CONCENTRATION IN DELIVERY BLOG

The truth is, that as a speaker your words must be born again every time they are spoken, then they will not suffer in their utterance, even though perforce committed to memory and repeated, like Dr. Russell Conwell's lecture, "Acres of Diamonds," five thousand times. Such speeches lose nothing by repetition for the perfectly patent reason that they arise from concentrated thought and feeling and not a merenecessity for saying something--which usually means anything, and that, in turn, is tantamount to nothing. If the thought beneath your words is warm, fresh, spontaneous, a part of your _self_, your utterance will have breath and life. Words are only a result. Do not try to get the result without stimulating the cause.

Do you ask _how_ to concentrate? Think of the word itself, and of its philological brother, _concentric_. Think of how a lens gathers and concenters the rays of light within a given circle. It centers them by aprocess of withdrawal. It may seem like a harsh saying, but the man who cannot concentrate is either weak of will, a nervous wreck, or has never learned what will-power is good for.

Master Inflection News Blog

It is impossible to tabulate the various inflections which serve to express various shades of thought and feeling. A few suggestions are offered here, together with abundant exercises for practise, but the only real way to master inflection is to observe, experiment, and practise.

For example, take the common sentence, "Oh, he's all right." Note how a rising inflection may be made to express faint praise, or polite doubt, or uncertainty of opinion. Then note how the same words, spoken with a generally falling inflection may denote certainty, or good-natured approval, or enthusiastic praise, and so on.

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Pauses in Public Speaking Blog

The unskilled speaker would have rattled this off with neither pause nor suspense, and the sentences would have fallen flat upon the audience. It is precisely the application of these small things that makes much of the difference between the successful and the unsuccessful speaker.

Take time, you have just as much of it as our richest multimillionaire. Your audience will wait for you. It is a sign of smallness to hurry. The great redwood trees of California had burst through the soil five hundred years before Socrates drank his cup of hemlock poison, and are only in their prime today. Nature shames us with our petty haste. Silence is one of the most eloquent things in the world. Master it, and use it through pause.

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Applying Tempo in Public Speeches News

Note the change of tempo indicated in the following, and how it gives a pleasing variety. Read it aloud. (Fast tempo is indicated by italics, slow by small capitals.)

_And he thought that some day he would take the time to play; but, say_--HE WAS WRONG. LIFE'S A SONG; _in the_ SPRING YOUTH _can_ SING _and can_ FLING; BUT JOYS WING WHEN WE'RE OLDER, LIKE THE BIRDS _when it's_ COLDER. _The roses were red as he went rushing by, and glorious tapestries hung in the sky.

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Variety in Pitch for Public Speaking

This is a highly important statement. Variety in pitch maintains the hearer's interest, but one of the surest ways to compel attention--to secure unusual emphasis--is to change the pitch of your voice suddenly and in a marked degree. A great contrast always arouses attention. White shows whiter against black; a cannon roars louder in the Sahara silence than in the Chicago hurly burly--these are simple illustrations of the power of contrast.

By such sudden change of pitch during a sermon Dr. Newell Dwight Hillis recently achieved great emphasis and suggested the gravity of the question he had raised.

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Using Emphasis in a Speech News

In the following selection, "larger" is emphatic, for it is the new idea. All men have eyes, but this man asks for a _LARGER_ eye.

This man with the larger eye says he will discover, not rivers or safety appliances for aeroplanes, but _NEW STARS_ and _SUNS_. "New stars and suns" are hardly as emphatic as the word "larger." Why? Because we expect an astronomer to discover heavenly bodies rather than cooking recipes. The words, "Republic needs" in the next sentence, are emphatic;they introduce a new and important idea. Republics have always needed men, but the author says they need _NEW_ men. "New" is emphatic because it introduces a new idea. In like manner, "soil," "grain," "tools," are also emphatic.

Mechanics of Speech Bulletin

When you have mastered the mechanics of speech you will no longer be troubled with monotony. The complete knowledge of these principles and the ability to apply them will give you great variety in your powers of expression.

They cannot be mastered and applied by thinking or reading about the speech--you must practise, _practise_, _PRACTISE_. If no one else will listen to you,listen to yourself--you must always be your own best critic, and the severest one of all.

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Public Speaking Basic News

Many teachers have begun with the _how_. Vain effort! It is an ancient truism that we learn to do by doing. The first thing for the beginner in public speaking is to speak--not to study voice and gesture and the rest. Once he has spoken he can improve himself by self-observation or according to the criticisms of those who hear.

But how shall he be able to criticise himself? Simply by finding out three things: What are the qualities which by common consent go to make up an effective speaker; by what means at least some of these qualities may be acquired; and what wrong habits of speech in himself work againsthis acquiring and using the qualities which he finds to be good.

Public Speaking Success Blog

After Preparing for Your Public Speaking Success, Expect It.

Let your bearing be modestly confident during your speech, but most of all be modestly confident within. Over-confidence is bad, but to tolerate premonitions of failure is worse, for a bold man may win attention by his very bearing, while a rabbit-hearted coward invites disaster.

CONFIDENCE In Public Speaking Blog

ACQUIRING CONFIDENCE BEFORE AN AUDIENCE

There is a strange sensation often experienced in the presence of an audience. It may proceed from the gaze of the many eyes that turn upon the speaker, especially if he permits himself to steadily return that gaze. Most speakers have been conscious of this in a nameless thrill, a real something, pervading the atmosphere, tangible, evanescent, indescribable. All writers have borne testimony to the power of a speaker's eye in impressing an audience. This influence which we are now considering is the reverse of that picture--the power _their_ eyes may exert upon him, especially before he begins to speak: after the inward fires of oratory are fanned into flame the eyes of the audience lose all terror.


--WILLIAM PITTENGER, _Extempore Speech_.


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SUGGESTION In Public Speaking

CHAPTER XXII--INFLUENCING BY SUGGESTION

Sometimes the feeling that a given way of looking at things is undoubtedly correct prevents the mind from thinking at all.... In view of the hindrances which certain kinds or degrees of feeling throw into the way of thinking, it might be inferred that the thinker must suppress the element of feeling in the inner life. No greater mistake could be made. If the Creator endowed man with the power to think, to feel, and to will, these several activities of the mind are not designed to be in conflict, and so long as any one of them is not perverted or allowed to run to excess, it necessarily aids and strengthens the others in their normal functions.


--NATHAN C. SCHAEFFER, _Thinking and Learning to Think_.


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Public Speaking Blog

CHAPTER XII--THE VOICE

The dramatic critic of The London _Times_ once declared that acting is nine-tenths voice work. Leaving the message aside, the same may justly be said of public speaking. A rich, correctly-used voice is the greatest physical factor of persuasiveness and power, often over-topping the effects of reason.

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Training in public speaking

Training in public speaking is not a matter of externals--primarily; it is not a matter of imitation--fundamentally; it is not a matter of conformity to standards--at all.

Public speaking is public utterance,public issuance, of the man himself; therefore the first thing both in time and in importance is that the man should be and think and feel things that are worthy of being given forth. Unless there be something of value within, no tricks of training can ever make of the talker anything more than a machine--albeit a highly perfected machine--for the delivery of other men's goods. So self-development is fundamental in our plan.