Musical Theatre: "Voice class delivery"

Our assignment for this week was to prepare voice class for acting. The purpose of this assignment was to provides learners with the opportunity to amass knowledge of voice production and vocal health, analyse that knowledge , and then apply their knowledge in a practical application. The deadline for this assignment is on 10 Nov.15.

*The general scenario for this assignment was:

During a production of Mary Zimmerman's Metamorphose, the performing arts company that you work for has asked you to lead a portion of a voice class before your evening performance top help keep the ensemble fit. Time is of the essence, so a strict 20 minute time limit has been established.

*Here is my all research which I've done to help me to prepare the voice class delivery.

That's the first and quickest way how you can prepare before your showcase:

"10 Warming Up exercises Voice Actors Must Include in Their Routines"

1. You need to simply find a comfortable but firm place to lie down on your back. Then start by making a low humming sound and you could also practice panting. Then roll your body over to one side and get up, keeping your breathing rhythm intact. Repeat this by rolling over to the other side.
2. Also do some neck rolls by rotating your head very slowly clockwise and anti-clockwise. You could also do some shoulder rolls by rotating them forward and backward. This warms up your neck and throat muscles.
3. Massage your whole face by drawing slow circles with the tip on your fingers to relax the muscles of your face.
4. Also, jump up and down. You should also shake your hands and feet for improving your circulation and loosening your muscles.
5. The Lion/Mouse technique requires that you stand in front of a mirror and stretch all your facial muscles. The first part is to stretch your mouth wide open, imitating a lion’s roar and snarl. After that switch to a mouse face immediately, by scrunching your facial muscles and looking small and meek. Switching between the lion and mouse would help in improving circulation in your face.
6. Pull your tongue out as far as you can, trying to reach your chin by pulling it down or the tip of your nose by stretching it up. Also try to reach your ears.
7. Sirens are meant to improve your vocal range. Alternate between the octaves by uttering the phrase “eeee” and hitting the top notes and the lower ones.
8. Trills are created when you roll your tongue along the roof of your mouth and create a “trrrr” or “rrrr” sound.
9. Use the standard PTKT (pronounced as puhh tuhh kuhh tuhh) and BDGD (pronounced buhh duhh guhh duhh) to warm up your vocal chords further. This would also exercise your tongue.
10. Tongue twisters are generally used to further exercise your mouth, tongue, lips and cheeks. Say your favorite ones out loud and this could really be a fun exercise.

 *Here is the other way which also you can use to prepare yourself well  before the show. They are proposed by National Theatre . This whole warm up you can use when you have more time to do it . If you need to do a quick warm up ,you should to choose some exercises from each this all videos and put them all together.

 The theatres at the National require a vocal focus on articulation. First Jeannette gets the actors to move their lips around, and then gives the tongue a good work-out. After relaxing the jaw and reminding the actors of the need for good support, she gets them to repeat the sounds 'da, da, da' and 'ta, ta, ta' very quickly. Jeannette's further selection of other sounds to repeat will, over time, build up an actor's ability to articulate clearly. In addition to being part of their continual training, it's also something they need to do every night before a performance.

People featured in this video: Jeannette Nelson (Head of Voice), Sioned Jones (Actor), Chris Saul (Actor)

1.) Vocal warm-up: Breathing

 

 

2.) Vocal warm-up: Resonance

 

3.) Vocal warm-up: Opening of the voice

 

4.) Vocal warm-up: articulation

 

 

 

My opinion:

Vocal exercises are part of an actor’s working life. In ancient Greek times, it was the greatest orators, those with the physical gift of a beautiful voice and a strong diaphragm, that were the actors and public speakers. There are references in some Shakespeare's plays to the vocal exercising of an actor before performance and the importance of enunciation and volume. There are many types of vocal exercises, and each addresses a different part of the vocal mechanism. You can look at each component as a cog in a machine that, when put together, will aid understandable and natural sounding speech that can easily be heard at the back of an auditorium. In this collection takes actors through a warm up and a series of exercises typical for actors in rehearsal. I'm really find this exercises  helpful and If you want to improve your acting you should start to do some of this exercises.

Musical Theatre:"Why the voice does not work ?"

                                               Why the voice does not work ?

Three weeks ago week spoke about "why the voice does not work ", we got text from the book Freeing the Natural Voice. Our exercise was to read this text and explain what we understood and how this could help us to improve our vocal and acting skills in our opinion.

Here is a short description of this book:

The classic voice-training book for actors, teachers of voice and speech and anyone interested in vocal expression – by a pre-eminent voice teacher, actor and director. Fully revised and expanded edition. Describes the mechanics of the voice and obstacles of spontaneous, effective vocal expression and details exercises for developing and strengthening the voice as a human and actor's instrument.

My own opinion and understanding why the voice doesn't not work :

All article I found really interesting and really helpful . Very detailed descriptions with examples to better understanding. So why the voice does not work ? To answer for this question we have to start from the beginning. For the first time we give out our voice at birth. Only then our voice is given out through our entire body and therefore has no limits as it has no brain restrictions, these restrictions are a big cause of why we sometimes struggle to sing.

In the process of puberty ,our body is evolving and with it our vocal abilities in singing until the moment where our parents tell what to do and not to do. It mainly occurs due to the fact that kids are too loud and parents try to quiet them down.

During our life experience and growing up we lose the full potential of our voice because we keep it inside as it is not in place to just "scream and shout" which forces us to learn this skill again from the beginning. Children have an unlimited vocal skill range  due to the fact that they don't have any barriers nor restrictions to get their inner voice out; both high or/and low.

The main reason that is limiting us from singing how we want is the fact that we keep our voice inside our head, and really our singing depends on how we put ourselves with the song and the psychological attitude we have to the chosen song. If we tell ourselves that we can't sing it for whatever reason, we just won't do it. But if we give the right motivation, attitude and tell ourselves that we can do it, we will do it. So a very important element of singing is to sing with our full inner voice and to engage all our muscles which are responsible for giving out our voice( the quality and strength of our voice.)

Also other elements which have an impact on our singing ability are taking care of our throat ,drinking water, and moisturising our vocal chords etc...

Although the main message is to be able to open your mind, overcome the barriers and let yourself free to singing Just like kids can freely operate their voice before they grow up and have to obey rules and barriers set by the society.