‘A blind man spoke about Master Bankei (1622-1693) and said the best thing he could say: “I am blind, and cannot see the face of the person with whom I speak. I must, in consequence, judge only their sincerity from their voice. My experience tells me that when I hear someone congratulate a friend on his success, I notice a ring of jealousy in their voice; and when I hear social condolences, I detect also a secret note of pleasure. However, this does not happen to me with Bankei: when he expresses joy, there is only joy in his voice; and when he expresses sadness, it is only sadness that I hear in him”.’

My voice is the messenger of my soul. Let it be firm, whole, sincere. Let it express in its vibration the totality of my being; let it reveal with its innocence the depth of my feeling; let it manifest with its right tune the transparency of my existence. Let there be not a single note out of tune in the melody of my life.

My voice takes birth in the inner recesses of my conscience, winds its way through nets of tissues, through lungs and diaphragm, through temper and volume, and becomes intelligible language in that throbbing miracle of vocal prowess that my throat is. All that I am is in that voice, and it identifies me, with the exactness of a fingerprint, before the science-fiction machine, as before the keen ears of the sightless sage. My voice betrays my mood. And I am glad to know that, so that I can now learn how to tune it to truth. When I hear my own voice, I realise how at times it sounds false, hollow, deceivingly flattering or stiffly formal. I say one thing while I feel another, and the words are proper, because they are censured in time, but the voice escapes censorship and shakes with the hidden lie of the jarring note.