ELOCUTION.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVI, 26 August 1926, Page 3

ELOCUTION.

INTFR ESTING LECTURETTE. BY AIR. L, F. DE BERRY. At the cilcse, of the afternoon; session of the Hawera competitions yesterday, the elocutionary adjudicator. Air L. F. de Berry, met competitors; and parents, and iii the. course of & de'.ightful lecturette, offered a, considerable amount of advice for the correct methods of adopting the study of elocution and many other aids to raise the standard of the competitors’ work. In opening, Mr de Berry said that everyone could not, be a good singer, but everyone could become a fine speaker. He then dealt with his subjects- under the heads upon which lie awarded hi® marks.

Gesture and depoTlmeiut—lt was quite necessary,' lie said, for competitors l to lep-rn how to .stand, for they were judged in elocutionary u'esses from the moment they walked on the stage, and the only correct manner wa,s, to move simply, plainly and unaffectedly. There was no heed for competitors to walk on the stage in any different manner from that on the street, so- .’ong as they were correct in the latter. Parents, when teaching elocution, .should mot attempt to train the children’s actions, as this would load to a distortion of the piece, but should allow thorn to. express. their own intelligence and appreciation of the item, and if left alone they Mould suggest their own natural actions. Referential gestures should lie guarded against as reducing the elocution, to absurdity. The value of pauses was stressed, it being important in order to overcome their o\vi 1 natural nervousness a.nd to -allow the audience to be prepared for the, item,, competitors should allow a, distinct pause between their airn'va.l on the. stage and the commencement of their Item. Quality of voice.—lt was not everyone who was gifted with a, beautiful voice,, hut thi«_, did not prevent a. good rendition of an elocutionary item. In order that competitors might generally open their performance correctly and keep wtrhin the'normal range of voice, he suggested that nrio.j- to commencement the three- words “eel,” “all,” and “on,” which roughly gave the three registers of the human voice, should be said by the competitor to himself, and, as if he were 00-mmencimg to sing from a given chord, he .should start on the ‘‘all” tone, allowing himself greater ‘space” in, which: to work, a,s he would be able to both raise and lower his tone. Breathing exercises s were very necessary for voice .produc- | tion, and for this purpose Dr. Hulbert’s

“Breathing for Voice Production” wa» suggested as a valuable aid,. Enunciation. —The English language contained five vowels, in each of which there were approximately 20 sounds obtained merely by alteration ,cf the shape of the mouth. Competitors should practise in becoming facile in the expression of all these sounds. The Education Department’s manual on the subject was of general assistance in this respect, and competitors •should obtain a. copy. The enunciation of consonantal sounds was .stressed as beipg of vital Importance, but it iva®. said that t-hev should not be carried too far, as to again lead to absurdity. Diction referred to the expression of the sentence, and he urged that competitors- should learn to .speak in phrases and sentences rather than in words. Naturalness was, he said, the essence of correct elocution.

Modulation and pcusatio-n.—This covered one of the most important phases of the work, but was probably the least understood of at'. There was a tendency for competitors to- adept in annoying monotony a “circumflex” nvodu-Vti-ou in each sentence. Competitoii's should- commene a sente-iiee., aimut the centre key and should drop right away for a- conclusion. Pauses for emphasiswere stressed as being one of the vital branches of elocution, and generally the competitor could not pause too much. At the* conclusion- of Ins interesting talk, in which ho introduced a number of anecdotes, Mr de Berry was accorded hearty appreciation.