AVERY LITTLE CHANGE determines the difference between the good and the bad, and often turns a losing existence into a winning one. People who are compelled to get their living by their voices, and who find themselves failures in all their efforts to make progress toward success, are sometimes turned around and made to face in an opposite direction; and what was repellant becomes attractive. Flat voices under all circumstances are repellant; round ones are always attractive. The reason lies deep in the meanings of Nature. Flat voices express dislike, hatred, disapproval, suspicion and irritability, with many kindred moods. You can readily see that such voices are not likely to win friends, sell goods, secure contracts, or draw victories out of efforts at any form of speaking.

"THE FLAT VOICE"

Few persons realize that the voice is either round or flat.

As the voice is produced by the vocal cords which are located inthe throat the character of the tone must of necessity depend on the shape of the chamber through which it is compelled to pass; the throat giving that shape just, as the musical instrument, determines the character of the sound that is developed in it. A trombone emits a tone quite different from the cornet or the flute.

By changing the shape of the throat and mouth, a nasal effect is produced that often causes laughter or ridicule. By other shapes the throat is made to give out a guttural growl which disagreeable men are too often guilty of; or hard, distressingly crude tones that repel. Yet these same throats may be so shaped that in time their sounds will be pleasing and even beautiful

The two great divisions of the shapes of the throat are:

1. The flat.

2. The round.

Every time you swallow, you assume a flat throat; and, as you swallow hundreds of times a day, you are constantly training the throat to take on its flat shape. Habits are the great master of the voice. Nature employs the same throat for eating as it does for singing. The act of eating is more important than that of singing; but persons who live to eat, insted of eating to live, lose much of the real pleasure of existence

In swallowing food, it is necessary that the throat shut it off tightly and send it down to the stomach by a slightly convulsive action which produces the flat shape at the location of the vocal cords. It is this bad shape that all singers and most speakers of ability train themselves to overcome. It is very easily changed to the proper condition with a little practice.

"PRACTICE! PRACTICE!"

It is not necessary to practice much.

Nature sets things to rights very quickly. Habits take a long time to make them wrong. It is knowing how, that counts,

One minute a day will keep the voice in fine shape after once you get it so. But do not be ashamed to practice. All great singers look after their diet, their daily habits of living, and their little tests of vocal condition.

No great orator ever became great unless he practiced. Most of them discovered instinctively the need and the way of practicing. Demosthenes probably invented his own scheme, but history is very clear on the point that he did spend time in making his voice right. The same fact is shown in other biographies. Patrick Henry made use of every empty schoolhouse he could find; Henry Clay was often discovered in cornfields and Daniel Webster, by the testimony of Edward Everett and others, built up his voice by practice. Justice Brown, when on the Supreme Court of the United States, told the writer that he practiced on his voice in a schoolhouse in Detroit. All the great men of this art of speaking have been willing and glad of the opportunity to practice. It is the little men who are above it.

Hon. Roscoe Conkling, United States Senator and leading lawyer in his State, had one of the richest and most pleasing voices we ever listened to. When he died, no one knew the combination to the lock on his safe. "Did he have any favorite word?" asked the expert. "Yes," said a young man in the office, "I have often heard him ring out his voice on the word Rome, when he was alone in this room." The word Rome furnished the key to the combination, and the safe was quickly unlocked.

History and public as well as private biographies are full of incidents connected with the practice indulged in by great men to keep their voices in good shape. It pays. It even pays for the salesman and the clerk; for improved voices mean better work and more effective results. A pleasing voice, even though quiet, draws people; while crude, harsh, flat voices repel them. Add to the pleasing voice the charms of personal magnetism, and there is no better investment in the world.

"ROME! ROME! ROME!"

All natural habits are good or bad.

The drift of things, left to themselves, is to the bad.

What is called a natural gift, is an accidental drift to the good; often stimulated by ambition or earnest effort.

Any drift can be cultivated. That which is cultivated, if it coincide with a natural drift to the good, is as natural as if it had come about of itself. True art everywhere is a cultivated drift toward the better things; and, the more it coincides with nature, the greater is the bond of union between the cultivated and the natural gifts. In fact that which is cultivated is far more valuable, because it outlives the accidental drift of habits.

Between the flat voice, which is the drift to the bad, and the. round voice, which is the voice of art and cultivation, there is as much difference as between a golden-toned piano and an old tin box. People who meet those they seek to impress, have enough instinct to drop the flat voice and assume the round tones in part; although in small part. This proves that effort is able to control the character of the voice even among persons who lack all desire for culture. What has been called the "Sunday voice" in a preceding lesson, is an example of what instinct may accomplish. The woman who would employ the flat voice that her family hears constantly to a visitor for whom she had great regard, would utterly fail in making herself pleasing. She would repel.

Women often wonder why the men who attracted them before marriage are so quickly tiresome after the honeymoon is over Wives maintain their "Sunday voices" for a longer period after marriage than men do theirs, but it is all over sooner or later and the dreadful commonplaces fill all their hours together. Once in after years the husband has the old kindness in his manner and tones, and the wife says: "Harry, your voice sounds now as it used to sound when we were engaged."

Why go through life with a flat voice?

While habit and special effort will make it partly round at times, art alone can fill out the full quality. Short cuts in art are as good as long and expensive journeys.

The quickest way of reaching the round voice is to practice with the word so constantly used by Conkling: "Rome! Rome! Rome!" Not he alone, but many others have employed the same word. It was the favorite tone of David Garrick, the greatest actor of all time.

"MAKING RAPID PROGRESS"

It is possible to do a right thing wrong.

Any person can speak the word "Rome" with a flat throat But it is such a word as will respond more quickly to the attention of the mind than any other that can be found.

The mind and the ear should be combined; or, in other words, the mind should give constant attention to the ear, so that the latter may note the right utterances. The voice is ready at all times to obey the ear and mind, if both work together.

Of course a round tone is made by a round throat. But there is no necessity of going through a long period of practice to learn how to make the throat round. A "gape" will do it at once, if a person is able to gape or imitate the action of gaping The process consists in lowering the "Adam's apple," or vocal box of the throat, which always goes way down during the gapeand rises way up during the swallow.

Gaping is not a good habit to establish, but all singing artists havebeen compelled to use it as a starter; then, when once the open throat is secured, the muscles will repeat it afterwards as desired. If you have ever noticed any great singer, you will at once recal the position of the throat.

Any sound of "0" will tend to make the throat round in shape Any liquid word containing "0" will do likewise. "Lo" isa liquid word. So is "Mow." So is "No." So is "Ro." So are words made of these consonants: as "More," "Roar," "Lower," and others. Words containing "M" and "N" tend to free the voice from the offensive twang called the nasal defect.

"R"tends to make the tongue flexible as it is a tongue consonant of the liquid kind. Hence there is no word quite as good as "Rome" for practice. The word "Roll" is used a great deal by actors and singers, and orators, in their private practice which they carry on in their room; but it lacks the resonant value of "Rome."

It does no real good to utter the word "Rome" without the aid of the ear and the attention of the mind. The latter should make sure that the throat is in the open position, as its first duty, and that the sound is pure and round; while the ear should note the various kinds of tone-characters produced, and select thatwhich is most pleasing. Friends often meet for practice, and mutual criticism, and as this is the most important culture in human life, it should be given first place over all other duties. Like a beautiful flower garden that is capable of bearing exquisite gems if kept in a condition of culture, but that goes to rank weeds, when left to itself, the voice responds to careful attention or drifting neglect; being the agent of the mind, the heart and the soul in their communication with humanity.

"THE UGLY FLAT TONES"

A badly shaped musical instrument will emit badly formed andunpleasing tones. A flat throat is badly shaped for song andspeech. It is the result of natural drift. A bad disposition accentuates the flat voice. In fact, humanity, like the canine species, is disposed to growl at things it does not like. You are so used to hearing the growl and snap, in various degrees, that you pay little attention to them, although they instinctively repel you when you are able to get away from them.

If you are a clerk or employee, you would prefer to work for a man who has a kindly voice rather than for one who closes his throat into a guttural tone. If you have read the story of "Christmas Carol," by Dickens, you will recall the kind of man Scrooge was, as therein depicted. Dickens, himself, when giving public readings in America from which he made nearly one million dollars, used the flat voice in very close form for the character of Scrooge, until the change had come over the tight-fisted man; then the kindly tones fell from a beautifully rounded voice

We have had many reports from phonographs of the utterances of men and women whose dispositions have not been pleasant, and who have therefore developed the flat voice in excess, which means that the throat comes closer together in the act of speaking. These tones are very near to the growl of a dog, which is made with a flat shape of the throat.

If you can speak as many persons about you speak, and will take the trouble to reproduce their tones, you can carry them into the growl without much change of throat.

When people disapprove of some act of their fellow beings as when the New York public hissed the players of their own team for unsportsmanlike conduct during a game, the throat were closed flat, and the tongue was made flat also, thus throwing forth the tones of dislike, the same as the cat does when it is in an ugly mood. The growl of the dog and the hissing of the cat, are both made with flat throats, and evince a hateful disposition at the time.

In art, the hiss in a tone is called aspiration, and the growl is called guttural. You will hear them both, in one degree or another, all about you. For purposes of imitation, they may be learned and used; for they will help you to avoid them if you are able to make them and drop them when you like.

But it is a good rule to never misuse the voice; always keep it in its pure qualities; and let the ear determine the presence of defects. In cultivated voices for singing, the teacher first uses his ear to detect faults; then tells the pupils to keep alert in the same manner so that they instantly recognize and avoid them.