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may sound tired. A person who indulges in conversation has no right to let his fatigue settle in his voice. A Christian determination to be agreeable can usually put enough life into the voice to make it acceptable. Since nature abhors monotony, a conversationalist should consciously try to increase the variety of his tones, the range and flexibility of his pitch. Quintilian said, "The art of varying the tones of the voice not only affords pleasure and relief to the hearer, but, by the alternation of exercise, relieves the speaker." A good speaker, some speech books say, varies his pitch in ordinary speech as much as the notes within the regular stave of musical notation. This range is not so much recognized as felt and enjoyed. As in other matters of speech, a person who has range of pitch is more likely to be credited with a pleasing personality than with any special speech virtue. You might ask a close friend to note your inflection particularly and rate it for possible monotony. Certainly you should keep tab on it yourself, to see if your voice seems to travel up and down some seven notes, or confines itself to a range of merely three or four. A mechanical help is to play a linguaphone record of some good actor or speaker, and to recite it along in the same pitch. You might also try to keep in pitch with the speakers and announcers on your radio. Half the job is becoming conscious of one's need for pitch variation, the other half, trying to vary it on the right phrases. With the proper tempo and good inflection, one is dictionally well on the way to being a pleasing conversationalist. |
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