PLACING THE VOICE What is called "placing the voice" or "tone production" or "focusing the voice" is, as already stated in the previous chapter, chiefly a matter of resonance--of control of the resonator.

Now vocalization is largely vowelization, and vocal tones are a complex of sound and resonance.

The character of a vowel is given it by the shape of the vowel chamber; and the shaping of the vowel chamber depends upon delicate adjustment of the movable parts,--jaw, lips, cheeks, tongue, veil of the palate, and pharynx.

While this adjustment is made through more or less conscious muscular action, the parts must never be forced into position; local effort to this end will invariably defeat itself.
The important consideration in all voice movements is a flexible, _natural_ action of all the parts, and all the voice movements are so closely allied, so sympathetically related, that if one movement is constrained the others cannot be free.

It is a happy fact that _the right way is the easiest way_, and a fundamental truth that =right effort is the result of right thought=.