_About Voices_ I KNEW an old German--a wonderful teacher of the speaking voice--who said "the ancients believed that the soul of the man is here"-- pointing to the pit of his stomach.

"I do not know," and he shrugged his shoulders with expressive interest, "it may be and it may not be--but I know the soul of the voice is here--and you Americans--you squeeze the life out of the word in your throat and it is born dead." That old artist spoke the truth--we Americans--most of us--do squeeze the life out of our words and they are born dead.

We squeeze the life out by the strain which runs all through us and reflects itself especially in our voices.

Our throats are tense and closed; our stomachs are tense and strained; with many of us the word is dead before it is born.
Watch people talking in a very noisy place; hear how they scream at the top of their lungs to get above the noise.

Think of the amount of nervous force they use in their efforts to be heard.
Now really when we are in the midst of a great noise and want to be heard, what we have to do is to pitch our voices on a different key from the noise about us.