; the pitch is constantly changing with the varying thoughts; as the pitch changes, the resonant chambers change the quality. Nature, unhindered, never reports the same quality on two different degrees of pitch. ”

“ The facial nerve causes the muscles of the face to portray the thoughts and feelings of the soul more truthfully than any artist could delineate them with pencil and brush. Before we can properly teach vocal culture and oratorical expression we must understand the principle of spontaneous manifestation by means of cranial nerves as distinct from purposeful forms of expression. The facial nerve not only acts as a motor of expression through the face, causing it to reveal thought and emotion, but acts in the same manner upon the tongue, causing it to form and modulate tones in song and speech. ”

“ If we follow this doctrine of evolution, step by step, it will lead us to perceive that God is in every fact of nature. Watch an acorn as it develops into the sturdy oak. No scientist will say that a material environment is its only condition of growth. ”

“ An orator, by his tones as well as by his words, causes definite mental activities to take possession of his audience, thus influencing them with the action of their own minds. The language of tone is the language of the spheres, it is the language of the invisible world, it is the language of the angels. ”

“ John opens his mouth; there is freedom in the vocal organs, plenty of nerve energy—and the result is Animation of Voice. It was John’s desire to have the other boys see with their minds the things he was telling them of that caused his mouth to open. There was no such inducement in the schoolroom. A boy wants to know that he is of some use in the world. He will open his mouth when he has a proper impulse for so doing. To impart is natural to a boy; if he has anything good, and it is not too material, he likes to share it. ”

“ The only reason a person’s throat ever suffers from continued use of the voice is because the tone is not properly directed. Some public speakers after using their voices for an hour, or even half an hour, feel an irritation in their throats, but if their tones were properly directed, they could use their voices without injury as long as their general strength would permit. The moment the current of tone is turned from its proper direction, the voice is being injured.
All the muscles of respiration work in a harmonious manner with each other when the tone is properly directed ”

“ The vocal organs always react upon ideals held in the mind. Thus, if a flat object is held in the mind while using the voice, the tone tends to flatness; if a round one, it tends to roundness; if a narrow form, it tends to narrowness; if a contracting figure, it tends to contraction; if a free, elastic, expansive one, it tends to freedom, elasticity, and expansiveness. The figure of an expanding globe gives the voice the qualities last described. ”

“ This is equally true of each molecule; it has room to vibrate without interfering with other molecules or preventing them from vibrating. All the molecules that compose a certain substance are rushing toward each other; but a sacred sphere encloses each, thereby establishing its eternal separateness. This revelation of science of the eternal separateness of molecules points to the silent sea of Thought which encloses every molecular island. What is this silent sea of thought but the presence of Deity? If He encloses every molecule, does He not surround the human soul? ”

“ In vocal practice, one should begin on a comparatively high pitch and descend to a lower one, because the front of the nares resounds the high notes of the scale, and therefore assists in fixing consciousness of the direction of tone. Then, too, while using the voice, the mind should never hold as an object of thought the idea of going up to a tone, for the reflex action of such an idea upon the vocal organs is to produce a squeezed and strained effect. ”

“ Those who have the most faith in God and His providence are scarcely conscious of how much they are affected by the prevailing thought that material environment alone shapes and influences the development of individuals and the destiny of the human race. If we recognize that the spirit of God is our most immediate environment, the study of evolution is safe.
This view is suggested even by the study of physical science. The scientist, in his analysis of matter, ascertains that it is divisible into molecules, and that nothing is an absolute solid. ”

“ It is not that the individual, while speaking, intends to change the quality; but nature has so arranged the vocal organs and so determined the laws of acoustics, that unless the voice be interfered with by wrong mental determination, she herself changes the quality as the voice rises or falls. ”

“ The Word, which is the fruition of the soul in manifestation, is used as a symbol of the relation of Jesus Christ to the Father. The Word is represented as being the Truth, the Life, the Creative Energy, and the Being of God Himself. ”

“ When we combine Slide with Volume there must be an exact relation between the contraction of the vocal cords and the proper position and action of these vocal organs.
Freedom of will expressed in volume is that quality of voice which suggests no hindrance, no limitation. The “voice of thunder” is not known by its degree of noise, for it may be so distant as to be only perceptible to the senses, yet it is still recognized as thunder from its illimitable quality, in other words, its volume. Loudness is not a necessary quality of volume, but illimitation is. ”

“ This does not indicate that the voice was loud, but that it had the quality of illimitation, and so impressed the imagination as nature’s voice. It is the Christ, speaking through man’s voice that has turned this world “upside down”; that has lifted up the cross of Christ, before whom all the kings of earth tremble, and become like chaff on the summer threshing floor. ”

“ Prophecy outruns science, and is the herald of truth. Science, no surer, and vastly slower, follows with its confirmations. The doctrine of evolution, studied in the light of divine revelation, becomes of great value to us. ”

“ In this chapter of Forming the Elements, the pupil’s mind being dominated by the desire to place each thought separately and distinctly in the minds of his hearers, the vocal organs act with great exactness and precision, and in more and more perfect relation with each other. By repeated drill in seeking to fix the attention of the hearers upon each thought, great distinctness of utterance is gained, and the elements of speech become more beautifully and accurately formed.
In Animation we put such thoughts before the student as shall make the tones open and free and full of nerve energy ”