The Voice Workbook
by Angela Caine
(book and cassette)

A little while ago I met an elderly stammerer who gave me some advice I will never forget. He asked me whether I wanted to talk without a stammer. I said that I did, He then proceeded to explain that if I spoke with a woolly hat pulled down over Color my face and at the same time held a ventriloquist's dummy in my hand, I would have no trouble at all. I did not doubt his word, but I have not tried it, preferring only to imagine attending last week's business meeting with Orville in my arms and wearing my daughter's brownie hat.

Consider then my reaction when at a recent BSA Open Day event Angela Caine had me balancing precariously on a wobble board, a potted plant on my head and speaking fluently. Here we go again! I was on my way back to Demosthenes and his pebbles until I began to listen to what she was saying. This feat of floral dexterity was no distraction technique, far from it. Angela was demonstrating how correct operation of the voice mechanism depended on correct operation of the whole body. But I found myself saying I can't remember all this! How did she say we had to do it? I'll have forgotten this by the time I get home. So it was with considerable enthusiasm and relief that I received The Voice Workbook.

This well illustrated little volume comes with a cassette of tunes and ditties to accompany the exercises. Angela begins by likening the body to a trampoline in which the larynx forms the mat. She continues with a very enlightening discussion on breathing. There are two methods of breathing, the 'Activity System' and the 'Emergency System'. The 'Activity System' is our everyday breathing which happens without us thinking about it. The 'Emergency System' is under our conscious control and as its name implies is for emergencies. It is a short noisy breath to prepare us for whatever disaster is coming our way. The problem with stammerers and many other speakers and singers is that we use the emergency system for our everyday speech.

"Take a deep breath and say that again!". Do you remember being told that by a friendly (but very misguided) teacher or parent? I do! So we learn to approach our speaking situations as emergencies. Our bodies tense up ready for action and all we are doing is talking! Little wonder things go wrong; the larynx locks up and we block or in the case of a singer run out of breath before the end of the line or don't reach that top note. In a chapter entitled talking and eating the functioning of the mouth is outlined. We all know that the bottom jaw is used for eating and plays little part in talking - then why is the bottom jaw tense when we stammer?

The answer to this question I shall leave for you to find out when you read the book. You will discover bones and muscles you never knew existed, how the mouth develops from childhood to adulthood and how we have to learn to speak twice, once with an infant's mouth and then with the mouth of an older child at around the age of six. Could this explain why so many speech problems begin to appear at this age, Angela asks? Scattered throughout the book are a number of case histories and although the book is not written specifically for stammerers, Angela has dedicated a few pages to Sandy who is an adult stammerer. The book finishes off with an excellent chapter on performance and presentation which provides a wealth of hints on giving talks and using the telephone.

The Voice Workbook is a useful guide to how we talk and how we stammer. We can all benefit from the advice given, however, I recommend that the reader considers it not as a cure but an accompaniment to whatever he is doing to come to terms with his stammer. My only criticism is that some of the anatomical details are a little too technical for the lay reader and may clout the very important concepts that Angela is trying to pass on to the adult stammerer.

Reviewed by Robin Frewer in the Autumn 1991 issue of 'Speaking Out'.

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