How to Develop a Better Speaking Voice

Exhale and expand as before, and this time let out the breath on a steady HISS. Avoid tightening the lips or jaw, or the throat may tighten in sympathy, and a restricted throat means restricted tone. Try to keep the Hiss uniform in strength —for about fifteen mental counts. (The breath should last longer, now that the mouth-exit is smaller.)

TELL YOURSELF YOU ARE BREATHING NOT JUST TO RETAIN LIFE BUT TO LIVE IT, AND LIVE IT MORE ABUND- ANTLY. THAT YOU ARE BREATHING TO BENEFIT YOUR BODY AND BRAIN AS WELL AS YOUR SPEECH, AND THAT EVERY LUNGFUL OF AIR IS HELPING TO ENRICH NOT ONLY YOUR VOICE BUT YOUR WHOLE PERSONALITY.

The most frequent fault in the using of the voice is throat-contraction. It is at the root of nearly all speech troubles (as distinct from speech errors) of which the most general are inadequate breath, hard tone, thin quality, sore throat and loss of voice. Inadequate breath—because the air has to squeeze its way through; hard tone—because the voi

—as if you were breathing on your hands to warm them, or making steam on a window-pane—producing a whispered “HAH . . .” Don't hold back the breath, or there will be no strength in it, and feeble breath means feeble tone.

quickening the breath instead of deepening it, raising the shoulders and dragging it in, using the unnatural suction created by a narrowed throat, instead of the natural, easy suction of fully expanding lungs.

If you find your chest rising instead of your sides expanding, you have not exhaled completely. To remedy this, place the fists against the lower ribs, just below the breasts, and press hard as you breathe out. When no more breath will come, release the pressure but retain the fist position so that you can feel the ribs swing out again. Repeat this

1. Yawn in, with mouth and throat wide open. 2. Close the eyes and register the sensation of concave tongue and arched palate. 3. Relax, then—still with eyes closed—try to reproduce the sensation with muscle action only. 4. Open eyes and check up. . . . Try repeating the muscle action three times quickly, first with mouth half-closed, then with lip

This is the first principle of Better Breathing—that the breath should pass out and in, not in and out. The stale air must be expelled before the clean air can enter, so the act of breathing is just this—continuously and rhythmically creating a vacuum

The fallacy that one should “Take a Deep Breath” is at the root of much wrong breathing, and of many nervous complaints besides. The phrase ought never to have got into our language. |Deep breathing is natural breathing, and requires no physical effort on our part, only an effort of will.