VOICE EXERCISE FOR VOWELS

VOICE  EXERCISE  FOR  VOWELS

How lively , spirited and clear your speech is depends on how your vocal organs produce the sound of words .

Though consonants give meaning and definition to words , it is the vowels which contain your vocal tone , which actually represent your voice . So shape your lips nicely as you pronounce the vowels .

Here are two exercises for practice . Breathe deep , feel the beauty of the poems , and then read slowly and with effect .

Exercise Number 1

Lull me to sleep , ye winds , whose fitful sound

Seems from some faint Aeolian harpstring caught ;

Seal up the hundred wakeful eyes of thought

As Hermes with his lyre in sleep profound

The hundred wakeful eyes of Argus bound ;

For I am weary , and am overwrought

With too much toil , with too much care distraught ,

And with the iron crown of anguish crowned .

Lay thy soft hand upon my brow and cheek ,

O peaceful sleep ! until from pain released

I breathe again uninterrupted breath !

Ah , with what subtile meaning did the Greek

Call thee the lesser mystery at the feast

Whereof the greater mystery is death !

Exercise Number 2

The splendour falls on castle walls

And snowy summits old in story :

The long light shakes across the lakes

And the wild cataract leaps in glory .

Blow , bugle , blow , set the wild echoes flying ,

Blow , bugle ; answer , echoes , dying , dying , dying .

O hark , O hear ! How thin and clear ,

And thinner , clearer , farther going !

O sweet and far from cliff and scar

The horns of Elfland faintly blowing !

Blow , let us hear the purple glens replying :

Blow , bugle ; answer , echoes , dying , dying , dying .

O love , they die in yon rich sky ,

They faint on hill or field or river :

Our echoes roll from soul to soul ,

And grow for ever and for ever .

Blow , bugle , blow , set the wild echoes flying ,

And answer , echoes , answer , dying , dying , dying .