INTRODUCTION

THE VALUE OF THE TONE DRILLS

The reading aloud of poetry and prose is a process different from that of ordinary conversation. In natural conversation everything is spontaneous. There are real

objective and subjective causes, and in all likelihood we are unconscious of delivery. But when reading aloud we have not these real causes and are conscious of our processes. And even in speaking extempore it is the exception to find the speaker free from this consciousness and not artificial.

Exactly here we find the office of the teacher of expression. It is to so assist the reader or speaker that he will be able to express the thoughts and feelings as effectively as in spontaneous conversation; in fact, more so.

How is Vocal Expression to attain this? How is the teacher to proceed? What would common sense tell us? What does the best pedagogics say? What does psychology say? We must proceed from the simple to the complex, from the easy to the hard. In expression what is entitled to be called simple? It surely will be those things that we do and do constantly. Those things that we know, those things with which we are familiar; those things that are within our experience.

We set before the student these lines from Tennyson and ask him to read them: