VOICE PRODUCTION.

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 138, 13 June 1934, Page 9

VOICE PRODUCTION.

MR. SHAW'S COMMENT. WHAT HE OWES TO HIS MOTHER. (By Telegraph.—Own Correspondent.) DUNEDIN, Tuesday. An interesting letter from Mr. Bernard Shaw has been received by a well-known Dunedin music teacher, who has made a close study of the speaking and singing voice, and who wrote to Mr. Shaw in appreciation of the clarity and vitality of his speech as broadcast on the occasion of the civic reception in Christchurch. "I was unable to get as far south as Dunedin in the time at my disposal, otherwise I should have given myself the pleasure of calling on you, for I am one of the few people who appreciate the importance of your profession," Mr. Shaw wrote in reply. "As it happens, voice production was my mother's hobby, and late in life she made a profession of teaching. I have such a very commonplace voice that I had some difficulty in persuading her to teach me how to use it (I was one of the people classed as having 'no voice'), but her lesso.is »have stood me in good stead ever since. Her method was her religion. "Many teachers of singing are persons who, havirijr broken their own voices, are driven to make a living by breaking other people's. This should be made a capital offence, fc,r the breaking of a voice means the breaking of everything. I hope you will enable the people of Dunedin to retain their voices as long as they retain their breath. Many thanks for your kind letter."