voiceandacting-blog

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Get Your Blood Pumping

I've recently been experimenting with several warm-up exercises recommended by Flloyd Kennedy at http://www.being-in-voice.com/.

I won't go through the exercises here, but there was one piece of advice that I've found has really begun to make a noticeable improvement in my daily voice workout. Before each routine, Floyd suggests doing some form of physical activity: e.g. jogging on the spot, doing some star jumps, ... you get the idea.

Previously I have started on my voice routine from "cold", kicking things off with release and breath work. I used to avoid voicework too soon after physical exercises, because I generally found that it increased my overall level of unnecessary physical tension. Not so any more. While release work is still vital to good vocal technique, it is possible to achieve good results with some cardiovascular work beforehand. Since starting with something more active, I have noticed two things:

First, by getting my blood moving, I am much less likely to drift off, or lose focus during floorwork.

Second, and more importantly, the energy at my vocal folds is much greater, and I have noticed better tone and vocal energy when I work on resonance and articulation. This goes slightly against my experience, since I am used to finding greater resonance through RELEASE. I now believe that I am finding a better balance between release and energy by starting with the physical warm-up first.

To find out more about Floyd Kennedy's work, and get a PDF of the exercises I avoid mentioning above, sign up to her website. You'll also get access to her blog, and a forum for further discussion of all things voice.

[voiceandacting-blog]

Minute After Midday (at the Edinburgh Fringe)

I'm in Edinburgh at the moment, enjoying the beginning of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Like many actors who went to university, Edinburgh is a huge part of my cultural landscape, and I love coming back here whenever I can. Over the last ten years comedy has come to dominate the Fringe, and while I love stand-up (and even dabble in it occasionally), my heart is much more with the theatre. Therefore I'd like to mention my favourite play from the current festival. "Minute After Midday" by 15th Oak Productions is one of the best examples of quality fringe. Quality writing and sincere acting take the audience on a journey that many bigger budget productions fail to achieve. Three characters share their experience of the Omagh bombing. The cast is young, but suspension of disbelief took no effort, due the passion that they invested in the performance. I know next to nothing about the company, but I assume that they are from the Omagh area. Their accents were spot on. My one gripe is a technical one: I felt that they fell into devoicing their emotions in order to connect truthfully. This is very common with young actors bred on film-star voices. (This is also a bit of a personal, professional passion of mine, which I will say more about at some point, I'm sure). Also, in a small studio dpace this was not really an issue. Suffice it to say that they did the job well, and I would love to see the show again. So, if you're planning on visiting the Festival Fringe this year, go see them. They're at the Gilded Balloon, in the Turret, at 1.30pm every day until the Festival is over. Here's their website: www.minuteaftermidday.com

[voiceandacting-blog]

Let Yourself Be Affected

Recently I performed in A Midsummer Night's Dream alongside the actor Michael Walsh. At the beginning of the Lovers' Quarrel, he rushed in as Lysander, pursuing Helena, under the influence of the love herb. His first line was:

Why should you think that I should woo in scorn?

In conversation with Dominic Kelly, my acting teacher, I mentioned how much intense anguish Michael brought into his performance. Dom explained that, rather than "bringing it in", or "generating the emotion", Michael had submitted to the feeling instead. 

At the moment, in my personal voice routine, I am working on breath capacity, and yesterday, I noticed that once my breath had dropped, and my diaphragm/abdominal muscles/back/pelvic floor took the strain, then my larynx/vocal folds could move more freely. This is not a particularly new observation, as it is key to developing the speaking voice. The new discovery was that my voice was suddenly finding fresh nuances that revealed so much more about what I was thinking and feeling. In other words, through release my voice was able to submit to the melody of my emotions. Check out Dominic Kelly's work here: http://iamdominickelly.wordpress.com/

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The technique of any art is sometimes apt to dampen, as it were, the spark of inspiration in a mediocre artist; but the same technique in the hands of a master can fan that spark into an unquenchable flame.

Josef Jasser (quoted in To the Actor by Michael Chekhov)

[voiceandacting-blog]

The Importance of Inspiration

Just had another acting lesson with Gaby Santinelli, who is guiding me through text analysis for the actor. These lessons continue to be very valuable, and are a useful reminder that actors need to develop very different ways of reading a text from a layperson.

Today we alighted on the importance of  choosing actions that inspire. First of all I should clarify that I am not talking about "actions" in the traditional Stanislavsky way of using active verbs to give a phrase or sentence purpose. By "actions" Gaby is referring to the way in which the character in the scene gets what they want.

For the action to be effective, it has to inspire. For example, we are working on the character of Astrov in Chekhov's Uncle Vanya, specifically in the first scene, with the housekeeper, Marina. We decided that he wants her sympathy, but how does he get it?

I suggested that he "makes her care". "BORING!", declared Gaby. "It's very abstract, and isn't specific enough. 'Make her care'?  That makes me FEEL nothing ... Too wishy-washy." I've been left to think about it as homework for next week, but we went on to discuss how vital it is for actors to make choices that inspire them. When actors make boring choices, they have nothing to inspire them to be present and potent onstage.

I was recently reading Michael Chekhov's "To the Actor", and I remember a comment in the introduction, that describes his approach as making an actor's inspiration the heart of his or her training. This is an interesting overlap between his work and the Mamet/Meisner work taught by Gaby. I should add that I have never knowingly undertaken any Chekhov exercises, but I'd be interested to hear from anyone who has.

Now I have to go do my homework!

[voiceandacting-blog]

Tongue Root Tension

The first part of any integrated voice and speech training usually refers to release of tension. Physical tension interferes with an efficient use of breath and voice, and can take many forms. One that I find difficult to explain to students is tension in the back of the tongue. At first, most of my students are only aware of their tongue in terms of the flappy bit that scoops up ice-cream. They don't often realise how far back the tongue extends in the mouth. Tension in the back of the tongue can affect clear speech in a variety of ways. It is closely tied to issues of "placement", which can frustrating for a student to visualise. Personally I found it very unhelpful when a voice teacher would say to me "bring the sound forward". When I began regular practice of stretching and massaging the tongue root, combined with Alexander Technique, I finally developed enough awareness to be able to release the back of the tongue at need. The effect helped me to make sense of "bringing the sound forward", because when I spoke while keeping the tongue released, the sound seemed brighter, and my fellow students fed-back that I sounded "clearer", and "more present". These days, if I stop doing vocal workouts for a day or two, the tongue root is the first thing to tighten up. This makes me feel as though a rock is lodged in my throat when I speak.

[voiceandacting-blog]

Performance Assessments to Ignorant Critics

Bit of a ramble, this one...

In the world of actor-training, students have feedback on their progress through class grades and performance assessments. Class grades give learners a sense of how their teachers believe they are progressing in lessons. Performance grades take no account of a student's progress, they simply rate the quality of performance. One of the things that I find so difficult about performance assessments, is that they can end up rewarding those who have not worked hard through the year. Or they can end up destroying the enthusiasm of someone who DOES put the work in. I hate seeing the latter. Which leads me to think about how other people assess performance talent. Do most people look at a performance in terms of how to improve it?  Or do they simply relish the experience of criticising someone else? Much of the popular media in the UK relishes seeing individuals having their confidence destroyed in TV talent shows. Now, I don't particularly enjoy these shows, but I'll leave that aside for now. I can't quite believe this, but I'm going to stick up for the judges who have to make the harsh decisions. Performers who don't have the talent or skill SHOULD be told when they can't cut it on stage - but as a teacher I profoundly object when someone attempts the criticism without having the background or understanding of the skills necessary to help that person. Simon Cowell, whether you love him or hate him has a track record in identifying talent and polishing it (or finding the right people to polish it). I suspect that he COULD work with any of the people that he ends up turning away, because he understands the skills and abilities he is looking for. He is in a privileged position of course, because he can choose those who already have a degree of confidence and skill, and develop them further. But when someone with little understanding of performance skills crows that someone else "doesn't have what it takes" then I get annoyed. How do they know?  I want to sit these people down and show them before and after videos of some of my students. Maybe then they'll realise that even if some people don't have "IT", that's not to say that they can't learn "IT".

[voiceandacting-blog]

A Drop-In Voice Class

I had the pleasure of teaching a drop-in voice lesson today. This is a new thing for me, since most of my teaching has been in drama colleges or on a one-to-one basis. One of my acting teachers suggested I run it, since we have both talked about making practical skills like voice more readily available to working actors, not just those who are lucky enough to work for the RSC or National Theatre. (It’s also worth pointing out that the Actors’ Centre in Coventry Garden runs similar drop-in classes, if you are accepted as a member). In short, I loved teaching the class. The participants were generous and open to experiment, and be heart-on-sleeve emotional. Together we worked through exercises that required a great deal of sensitivity and depth of feeling. For example, one of the exercises that we explored was learned from a wonderful voice teacher, Joe Windley. The group stands in a circle and collectively sustains a breathy, open hum. One by one, each participant goes to stand in the centre of the circle and connects with each person on the outside. It is difficult to predict how groups will respond, but in this case there was a spontaneous, truthful connection between everyone. I hope to run these classes again, and keep working in this emotionally connected way.

[voiceandacting-blog]

Gaby Santinelli: Text Analysis

One of the acting classes I’m attending is with Gaby Santinelli, who studied with David Mamet and his students. She teaches text analysis for the actor, and connects the text work to acting technique. Her approach is refreshing to me, as someone who grew up on English Literature, because rather than collecting huge amounts of information on a scene, she strips it back to clear, nearly mundane information. I’m just on the way back from my second lesson, and pondering a learning point. I’m working on the scene at the beginning of Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya, between Astrov and Marina. Gaby asked me to answer the question “What is he doing?”. I um’d and er’d around the question: “He’s looking for respect/comfort/acceptance”. “He wants her to be supportive/impressed/interested”. The problem is that I was answering the question with the background desire of impressing her with my skill as an actor, by going straight for his internal life. Dazzling her with my wonderful intelligence and insight. Silly me. In the end we settled on “”He’s talking to an older woman, who he’s known for a long time, who is close to his friend, about the things in his life that are painful.” This explicitly answered the question. Suddenly we know what he’s doing in the scene, and we have a framework within which we can work. We don’t (yet) need to consider his internal life. I’m impressed by this approach, because I am already aware of my imagination responding to the simplicity. Forgive me, but actors do not have to be great thinkers, they have to be great FEELERS. I like to see actors absorbed by an emotion, not a thought. That’s not to say that intellect is not useful, but I’ll say more about that some other time.

[voiceandacting-blog]

Hello! This is my plan.

Hi there!

Welcome to my blog.

I'm based in London, in the U.K. and I have been working for several years now as a voice and speech coach. I work in drama schools, for theatre companies, and on film sets, helping actors to make the most of their voices. I may be helping them to make complicated text understandable, keep their voices safe (and them in work). I also guide them through using accents for performance.

I also act. Not much, admittedly. I was advised a while back that being an actor AND a voice coach can create uncomfortable internal conflicts. Recently though, I have come to question this advice. Yes, focus is vital for teaching, but the teacher MUST have empathy for the student. So I have started to attend acting classes again. It is an indispensible part of my ongoing development.

Also - and here is the difficult confession - I've never been happy with the standard of my teaching. Don't get me wrong, my students experience everything they need in order to speak in a healthy, supported way, but I want to take things further. I want to help my students access deeper emotions and experience them through their voices.

My new academic year starts soon. A colleague recommended "Freeing the Natural Voice" by Kristin Linklater as a method for encouraging deeper emotional connection and vocal freedom. I have read the early edition of the book several times, but their is a new edition, with a clear developmental structure. I intend to test out this structure this year, and incorporate some of her exercises into my teaching. This blog will be my way of publicly reflecting on what I have learned. If it is useful to you, or if you have comments or advice, I would warmly welcome them.

One final note - if I need to mention specific students, their names will be changed in order to protect their privacy. Being an acting student is bad enough, without having your learning experience splashed across the internet.

Thank you for checking out my blog, and I look forward to hearing your thoughts.

[voiceandacting-blog]

Actors must not use their voices to describe and transmit the story, but their voices must be wide and long and strong and tender enough to reveal the breadth and depth of the imagination.

Freeing the Natural Voice by Kristin Linklater