1.F 03. Necessity of Drill
Necessity of Drill.
All these various modes of drilling the voice are very important. They give the power to use it on a long strain without tiring it; to use it from top to bottom, so as to have all the various effects, and to know what they are; and to make it flexible, so that you have a ready instrument at your will.
These are very important elements to a man who is going to be a preacher. You say, “ Yes; I suppose a man ought to take some lessons in regard to these things, but he need not make it a study.” I beg your pardon, gentlemen; don’t touch it unless you are going to make thorough work of it. No know ledge is really knowledge until you can use it with out knowing it. You do not understand the truth of anything until it has so far sunk into you that you have almost forgotten where you got it. No man knows how to play a piano who stops and says, “ Let me see: that is B, and that is D,” and so on. When a man has learned and mastered his instrument thoroughly, he does not stop to think which keys he must strike; but his fingers glide from one to the other mechanically, automatically, almost in voluntarily. This subtle power comes out only when he has subdued his instrument and forgotten himself, conscious of nothing but the ideas and harmonies which he wishes to express.
If you desire to have your voice at its best, and to make the best use of it, you must go into a drill which will become so familiar that it ceases to be a matter of thought, and the voice takes care of itself. This ought to be done under the best instructors, if you have the opportunity; if not, then study the best books, and faithfully practise their directions.
It was my good fortune, in early academical life, to fall into the hands of your estimable fellow-citizen, Professor Lovell, now of New Haven; and for a period of three years I was drilled incessantly (you might not suspect it, but I was) in posturing, gesture, and voice-culture. His manner, however, he very properly did not communicate to me. And manner is a thing which, let me here remark, should never be communicated or imitated. It was the skill of that gentleman that he never left a manner with anybody. He simply gave his pupils the knowledge of what they had in themselves. After ward, when going to the seminary, I carried the method of his instructions with me, as did others.
We practised a great deal on what was called “ Dr. Barber’s System,” which was then in vogue, and particularly in developing the voice in its lower register, and also upon the explosive tones. There was a large grove lying between the seminary and my father’s house, and it was the habit of my brother Charles and myself, and one or two others, to make the night, and even the day, hideous with our voices, as we passed backward and forward through the wood, exploding all the vowels, from the bottom to the very top of our voices. I found it to be a very manifest benefit, and one that has remained with me all my life long. The drill that I underwent produced, not a rhetorical manner, but a flexible instrument, that accommodated itself readily to every kind of thought and every shape of feeling, and obeyed the inward will in the outward realization of the results of rules and regulations.