Speaking must proceed from hearing
08/03/10 16:51 Filed in: Information
" ............. Nowadays people try to train the voice through the adjustment of the organs in the speech for the sound. This never leads to a natural functioning of the speech-organs. Speaking must proceed from hearing and, indeed, from hearing yourself. You must learn to hear yourself when you say an mm or and nn or an ll. In this case hearing is not quite the same as in ordinary life. It is rather like feeling the sound, as if you took hold of something in your chest and head which pours through the ears. If you remain sensitive you can feel the movements of the ear-drum. Thus speaking depends on hearing, and hearing is actually a feeling. Imagine also how the sound strikes against your ear: the ear-drum begins to vibrate. The oscillations starting from the mouth and sounding through the Eustachian tubes are equally important. They are laid hold of inwardly at first, but the ear resounds in sympathy. When someone else speaks the ear resounds more strongly. Hearing is always connected with the whole human being. It is as if you were in a globe of air and were watching what the air does when you are speaking. What takes place in the diaphragm, chest and head should take place unconsciously. You have to learn everything that has to be learnt through the sound. The breath itself must be regulated unconsciously when you sense the sound and, in sensing, hear. What has to be done in order to speak the sound has to be learnt from the sound itself. There should in no way be a feeling of using the larynx and other organs. You use the air instead. It should grow into a habit to feel what the air does. The special quality of wave sounds, vibratory, impact and breath sounds should be felt. Listening has to become a habit, above all listening to yourself, which in a certain respect is a feeling."
Rudolf Steiner, Marie Steiner-von Sivers,
Creative Speech
"..............Larynx follows naturally each smallest movement of the soul. We do not know how we do it that every mood of our soul is immediately revealed in our voice. As soon as our voice sounds, we experience ourself as soul in the environment, and in a fine unconscious mutual relationship we make sure that our soul's self-experience coincides with the sound we produce. Compared to that, the activity of articulation is a step more conscious. Yet this, too cannot be forced, but is only experienced as natural when it remains embedded in the stream of experiencing. On this basis, Rudolf Steiner founded artistic speech."
Martin-Ingbert Heigl
ARTEMIS - The Kinship and Mutual Relationship of Eurythmy, Artistic Speech and The Philosophy of Freedom
(Original text in German : ARTEMIS - Eurythmie, Sprachgestaltung und Philosophie der Freiheit)
