Stealing the Storyteller's Fire: Voice and Language for Broad Based Interpretation Susan Strauss This paper is based on a workshop presented as part of The Vital Spark interpretation conference, held in Aviemore in the Cairngorms National Park, Scotland from 30 September to 3 October 2007. Published by the Association for Heritage Interpretation and Interpret Scotland. Conference papers are available from the AHI website www.ahi.org.uk The Vital Spark conference was supported by the following organisations
Stealing the Storyteller's Fire: Voice and Language for Broad Based Interpretation By Susan Strauss [email protected] 541­382­2888 (c) 541­610­5350 When one has the ambition to improve one's self, taking a workshop (such as I offered at the Vital Spark Conference) can inspire ideas for directing one's ambition. But not until one puts those ideas into a practical practice, can change have a chance. The effective use of voice and language has the potential to change everything about a presentation. If voice is used well, the audience may not remember what was said, but that they enjoyed hearing about it. Of course, to have our audiences remember well what we say should be our ambition. The swiftest sail to this destination occurs when compelling and important information is coupled with beautiful language, well spoken. A lot of fruit can be harvested from one good idea and a little practice. Although the skill of a great actor or speaker is refined over a life span of work, each interpreter can benefit from ideas set forth here and in my workshop. I become very enthused, during a workshop, with the ideal of creating real change and then later, worry if the participants will actually try the ideas. Therefore, I would like to begin with the simplest, most general idea to keep in mind while working with one's own use of voice and language – and that is that language is primarily musical. Of course, in most daily modern used of language, it is not musical. It often exists as just static, a space filler, or the either tired or aggressive firing off of information. But when language becomes artistic and memorable, the musical element is re­ignited in it. As children, we are all born with an innate joy and interest in the musical quality of language – from listening to the intonations of our relatives' voices to mastering our own sound production. This is why most cultures produce children's literature with rhyme and rhythm – whether in written or oral recitation. So, the secret? Begin by listening to classical or instrumental music while writing. This will awaken musical sensibilities in your writing and speaking. When listening to classical or instrumental music, one feels first of all a sense of composition – how the piece builds its meaning, its statement.
Beethoven referred to himself as a "tone dichter" – a "tone poet." In other words, he saw himself speaking, making statements to his public through tone. In a great work of music, we notice how the theme is introduced, reinforced and how the ending is drawn to its conclusion. Listening more deeply, we may notice how a phrase is repeated, but then, repeated with a slight and clever change in a few notes. In language use, the equivalent is the order of words in a sentence, known as syntax, and the combination of sentences to create a rhythmic emphasis of meaning. Folk literature uses these qualities liberally. Here is an example from an African­American folk tale: "Old brother Possum was walking down the trail. He walked right passed a pit. He just kept right on walkin'. He didn't spy into that pit. He didn't take an itty bitty peek into that pit. He just minded his own business. When he passed that pit, he thought to himself, 'Hmm, I walked right passed that pit. I didn't even take a peek in that there pit. I reckon it wouldn't do no harm if I just took an itty bitty peek in that there pit." Of course, the story trouble and it's resulting meaning starts right there in the repetition of the word "pit" and the teasing revisiting of the pit in a series of sentences. There are too many examples of syntax variations from ancient folk literature to mention in a single article, but one more worth mentioning, can be found repeatedly in linguistic texts of Native American traditional stories from Pacific coast tribes. There, the protagonist (often Coyote) is traveling when the narration says, "and then he heard it. That sound." Always, at the moment when speaking this kind of rhythm, my audience lurches to attention. "Heard it," heard what? In that moment, the syntax has created question without asking a question. It has created a hook in the smallest, subtlest way. I used this idea in a piece of writing I created for the U.S. Forest Service in a project for telling the story of a particular watershed landscape. With restoration of the upper stream seeming more possible, we could imagine the Coho (salmon) returning to their usual gauntlet of jumping stream obstacles, navigating the trials of four years to ocean and back. Yet, no matter how fine a natural nursery is restored for them upstream, once the small smolts swim down stream and into the lake systems below, they drop right into the jaws of death. There, in what was once the Holy Grail of Coho Salmon habitat, swims the bully, the brute, the alien predator, large mouth bass ­ imported from its homeland in the American southeast.
In a more elaborate way, I try to create the same empty hole that keeps the audience asking "What is coming? What is it?" Listening to a masterful piece of music maybe fifty times, we may, only then, notice how perfectly the composer chose the flute or the French horn to play the melody. In language, we can think of the sounds of language – in particular the vowels and consonants as instruments in the orchestra of our speech. A good and simple practice to develop ones appreciation for the power of sounds is to dedicate a day to one sound in the alphabet. Start the day by saying the sound many ways; soft, loud, held in, projected out, slow, fast. Then, all day long, notice words, spoken and written, that employ this sound. What words use this sound two or more times, such as velvet or roar? You will begin to discover the particular personality and color of each sound you play with. In words where certain sounds are more pronounced, the sound actually contributes to the picture intended by the word. A wonderful example of this can be found in "The Bat" a poem by X. Kennedy: All day bats drowse in houses' eves. Collapsed like tents for storage. But when dusk darkens, Like fall leaves they loosen and they forage. For juicy june bugs, meaty moths, mosquitoes eaten rare. They're scary, but, There's nothing like a bat To clear the air. The repetition of the "D" in "day, drowse, dusk, darkens" drags the weight of action down and is aided by that mouthful diphthong vowel "AO" in "drowse" and "house." Then, the action can take off in flight with the light "L's" in "like, fall, leaves, loosen" and then explode with the fire­like "F" in "forage." One should take care not to just think only of the sounds that begin a word, but remember, for instance, that the "T" on the end of "light" is what gives it its spark. I always hope workshop participants will recognize this extraordinary picture­making capacity of language and sounds and their ability to create mood and imagery. To me, this capacity of language is the hidden magical craft of the storyteller. It is invisible and unknown to the average modern human being. But, when a speaker uses this craft, the modern listener's ear will awake to it and then, sink back in a
recollection of their own birthright. These aptitudes mentioned above may yet be lost on an audience if a speaker is unaware of the tonal resonance of their own voice. More for enriching one's voice, but also for projecting it and finding character voices, it is important to be able to draw voice down into one's body. In the workshop, we practiced by imagining characters who would speak out of different places in the body. The nasty dwarf complained with a voice that came out of his nose and top of his head. The good queen or noble knight spoke with a heart voice of compassion or courage that resounded like a bell. The bear spoke out of a belly voice which took it's time climbing out from the source of it's creation. For many of us, our voices get trapped in our throat or head, because we are in our heads so much of each day. Folk who work with their hands or the earth, such as farmers or crafts people, tend to speak slower with a resonance that is more in the body than the head. In public speaking, the audience's listening is aided by a speaker who can change resonance according the mood or information – just as a storyteller changes character voices. The heady, narrow or complaining voice may be useful in certain places, but difficult to listen to for an extended period of time. Just as a heart voice is easier for listening, if unvaried, it may put an audience to sleep. One can practice resonance change in several ways. One good way to bring one's voice into the body is to step in a stomping fashion while speaking the vowels with "H" before them: "HA, HEY, HE, HO, HU." Also, start each vowel as a head resonance, singing the sound as a great sigh down through the chakras. In earlier times, word and world were more related than in modern times. By imagining ourselves as musical instruments of speech, we can reawaken the world, past and present, for our audiences.