Week 2:
This week I focused my three vocal topics with these exercises:
- Yoga (and the voice)
- 'The Far Side Of The Moor'
- Humming
Posture:
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| Posture notes |
I did a quick body sketch to highlight what parts of my body I am holding wrong, and it's actually a lot more than I had expected! When standing normally, my shoulders are rolled quite far forward. This used to be quite visible but I've taught myself to sit them further back, but for this specifically, they need to be a lot further back. I tilt my head ever so slightly to the right. This is just a long term habit but its always something I remind myself of when working on my posture. When relaxed, my arms sit too closely to my body. I think this is due to my shoulders being rolled too far forward, so if I realign the position of my shoulders, my arms will sit nicer. My hips just slightly pushed forward, and so therefore aren't in line with my spine and I lock my knees constantly, so having more of a bend to them will help the position of my hips. And finally, my feet could do with being placed further apart to enable my stability and to make them sit more central instead of letting them relax outwardly.
Moving onto the more practical side of this weeks work, I looked into Yoga. Yoga is a Hindu Spiritual method of relaxing the body but also entering it, taking special interest into the breath, mind and the body itself. My mum is a qualified yoga teacher and so when we were little, as she was training, we would attend regular yoga classes. These are definitely something I wish I had kept up with, as I feel this would've been helping me out massively now that posture is becoming something more and more important for me as an actor. I understand that Yoga is something that helps to realign the body; its something that practises the rebuilding of the body and you slowly begin to move better and hold yourself better, with practise of the postures- postures as in Yoga postures.
I created a short Yoga sequence that I practised this week which included all the main yoga postures that I had researched into being helpful for the body's posture, such as postures to stretch your back, or ways to stretch your neck etc.
The Tree pose: The tree is a very centralising pose. With one foot firmly placed into your mat, slowly raise your other leg and rest it against the outside of your knee. Once settled into this position, raise your arms to allow them to meet in the center of your chest to form the 'praying' position.
Your head should sit nicely in-line with your spine and your knee (on the leg that is at a horizontal.)
This pose helps to keep the shoulders in their correct place, as when bringing your arms forward into the 'pray' position, you stretch the top part of your back which gently pulls your shoulders back.
Breathing in this position always feels clear, so I experimented briefly with reciting parts of my monologue (Like A Virgin by Gordon Steele.) With my chest capacity being slightly opened and the shoulders pushed back I felt my words were being projected further because there was no physical body obstructions, obstructing my route of projection.
The Cobra: Gently lay onto your chest, tuck your toes underneath the slight lift you will do, push your body up from your arms and slowly stretch your neck backwards slightly. Once in this position, you can feel the nice stretch situated in your chest. The stretch upwards opens up your chest as well as lengthens your back, as your body grows in length (theoretically) as you can pull your back out slightly once in the lift. The Cobra is one of my favourite poses as I always find that I can manage my words and breath a lot easier after coming out of this posture. I find it a very good calming pose but because it really opens up the chest, I noticed my breath control felt a lot calmer.
The Dog: Another pose that really lengthens out your back muscles, its a nice stretch that pulls out the rib cages and allows easy access to the lungs to allow easy breath. With evenly-spaced and planted feet, lean forward (at a careful speed, head to chest and a spinal roll) Place hands to the floor and slowly step your hands forward until you create a pointed effect with your body. A straight back, straight legs and bottom up and out. A good pose for allowing the voice to leave your body instead of 'swallowing' the voice due to you being upside down...(literally!)
The table top crab: This is in reverse to the other poses as this time you are pushing your body towards the sky instead of the floor. Again with evenly spaced foot placements, (whilst already in a crouched down position) Place your hands at a right angel to your shoulders, as a means to hold your body up. Relax head in this position. And slowly push your chest up towards the sky, a simple method to, again, open up the chest to allow better breath access but also strengthen the chest for things such as projection and pace in the voice.
The Dog: Another pose that really lengthens out your back muscles, its a nice stretch that pulls out the rib cages and allows easy access to the lungs to allow easy breath. With evenly-spaced and planted feet, lean forward (at a careful speed, head to chest and a spinal roll) Place hands to the floor and slowly step your hands forward until you create a pointed effect with your body. A straight back, straight legs and bottom up and out. A good pose for allowing the voice to leave your body instead of 'swallowing' the voice due to you being upside down...(literally!)
The table top crab: This is in reverse to the other poses as this time you are pushing your body towards the sky instead of the floor. Again with evenly spaced foot placements, (whilst already in a crouched down position) Place your hands at a right angel to your shoulders, as a means to hold your body up. Relax head in this position. And slowly push your chest up towards the sky, a simple method to, again, open up the chest to allow better breath access but also strengthen the chest for things such as projection and pace in the voice.
The Fish: The fish is a pose I always had to do whenever I had a chest infection (which was more regular than you may imagine!!) It really allows you to breath clearly and properly into your lungs and stretches this whole area. Lay evenly on the floor, with care, bring your arms and sit them underneath your body (palms facing downwards.) Bring your legs up and place feet onto the ground. Using your arms, lift your body up (focussing on stretching your chest area more than lifting the entire body) Do make sure you aren't putting strain onto the head and neck!!
And finally; The Mountain: This is probably the most 'posture' related pose of all the ones I have spoken about above. This is a really simple standing pose, but with special attention paid into the way the body stands. Feet hip width apart, knees slightly bent, hips pushed back (in line with the spine) arms relaxed on each side of the body (not in contact with the body) shoulders rolled back (or to imagine angel wings!) The head and neck both in-line with the spine. Stand and breath. Bring hands to meet in the center of the chest, forming the 'pray' position once again. This is pretty much the actors neutral position, it's the simplest standing position yoga can offer you and its perfect for work on the posture as this is has been defined as the perfect posture! I also find it a very relaxing position which I have used before shows to breath into and calm me down as well as reciting my lines in this position as it's such a natural position.
I practised these at various times of this week all in order to help improve my posture. I knew that even if I did these poses more regularly than for just one week that my posture wouldn't just magically improve, so in all honesty I don't feel it has improve at all since the beginning of this week. However, doing it so regularly has taught me how to slip into poses such as the Mountain and its taught me about parts of my body that I do need to pay special attention to in terms of posture. So in that sense, it has become a very important piece of practise for me as it's definitely something I plan on using more frequently before rehearsals, voice lessons and performances themselves.
Articulation/Pace
At the moment we are working on a radio piece called The Far Side Of The Moor by Sean Grundy. Its set in the 1950's in the BBC Television studios. Both of those pieces of information kind of give away the fact that our articulation and pace needs to be something really fine tuned in order to give a succsesful performance. With working on this project for a while now, its become more obvious how important articulation and pace is for a 'radio' performance. Firstly, if your audience can't understand what your'e saying, you will simply loose their interest and loose listeners. This applies similarly to if your pace is too quick. People find it naturally harder to hear someone when you can't look at their actions, gestures and mouth movements and so listening to a whole radio show is sometimes not many people's 'cup of tea.' And so because they can't see you and can't determine what your'e saying from your mouth movements, the speed at which you say things becomes even more important.
I have been told many times that I talk quickly, so this is why I wanted to dedicate this week on lines from The Far Side Of The Moor and just sit through it and work on my articulation and pace.
"Don't gulp, dear" The key to good articulation is to ensure you pronounce every sound that leaves your mouth. This also helps massively with the speed at which you say these words, because you can't pronounce everything correctly at 100mph!! For example, for the word 'don't', I found making the 't' sound a harsh sound effective as it allowed me to make sure I pronounced it. I also found, making my mouth movements exaggerated helped to make sure I got all my words out correctly; such as the 'o' sound, I pouted out my lips in a large 'o' shape.
"Undo your tie... And please do stop with the amatuer dramatics Patrick, at least until after breakfast" The over exaggerated mouth movements comes into place on the word 'undo' It's a nice word to do this for actually because the shape of the mouth has to change in seconds. 'Un' is a more of a wide- mouth, which then switches quickly to a pout of the lips for the 'do' sound. A slight elongation to the word 'and' simply made it sound more varied and emphasised the fact that it was the start of a new thought in the characters mind. I found 'amatuer dramatics' a hard set of words to pronounce as the sounds they both include are fairly similar. I also found that I was cutting off the 'teugh' sound to 'amatuer'. I was making it more into: 'ama-tya' making the word a lot shorter than it's meant to be... this is where I tend to notice how quick I talk, so although this process looks like I am only paying attention to my articulation, it's also helping me on my pace as well. 'Least' another word that I elongated to bring out the poshness to my characters voice.
"...this amatuer astronomer sows the seeds of irrationality..." Again, I had the same issue with trying to say the word 'amatuer' . 'Sows the seeds' (sibilius) the frequent use of the 's' sound in these two words always throws me. As much as I try and focus on one word at a time, I realise that I tend to miss off the last 's' off 'sows'. This is where the speed at which I am saying these words comes in most handy, because I found that if I slowed down these three words to an impecibly slow pace, I could say every sound in all three of the words. Although, saying that I can do this is all very well but I still have difficulty trying to say these at a more interesting/normal rate of speaking.
"Oh Patrick, look a telegram" I have come to the conclusion I don't like the name Patrick, in terms of articulation ha! With it's harsh letters, I find it hard to say clearly without making it sound like my character's angry. I tried slowing this down but then it became two seperate words: 'pat' and 'trick.' which just sounded odd. 'look' is a nice word to say because you can go quite heavily on the final 'k' sound and it just sounds posher instead of sounding harsh or angry.
"...it's that theatrical blood" This has a few nice 'th' sounds to it, which I find sounds more BBC-like if I elongate the beginning sounds to the word 'theatrical'. I also put more of a 'k' sound to the 'cal' part of the word, as again I find it makes it sound posher...which is what both articulation and The Far Side Of The Moor is all about!
http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/writersroom/scripts/Far-Side-Of-The-Moore.pdf
Just working on these odd little lines has really helped me with my articulation for this performance, it's kind of proved to me how much difference it makes when you slow a word down and spend time saying everything sound that the word involves; I think I just now need to pay attention to the fact that I could make it too boring if I say the lines with the monotone effect I have been practising them with this week. I found in my rehearsals this week of The Far Side Of The Moor, my articulation/pace was much better than it has been. It also made me feel more confident with how I was speaking and so I can hopefully keep this up, but it definitely felt easier saying these lines knowing that I was speaking them at a much more reasonable speed with a bit better use of articulation. This is something I need to continue work on but I can definitely start to see glimmers of improvement here.
Projection:
I have always quite liked the effect humming can have on your voice. Something quite therapeutic about it I think. It kind of softens your voice, which you may be wondering why I use it as a method of helping me with my projection... Humming warms up your vocal folds which allows you to produce a much clearer sound and it also allows you to project louder because of this clarity. It also clears your throat of any 'gunk' from diary foods for example, which allows better use of projection.
With this said, I find myself humming a lot, usually when I'm listening to my music, and I can usually tell the difference in my voice immedietly. This is probably only down to the fact it's warming up my voice, but it really helps with my projection work.
As part of this project, I found it tricky to find a way in which to put this into action so I decided I would keep this weeks work quite simply and practise humming before every scene of mine this week. (This week was still focussed on The Far Side Of The Moor, which worked perfectly for me because I have a couple of scenes but well-spread apart.) We spent this whole week working on The Far Side Of The Moor, so my humming experiment was well-used.
Tuesday: I hummed to one of my favourite George Ezra songs: Song 6. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNuLOx_9Yt0 My voice in my scenes today felt smooth, there was no times that i stumbled over my words nor times where I felt I needed to cough or an irritation in my voice I appeared... it was almost like I had ironed out any creases in my voice so it sounded nice during this rehearsal.
Wednesday: Hummed any ol' tune, just humming at the end of the day, eh? I felt like I could project my voice better today, I felt that what I was saying was brought up a volume level, whether this was just a confidence thing because I knew my voice was becoming clearer...?
Thursday: Again, just hummed anything for a good couple of minutes before rehearsals today. Similar to yesterday, so no real improvement, but the volume level raising just a fraction from say last weeks rehearsals. Which is good because you've got to start somewhere.
I think I'm a little disapointed with this weeks projection work because I think I was so busy set on the fact that as soon as I start work on improving my projection, it would just suddenly start to improve; which is silly of course! However, although I don't feel like I can say I've seen much improvement in my projection this week, I am pleased that I am finally getting round to working on improving my projection as I think it will help massively with the lack of confidence I have sitting on my shoulders currently.
And finally; The Mountain: This is probably the most 'posture' related pose of all the ones I have spoken about above. This is a really simple standing pose, but with special attention paid into the way the body stands. Feet hip width apart, knees slightly bent, hips pushed back (in line with the spine) arms relaxed on each side of the body (not in contact with the body) shoulders rolled back (or to imagine angel wings!) The head and neck both in-line with the spine. Stand and breath. Bring hands to meet in the center of the chest, forming the 'pray' position once again. This is pretty much the actors neutral position, it's the simplest standing position yoga can offer you and its perfect for work on the posture as this is has been defined as the perfect posture! I also find it a very relaxing position which I have used before shows to breath into and calm me down as well as reciting my lines in this position as it's such a natural position.
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| The Tree |
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| The Cobra |
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| The crab |
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| The Fish |
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| Yoga poses; Sketches |
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| The Dog |
I practised these at various times of this week all in order to help improve my posture. I knew that even if I did these poses more regularly than for just one week that my posture wouldn't just magically improve, so in all honesty I don't feel it has improve at all since the beginning of this week. However, doing it so regularly has taught me how to slip into poses such as the Mountain and its taught me about parts of my body that I do need to pay special attention to in terms of posture. So in that sense, it has become a very important piece of practise for me as it's definitely something I plan on using more frequently before rehearsals, voice lessons and performances themselves.
Articulation/Pace
At the moment we are working on a radio piece called The Far Side Of The Moor by Sean Grundy. Its set in the 1950's in the BBC Television studios. Both of those pieces of information kind of give away the fact that our articulation and pace needs to be something really fine tuned in order to give a succsesful performance. With working on this project for a while now, its become more obvious how important articulation and pace is for a 'radio' performance. Firstly, if your audience can't understand what your'e saying, you will simply loose their interest and loose listeners. This applies similarly to if your pace is too quick. People find it naturally harder to hear someone when you can't look at their actions, gestures and mouth movements and so listening to a whole radio show is sometimes not many people's 'cup of tea.' And so because they can't see you and can't determine what your'e saying from your mouth movements, the speed at which you say things becomes even more important.
I have been told many times that I talk quickly, so this is why I wanted to dedicate this week on lines from The Far Side Of The Moor and just sit through it and work on my articulation and pace.
"Don't gulp, dear" The key to good articulation is to ensure you pronounce every sound that leaves your mouth. This also helps massively with the speed at which you say these words, because you can't pronounce everything correctly at 100mph!! For example, for the word 'don't', I found making the 't' sound a harsh sound effective as it allowed me to make sure I pronounced it. I also found, making my mouth movements exaggerated helped to make sure I got all my words out correctly; such as the 'o' sound, I pouted out my lips in a large 'o' shape.
"Undo your tie... And please do stop with the amatuer dramatics Patrick, at least until after breakfast" The over exaggerated mouth movements comes into place on the word 'undo' It's a nice word to do this for actually because the shape of the mouth has to change in seconds. 'Un' is a more of a wide- mouth, which then switches quickly to a pout of the lips for the 'do' sound. A slight elongation to the word 'and' simply made it sound more varied and emphasised the fact that it was the start of a new thought in the characters mind. I found 'amatuer dramatics' a hard set of words to pronounce as the sounds they both include are fairly similar. I also found that I was cutting off the 'teugh' sound to 'amatuer'. I was making it more into: 'ama-tya' making the word a lot shorter than it's meant to be... this is where I tend to notice how quick I talk, so although this process looks like I am only paying attention to my articulation, it's also helping me on my pace as well. 'Least' another word that I elongated to bring out the poshness to my characters voice.
"...this amatuer astronomer sows the seeds of irrationality..." Again, I had the same issue with trying to say the word 'amatuer' . 'Sows the seeds' (sibilius) the frequent use of the 's' sound in these two words always throws me. As much as I try and focus on one word at a time, I realise that I tend to miss off the last 's' off 'sows'. This is where the speed at which I am saying these words comes in most handy, because I found that if I slowed down these three words to an impecibly slow pace, I could say every sound in all three of the words. Although, saying that I can do this is all very well but I still have difficulty trying to say these at a more interesting/normal rate of speaking.
"Oh Patrick, look a telegram" I have come to the conclusion I don't like the name Patrick, in terms of articulation ha! With it's harsh letters, I find it hard to say clearly without making it sound like my character's angry. I tried slowing this down but then it became two seperate words: 'pat' and 'trick.' which just sounded odd. 'look' is a nice word to say because you can go quite heavily on the final 'k' sound and it just sounds posher instead of sounding harsh or angry.
"...it's that theatrical blood" This has a few nice 'th' sounds to it, which I find sounds more BBC-like if I elongate the beginning sounds to the word 'theatrical'. I also put more of a 'k' sound to the 'cal' part of the word, as again I find it makes it sound posher...which is what both articulation and The Far Side Of The Moor is all about!
http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/writersroom/scripts/Far-Side-Of-The-Moore.pdf
Just working on these odd little lines has really helped me with my articulation for this performance, it's kind of proved to me how much difference it makes when you slow a word down and spend time saying everything sound that the word involves; I think I just now need to pay attention to the fact that I could make it too boring if I say the lines with the monotone effect I have been practising them with this week. I found in my rehearsals this week of The Far Side Of The Moor, my articulation/pace was much better than it has been. It also made me feel more confident with how I was speaking and so I can hopefully keep this up, but it definitely felt easier saying these lines knowing that I was speaking them at a much more reasonable speed with a bit better use of articulation. This is something I need to continue work on but I can definitely start to see glimmers of improvement here.
Projection:
I have always quite liked the effect humming can have on your voice. Something quite therapeutic about it I think. It kind of softens your voice, which you may be wondering why I use it as a method of helping me with my projection... Humming warms up your vocal folds which allows you to produce a much clearer sound and it also allows you to project louder because of this clarity. It also clears your throat of any 'gunk' from diary foods for example, which allows better use of projection.
With this said, I find myself humming a lot, usually when I'm listening to my music, and I can usually tell the difference in my voice immedietly. This is probably only down to the fact it's warming up my voice, but it really helps with my projection work.
As part of this project, I found it tricky to find a way in which to put this into action so I decided I would keep this weeks work quite simply and practise humming before every scene of mine this week. (This week was still focussed on The Far Side Of The Moor, which worked perfectly for me because I have a couple of scenes but well-spread apart.) We spent this whole week working on The Far Side Of The Moor, so my humming experiment was well-used.
Tuesday: I hummed to one of my favourite George Ezra songs: Song 6. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNuLOx_9Yt0 My voice in my scenes today felt smooth, there was no times that i stumbled over my words nor times where I felt I needed to cough or an irritation in my voice I appeared... it was almost like I had ironed out any creases in my voice so it sounded nice during this rehearsal.
Wednesday: Hummed any ol' tune, just humming at the end of the day, eh? I felt like I could project my voice better today, I felt that what I was saying was brought up a volume level, whether this was just a confidence thing because I knew my voice was becoming clearer...?
Thursday: Again, just hummed anything for a good couple of minutes before rehearsals today. Similar to yesterday, so no real improvement, but the volume level raising just a fraction from say last weeks rehearsals. Which is good because you've got to start somewhere.
I think I'm a little disapointed with this weeks projection work because I think I was so busy set on the fact that as soon as I start work on improving my projection, it would just suddenly start to improve; which is silly of course! However, although I don't feel like I can say I've seen much improvement in my projection this week, I am pleased that I am finally getting round to working on improving my projection as I think it will help massively with the lack of confidence I have sitting on my shoulders currently.
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The Mountain |
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