Observe how easily the birds sing and how full of joy they are. In this poem, express your own love for the birds. Show your delight and joy and let your tone be as open, free and hearty as their own. In speaking "come up up" "hark or accentuate all the preparatory

or

"" we come conditions and actions of tone.

"Yo ho, lads! Yo ho, yo ho!"

The captain calls to all below,

"Joy, joy to all, for we must go,

Yo ho, lads! yo ho! yo ho!"

Suppose you play the sailor. Imagine you are at sea in a boat, and like the boatswain, shout, "Yo, ho! Yo ho! lads!" full of heartiness and joy as if managing a boat on the sea.

Notice that in this case you should have a good deal of breath. To make your voice heard away up in the rigging through the roaring of the winds you would open your throat wide and send out your tone freely.

Can you imagine that you are on shore and anxious to get away, waiting for the captain's word, and that then the captain sings out: "Yo ho! lads!" You respond and call to your mates, full of joy that you are going out to sea.

PIRATE STORY

Three of us afloat in the meadow by the swing,

Three of us aboard in the basket on the lea.

Winds are in the air, they are blowing in the spring,

And waves are on the meadow like the waves there are at sea.

Where shall we adventure, to-day that we're afloat,

Wary of the weather and steering by a star?

Shall it be to Africa, a-steering of the boat,

To Providence, or Babylon, or off to Malabar?

Hi! but here's a squadron a-rowing on the sea —
Cattle on the meadow a-charging with a roar!

Quick, and we'll escape them, they're as mad as they can be,
The wicket is the harbor and the garden is the shore.

Robert Louis Stevenson,

Joy and heartiness make us breathe, expand the body and open the throat. Hence, they help the voice. By reading naturally and feeling deeply the joy of such a poem as

Stevenson's "Pirate Story," you can make your tone true and easy. You can feel your tone becoming more and more a part of your feeling.

Tone is easy when there are no cramps or constrictions in the muscles. We often make our voices hard and tight in our throats when we are trying to do something or say something very earnestly. Sometimes we constrict the breathing muscles. Such constrictions are unnecessary and make the tone hard. When our lungs are sympathetically filled with breath and the tone passage is easily open, tone will be free.

Merrily swinging on brier and weed,
Near to the nest of his little dame,
Over the mountain side or mead,
Robert of Lincoln is telling his name.

"Robert of Lincoln "

William Cullen Bryant

You cannot force tone and at the same time make it free and full. Tone must be set free by your imaginative thinking and the natural response to this in feeling. This gives a gentle activity to the whole body which passes easily and naturally through all parts and brings them into harmony. Thus indirectly, but in the only possible way, the body modulates the vibrations of the tone.

The quality of the voice is not under the direct control of will except in certain abnormal tones. True resonance or richness in the vibrations of the voice must come through a diffusion of feeling. The body as a whole acts as an agent of resonance.

Home from his journey Farmer John

Arrived this morning, safe and sound.
His black coat off, and his old clothes on,
"Now I'm myself!" says Farmer John;
And he thinks, "I'll look around."
Up leaps the dog: "Get down, you pup!
Are you so glad you would eat me up?
The old cow lows at the gate, to greet him;
The horses prick up their ears, to meet him;
"Well, well, old Bay!

Ha, ha, old Gray!

Do you get good feed when I am away?”

J. T. Trowbridge

Observe, when we imagine ourselves some good-natured, hearty character, such as Farmer John in Mr. Trowbridge's poem, that our tones are open and free. Be Farmer John after coming from town, walk around among your horses and cows, and talk to them with his joyous and hearty tones. Feel how they know and love you, and how you love them. Be simple and natural. Do not introduce dialect or crude speech. A farmer speaks as well as anybody, even better, for he lives out of doors and develops deep feelings. At any rate, Farmer John was a true nobleman.

Give with great heartiness and joy this poem on whistling. Express the old man's fun and good nature in your body, your breathing and your tone.

If I could whistle like I used when I was just a boy,

And fill the echoes just plumb full of that old-fashioned joy,

I guess I would be willin' then to turn my back on things

An' say farewell to scenes down here and try my angel wings;
O just once more to pucker up an' ripple soft an' trill
Until the music seemed to fall against the far-off hill
Like dew falls on a half-blown rose, till it gets full an' slips
Like jewels twinklin', twinklin' down from pink bewitching lips.
Oh, yes, if I could whistle now like I could whistle then!
Just pucker up these grim old lips an' turn things loose again!
I'd like to sit upon the knoll where trees was all around,
Just sit there punchin' my bare toes into the smelly ground
An' trillin' just the same old tune I used to trill of yore,
With all the fire and ecstasy that won't come back no more,
Until I'd see old brown-throat thrush come stealin' from his bush
An' look around, like he would say, say to the whole world: "Hush!"

If I could whistle now as then, I'd go along the road
Awakin' with my whistle all the scenes that once I knowed;
Just sendin' ripplin' music through the tamaracks an' pines
An' stirrin' all the blossoms on the mornin' glory vines;
Just go sendin' all about me, all behind me an' before,
Just loud an' shrill as anything an' then a-gettin' lower
The same old whistle that was mine, the same old carol shrill
That used to bid the day good-night an' mock the whippoorwill.

I saw a boy go past just now - his cheeks was like balloons,
An' oh! the air was rendered sweet by old remembered tunes!
An' oh! the world sat lightly on that childish happy imp!
His troubles was all packed behind, his hat was torn an' limp,
While one big toe that had been stubbed was twisted in a rag;

But oh, that imp stepped high an' proud, with shoulders full of brag, An' whistled in that same old way that I was wont to do,

Till my old heart was in the lines the little rascal blew.

If I could whistle like he did
The trill is gone, the skill is gone! Sometimes when I'm alone
I pucker an' purse up my lips an' try, an' try, an' try,

but now there's something gone!

An' then the noise my old lips make ain't nothin' but a sigh.
It ain't no thing of learnin', it can 't be contrived by art,
A boy must be behind it, an' a great big boyish heart;
A boy just out o' hearin' must go whistlin' of the song;
No use of tryin' when we 're old, we've been away too long!
"A Boy's Whistle."

J. M. Lewis

You have been to the woods after nuts. Imagine yourself now among the hills, feeling a desire to shout, sending your tone a long way. What do you do to send your tone afar? Do the same in the whole of Mr. Stedman's poem, soften the loudness, but do not lessen the joy or the breath, or change the tone passage.

THE JOY OF THE HILLS

I ride on the mountain tops, I ride;
I have found my life and am satisfied.
Onward I ride on the blowing oats,
Checking the field-lark's blowing notes
Lightly I sweep

From steep to steep.

Over my head through the branches high
Come glimpses of a rushing sky;

The tall oats brush my horse's flanks,
Wild poppies crown the sunny banks;
A bee booms out of the scented grass,
A jay laughs with me as I pass.

I ride on the hills, I forgive, I forget
Life's hoard of regret,

All the terror and pain
Of the chafing chain.
Grind on, oh cities, grind;

I leave you a blur behind.

I am lifted, elated — the skies expand;

Here the world's heaped gold is a pile of sand.
Let them weary and work in their narrow walls;
I ride with the voice of waterfalls.

I swing on as one in a dream

I swing

Down the airy hollows I shout, I sing.
The world is gone like an empty word;

My body's a bough in the wind, my heart a bird.
By permission of the author.

Edwin Markham

Joy, love, patriotism, all true sympathy, all noble emotion, tend to make the voice easy, pure, free and open. We should express our heartiest admiration for things that please us.

Take a poem about things we love, such as Mr. Edwin Markham's poem on the mountain, and let us feel ourselves joyously and heartily climbing and looking out over the world. Let the feeling affect the breath and the whole body and let the tone come easily.

THE NATIONAL FLAG

There is the national flag! He must be cold, indeed, who can look upon its folds rippling in the breeze without pride of country. If he be in a foreign land, the flag is companionship and country itself with all its endearments. Who, as he sees