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Alexandertechnique.co.uk. (2017). Published Research | The Definitive Guide to the Alexander Technique. [online] Available at: https://alexandertechnique.co.uk/alexander-technique/published-research [Accessed 30 Sep. 2024]

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How Humans Produce Sound | Sound | Physics | Class 9

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The Anatomy of Singing: How the Diaphragm, Larynx, and Vocal Folds Work

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Strengths:

What I would say is a strength of my voice is my versatile vocal range. Having a large vocal range will really support my future within acting because of all the many characters that I may audition for in the future and whether they need high or low sounding voices. Adding onto this, I have good diction which is an amazing thing to know I have as it means that portraying emotion through my performances is easy to me and guides me swift-fully through my acting work. Also, continuality when maintaining a technique for a performance and emotional depth are huge factors towards the way I speak.

Weaknesses:

Limited pacing ability when talking as my brain works faster than my mouth which then leads to me stumbling my words. This is something that I want to fix quickly as when given new scripts in the future, I do not want to constantly be messing up and stumbling my words which will make me have an unprofessional image. Adding onto this I have accent limitations. Therefore, in the future I would love to be able to have some accent help and increase my knowledge on how accents are expressed.

Opportunities:

Opportunities that come from voice are things like technology where I can use my voice to enhance things for the future, commercials and voice over advertisements, further training to enhance range and experience and voice acting for things like animation, video games and audio books.

Threats:

Threats that could come in the way of me and my voice ability are health issues that damage vocal cords or aspects affecting the voice, typecasting where my voice can only be used for specific character needs, competition in the industry with many other talented and professional voice actors and technological advancements replacing the way real people work in the world.

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Today we were asked the question ‘What is voice for the actor?’ by our tutor. And above is a list of words that we all came up with to describe it.

One word that I want to look further into is 'Articulation'. Articulation means the formation of clear and distinct sounds in speech and in further simpler terms, it means the way in which you pronounce words or produce sounds and the way that you express your vowels and continents.

Another word that I want to look into is 'Timbre'. Timbre means the characteristic quality of a sound and can be hard to quantify.

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What I learnt in our session today was how to correctly pronounce specific words in order to make my voice sound proper and perfected for received pronunciation. The way that we did this is by doing an exercise based on diction and emphasis of words, and we all read through this short piece of text to improve our skills through voice. This was then assessed by my vocal buddies, Olivia and Gabe.

A technique that I am going to apply to future acting work is diction. The reason for this is because diction is the way that good actors transfer their thoughts to their expressions which I feel is something that I could use some extra support on, so going forward I will 100% be using this technique throughout acting performances. Another technique that is important to hold onto is maintenance. This is due to the fact that if I manage to be able to include amazing techniques throughout my work, I need to be able to maintain this through the song/ entire show. Therefore working on this is a huge priority of mine.

Feedback given to me that significantly caught my attention today was my weakness: the pauses throughout my speech. My vocal buddy Liv explained to me that sometimes when I talk I don't take a break for a breath or to gather my thoughts which makes me stumble my words more, so working on adding pauses within vocal lessons in the future will really benefit me outside of acting and also extremely within scenes and performances. On the other hand, something positive and what was a strength of mine was that my speech was gentle. This is a fairly nice complement as for certain characters a gentle and soft tone of voice is needed to create that specific image.

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My voice goal is to put everything useful that I learn from my voice and acting lessons into my future performances where I can hopefully prove to my tutors that I can take what their teaching me and put it into my work and practical skills.

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My assessment completed by Olivia and Gabe

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My buddies voice goals for the year and what they would like to have achieved from these sessions 

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My buddies voice goals for the year and what they would like to have achieved from these sessions 

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Today for our warm up for our vocal lessons we did an exercise where we would breath in for 4 seconds, hold for 4 seconds and then breathe out with a 'shh' sound or a 'ssss' sound for 4 seconds. After this we then increased the breathing out to 12 seconds. Secondly, we stretched upwards and then released this with a high note and moving our arms down with bringing our voice down too, then we did a yawning exercise where we threw our yawns into the middle of the circle and ending them with the letter 'e' to work on breath control. Lastly we did a tongue and face based exercise where we had to massage and pat around our entire face and neck areas and with our tongues we circled them all around our mouths and pressing them against our cheeks to relax the muscles.

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This is Olivia’s assessment that was assessed by me, this includes feedback for Olivia on todays session and from this she knows what level she is working at currently.

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This is the voice assessment that we did today which we all went up and said one by one. The point of this exercise was for our vocal buddies to really get to know our voice and to assess what we are strong and weak at when expressing our speech

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Here are the notes I made in the lesson today that I will find useful in future work.

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Today in our voice for the actor and voice for the monologue lesson, we started by watching research videos about how breathing works, how to improve acting with breath and the physical aspects of voice. At the end of my voice for the actor session, we completed the Alexander Technique: Semi-Supine method. In the following lesson we started performing our contemporary monologues. I was the second person to perform along with my vocal buddy Olivia, and we were both given feedback by our tutor and peers.

What I learnt from today that I am going to carry with me throughout future acting work is how important breathing is in acting. Most performers feel as if going through their monologues doesn't require much breathing and taking pauses, but this is the opposite. The breath provides tension and emotion to a performance which are significant to apply to monologues.

My strengths and weaknesses from today and specifically my monologue, was that I used the entire space well which conveyed the exact emotions towards the audience. On the other hand, my weaknesses were my breath control, emotions and purpose. I needed to express more of emotion through the different techniques of breath. Furthermore, yes, I was using the space well, but I didn't portray the purpose of why I am doing it through my body language and facial expressions. Five emotions that I need to remember for my monologue are 1. Vulnerable 2. Anger 3. Upset 4. Unstable 5. Sensitive.

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Words that we all put together to describe the voice.

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24/09/2024 - Alexander Technique - Brief Information 

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24/09/2024 - Alexander Technique - Brief Information 

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This is a list of notes that our tutor put together to try and start describing the Alexander Technique and Semi-Supine to us.

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Here are four pictures of my buddy, Olivia’s posture from the left, right, back and front.

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Here are four pictures of my posture on the left, right, back and front.

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24/09/2024 - Olivia's Monologue Feedback

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24/09/2024 - Olivia's Monologue Feedback

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Today my vocal buddy, Olivia, performed her contemporary monologue to the class. Notes I made about her performance were:

Adding more breathing and pauses to build tension as her monologue was quite angry

Use the space of her stage more as she stayed in one spot the entire time

Use different tones through speech as it would sometimes get repetitive

Use hands more to express certain emotions clearer

Interact with the audience to build our relationship with the character

Great use of emotions throughout specific areas of the monologue, it really portrayed what was happening and guided the audience to understand the story

The variation of pitch through the piece was incredible

Slow down the words as at times it felt like it was being rushed and desperate to finish

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This is a link to todays warm up, along with these exercises, we also completed further vocal warm ups such as, making a siren sound through different sounds and massaging our facial and neck muscles.

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Alexander Technique London & Online. (2023). Semi-supine in the Alexander Technique. [online] Available at: https://www.alexander-technique.london/defining-the-alexander-technique/the-lying-down-procedure/.

Avosjourney.com. (2024). Alexander technique exercises and how they can help voice actors. [online] Available at: https://www.avosjourney.com/blog/alexander-technique-exercises-for-a-healthy-voice-over-career#:~:text=Constructive%20Rest%20(or%20Semi-Supine)%20The%20Constructive [Accessed 24 Sep. 2024].

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Parts of the voice are:

The larynx which is the voice box. To create the sound we make, the vocal folds (vocal cords) vibrate which are part of the larynx.

The pharynx, in the throat goes up from the larynx and divides into the laryngopharynx, oropharynx and nasopharynx.

The trachea what is in your windpipe and it connects your lungs to your throat.

A nearby organ is the diaphragm which lives underneath the lungs. It is the main muscle for controlling breathing and it is shaped like a dome.

Vocal folds have it's name because they were thought of as two cords stretched across the airway. They are multilayered folds of tissue.

Vocal Tract:

The area from the nose and the nasal cavity down to the vocal cords deep in the throat is the vocal tract. This is important to learn because it is a huge aspect of learning to accurately produce sounds. When we push air up from the lungs, we create unique sounds, the lips, tongue, and jaw are also apart of vocal tract and easy to control.

hubba177 (2020). Your Voice & How it Works. [online] Medical School - University of Minnesota. Available at: https://med.umn.edu/ent/patient-care/lions-voice-clinic/about-the-voice/how-it-works.

The (2014). Pronuncian: American English Pronunciation. [online] Pronuncian: American English Pronunciation. Available at: https://pronuncian.com/the-vocal-tract#:~:text=The%20vocal%20tract%20is%20the%20area%20from%20the [Accessed 27 Sep. 2024].

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hubba177 (2020). Your Voice & How it Works. [online] Medical School - University of Minnesota. Available at: https://med.umn.edu/ent/patient-care/lions-voice-clinic/about-the-voice/how-it-works.

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Joomla (2013). Who is Kristin Linklater? [online] Linklatervoice.com. Available at: https://www.linklatervoice.com/linklater-voice/who-is-kristin-linklater.

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Mills, J. and Linklater, K. (2020). The Legacy of Kristin Linklater. Performance Research, 25(8), pp.155–160. doi:https://doi.org/10.1080/13528165.2020.1944582.

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pattielemon (2024). A Guide To Patsy Rodenburg: A Revolutionary Approach To Voice In Acting. [online] Available at: https://actorstoolkit.co.uk/a-guide-to-patsy-rodenburg-a-revolutionary-approach-to-voice-in-acting/.

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Team, W. (2022). 12 Breathing Exercises For Actors - Voice Over Tip. [online] Voice Over Tip. Available at: https://voiceovertip.com/breathing-exercises-for-actors/#:~:text=Mainly%20to%20control%20your%20breathing%20as%20an%20actor [Accessed 29 Sep. 2024].

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(No date) The alexander technique: Exercises and tips for actors | backstage. Available at: https://www.backstage.com/magazine/article/alexander-technique-acting-exercises-1052/ (Accessed: 30 September 2024).

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The (2014). Pronuncian: American English Pronunciation. [online] Pronuncian: American English Pronunciation. Available at: https://pronuncian.com/the-vocal-tract#:~:text=The%20vocal%20tract%20is%20the%20area%20from%20the [Accessed 27 Sep. 2024].

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Brief notes which me and my peers came up with together to round up everything we completed last week based on the Alexander Technique 

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01/10/2024 - Alexander Technique - Recap of what we learnt last week 

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01/10/2024 - Alexander Technique - Recap of what we learnt last week 

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People performing a popular breathing technique 

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The main breathing techniques that are crucial for actors are:

1. Relax the upper part of your body

2. To ease the airflow and stress, maintain a good posture

3. Learning to use your diaphragm correctly

4. For better breathing, strength your muscles in your diaphragm

5. Complete various exercises that can help guide breathing

1. Relaxation - Speaking and breathing only develops when you are relaxed, reduce tension in neck, jaw, back, shoulders and stomach.

2. Posture - The respiratory system works best in environments of good posture. Maintain the body upright and relaxed with the spine straight.

3. Diaphragm - A useful exercise for the diaphragm is laying on your back with hands on your stomach, inhale through nose, exhale through mouth, be aware of everything that is happening in body, after completed, do the same thing but in front of a mirror to observe how they body moves.

4. Before sleeping - Sleeping is a fantastic opportunity to monitor how your breath. The key is for an actor to memorise how their diaphragm works making it easy and smooth in the future.

5. Abdominal breathing - Bend your legs, feet and back resting on floor, place any object on abdomen, breathe in through nose, breathe out through nose and repeat three sets of ten breaths.

6. Abdominal tension - Lie on back, arms extended along body, palms facing up, breathe in through nose, pause for two seconds, breathe out through mouth, the abdominal muscles should be tensed, repeat three series of ten breaths.

7. Breathwork when seated - Sit on floor, back against a wall, legs stretched, hands places on abdomen, breathe in through nose, hold breathe for two seconds, exhale through mouth, repeat three series of five breaths.

8. Coordinated - Stand up, place soles of feet firmly on floor, back straight, breathe in through nose, breathe out for two seconds and exhale, once through nose and next through mouth, repeat four series of four breaths.

9. Exercise involving ribs - Standing, back straight, breathe through nose, pause two seconds, exhaled through mouth, lowering breath to abdomen towards the ribs, repeat two sets of ten breaths.

10. Sitting with coordination's - Sit on hard, high backed chair, spine straight, one hand on chest, other on abdomen, first three seconds - inhale through nose, next two seconds - inflate chest, pause for two seconds, exhale through mouth for six seconds, repeating two series of ten breaths.

11. Practice for correct vocalisation - Five vowels pronounced emphatically through a whisper, tone is raised until vey noticeable, repeat three times, raising tone more.

12. Achieve total breathing control - Can be done sitting, standing or lying down, seated - place arms on legs, standing or lying down - place arms at side of body and keep feet open, take deep breath for three seconds, exhale slowly through mouth, repeat five times, breathe deeply for three seconds, exhale as if blowing out a candle, repeat five times, breathe deeply for three seconds, exhale slowly as if you're saying 'yesssssss', repeat six times.

Team, W. (2022). 12 Breathing Exercises For Actors - Voice Over Tip. [online] Voice Over Tip. Available at: https://voiceovertip.com/breathing-exercises-for-actors/#:~:text=Mainly%20to%20control%20your%20breathing%20as%20an%20actor [Accessed 29 Sep. 2024].

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Addictive habits and tension in our bodies can cause harm we don’t realise, this is what the Alexander Technique aims to ease. For things like sport and activities, this technique can help improve your performance that’s deteriorated from past pain and stress. A lot of us are tense at times we don’t even realise, and if we don’t treat this quick, soon it can cause serious illness, injuries or common aches.

By working with the Alexander Technique for a long time, you will soon be able to recognise the signs when you tense your body and get stressed and what triggered it, and in the future you will then be able to prevent this.

You will soon learn to make better decisions by stopping and thinking. By forcing your body to do this, you will learn to apply this within your everyday life naturally.

People have described using this technique as life changing, because all of a sudden, you have forgotten your bad habits. By easing your body, will naturally guide you to ease your mind.

The Beginning:

The Alexander Technique was first developed in the 1890s by Frederick Matthias Alexander, born in Australia 1869. He wanted to be an actor, but he discovered vocal problems that got in his way. Alexander then thought to himself maybe it’s his fault and he is doing something wrong.

When looking at himself in the mirror, and noticed his stiff neck and head pulled back which compressed his larynx. This explains the gasping for air when speaking. Alexander wanted to change this, and spent the next several years working out how, and when he did find a solution, his vocal use, breathing and stage presence improved and the public started coming to him for help, even doctors referred patients to him.

Later in his life he published four books and started training other teachers to carry on his work until he died.

Later, after he died, scientists discovered that Alexander’s observations were correct with neurology and physiology.

Alexander spent some time in the USA teaching where people supported Alexander’s work. It was believed it was important for children to learn this technique and in 1931 he opened a teacher training course which ran until he died, the age of 86.

One example of The Alexander Technique is:

Sit in a chair and release tension from neck and shoulders

Slide feet gently toward the chair while leaning forward on the joints of your hips

Gently put weight on your feet and push off

Stand upright without letting any tension back into neck and shoulders

Alexandertechnique.co.uk. (2017). Published Research | The Definitive Guide to the Alexander Technique. [online] Available at: https://alexandertechnique.co.uk/alexander-technique/published-research [Accessed 30 Sep. 2024]

(No date) The alexander technique: Exercises and tips for actors | backstage. Available at: https://www.backstage.com/magazine/article/alexander-technique-acting-exercises-1052/ (Accessed: 30 September 2024).

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Semi - Supine Method (Alexander Technique)

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Semi - Supine Method (Alexander Technique)

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Semi - Supine is part of the Alexander Technique.

The Procedure:

Lie on your back on a firm, flat surface:

Make sure your head is raised by an object

Raise your knees and make sure they are about hip-width apart and directed straight towards the ceiling

Feet flat on the floor where you feel comfortable and fairly close to the buttocks

Hands rest on your stomach, not clasped together

Close your eyes

Breathe in for 4 counts, hold for 4 counts and release for 8. Repeat this.

This technique is popularly used for calming and quieting yourself, but it is also a conventional relaxation exercise.

With the head and legs being raised, the back is being supported more by the floor.

Make sure the legs are balanced so the knees don't fall together or to the floor

Avoid "going inside yourself". Use your senses to be aware of your surroundings and get rid of all thoughts that can distract you from breathing

The position, gravity and your intention to "leave yourself alone" all combine to create a stretch through your back. Think more of stretch and expansion rather than relaxation.

The reason it is crucial for it to be a fairly hard surface is because it refines your awareness of your back.

The semi-supine technique will help me with my future acting work because it mitigates stress and anxiety before and during performances. I have struggled in the past with pre-show anxiety and panic so trying out the semi-supine method next performance, I feel as if it is significantly going to support me. The technique also focuses on posture. Therefore, all of the tension I may have from stress can be released from my spide causing my muscle to relax and guide me to perform better.

Alexander Technique London & Online. (2023). Semi-supine in the Alexander Technique. [online] Available at: https://www.alexander-technique.london/defining-the-alexander-technique/the-lying-down-procedure/.

Avosjourney.com. (2024). Alexander technique exercises and how they can help voice actors. [online] Available at: https://www.avosjourney.com/blog/alexander-technique-exercises-for-a-healthy-voice-over-career#:~:text=Constructive%20Rest%20(or%20Semi-Supine)%20The%20Constructive [Accessed 24 Sep. 2024].

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What I learnt today in our sessions was the importance of correct frickatives within speech. This is a crucial technique that will in the future, make my acting pieces come to life. The five frickative sounds are Labidomonal which are ‘FF’ and ‘VV’ sounds, Dental - ‘TH’ and ‘TH’ (more rough) sounds, Alveolar - ‘SS’ and ‘ZZ’ sounds, Polato Alveolar - ‘SHH’ and ‘SZZ’ sounds and Glottal - ‘HHUU’ sounds. Therefore, in the future when receiving scrips, marking out where to include frickatives will significantly improve and uplift my performance and will draw the audience in more to what I am expressing.

Feedback given to me today was during the warm up from one of my peers. The activity was a tongue twister relay but which frickative sounds. And one of the phrases was ‘She say she shall sew a sheet.’ I really struggled with this tongue twister and portraying the ‘SHH’ sounds. My peer gave me the idea of taking my time and do it slowly to extremely consider what I am saying. This should eventually in the future decrease my struggle in announcing repeated phrases in a frickative way.

My greatest strength from today was my willingness to listen. My tutor portrayed to us many great and useful techniques when listing to others performing their monologues, therefore by picking this up and going home to apply this to my own will slowly but effectively build up my piece and make it as perfect as it can be.

However, a weakness from today was again my ability to correctly portray the challenging twisters. It was when we had to express the Polato Alveolar ‘SHH’ and ‘SZZ’ and the struggle I had with them. To improve my ability to do this, over the next couple of weeks I am going to spot where these specific sounds are within my Classical, Contemporary and TV/Film monologues to go over and practice how to pronounce them correctly guiding me to convey the story easier and more smooth to the audience.

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Here are some notes I made today, specifically about 'frickative' sounds in speech. At the end there are three examples of frickative tongue twisters that me and my vocal buddy created together.

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Here are a list of the frickative sounds that my tutor researched for us to look into and apply to our speech in specific ways 

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An activity we completed today was creating atleast two tongue twisters containing frickative sounds with our vocal buddies, and see who creates the most challenging. Here is an example of 10 above. 

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01/10/2024 - Me and my peers creating two tongue twisters including ‘frickative’ shounds

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01/10/2024 - Me and my peers creating two tongue twisters including ‘frickative’ shounds

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Here is an example of one activity we completed in our warm up today. We had to repeat these consonants three times in a row and then adding a ‘ah’ sound at the end of the last one to test our diction and the way we pronounce certain letters and phrases

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Voice for the monologue warm up from today

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In 2020, Kristin Linklater gave her final presentation called 'Methods of Performing Arts and the Pioneer Practices in This Discipline'. A thing that stuck out to people in this speech was that she emphasised the need to 'train the person who will become the actor before we can train the actor' and the harsh reality that acting demands so much more now than it did in the past.

Kristin took part in eight/fourteen Giving Voice Festivals and was even asked back to be a Guest Teacher for one of the Summer Retreats.

Kristin met the amazing Tran Quang Hai at several of the Giving Voice Festivals. Tran Quang Hai is an ethnomusicologist from Vietnam who studied in France.

To be trained to be a Linklater is a lengthy and rigorous progress which takes between three and five years. In the US, Australia, England, Germany, Italy, Belgium, Finland, Spain and Russia, she trained over 200 teachers her methods since 1965.

Sadly, Kristin died before she was able to make the video for The Giving Voice's thirteenth anniversary over covid.

Kristin Linklater became one of the most recognised names in voice production for actors. She was an incredible teacher of voice and was a success in academic and theatrical career in the US and Europe for fifty years.

Kristin trained as an actor at London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, her voice teacher was Iris Warren who had her own unique approach in teaching voice, an example being to focus of the outside rather than in - “I want to hear the person, not the voice”.

Kristin opened her very own studio in New York City, US in 1963. The school New York University Graduate Theatre Program (now the Tisvh School of the Arts) hires Kristin to be the Master Teacher of Voice from 1965-1978. She even found herself going into Shakespeare, attending the Festival in Stratford and being a vocal coach from 1964-1978.

For the future, I would absolutely love to look into all of the techniques and training that Kristin specified in and work on it with my own body. Hopefully in a few weeks or months by practicing this every day, I will see and feel a difference when I use my voice as a performer.

Mills, J. and Linklater, K. (2020). The Legacy of Kristin Linklater. Performance Research, 25(8), pp.155–160. doi:https://doi.org/10.1080/13528165.2020.1944582.

Joomla (2013). Who is Kristin Linklater? [online] Linklatervoice.com. Available at: https://www.linklatervoice.com/linklater-voice/who-is-kristin-linklater.

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Cicely Frances Berry CBE, was a British Theatre Director and vocal coach. (17 May 1926 - 15 October 2018)

Cicely Berry trained at the Central School of Speech and Drama and then worked at the Royal Albert Hall, London. She later in life taught voice and text at London’s Central School of Speech and Drama and she was also the voice director for the Royal Shakespeare Company 1969-2014.

She traveled the world doing workshops in places like Korea, Russia and Asia. Her work was so effective that she was even invited to prisons using Shakespeare to find confidence in people’s speaking and response. She additionally worked in film, including a dialogue coach on ‘The Last Emperor (1987)’, dialogue coach on ‘Stealing Beauty (1996)’ and a voice specialist on ‘Julie Taylor’s 1999 film, Titus’.

Looking into this incredible research has extremely inspired me to complete some exercises created by Berry. Especially because she trained at a drama school I am looking into going myself, which is amazing and unbelievable. By doing this exercises will hopefully improve my performing and voice to apply to future classes and performances to an audience.

to, C. (2007). British voice director. [online] Wikipedia.org. Available at: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cicely_Berry [Accessed 5 Oct. 2024].

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to, C. (2007). British voice director. [online] Wikipedia.org. Available at: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cicely_Berry [Accessed 5 Oct. 2024].

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Patsy Rodenburg is a keen voice coach who has a belief in that everyone has the potential to develop a powerful and expressive voice. She emphasises that breath and body awareness is a crucial aspect when working vocally. Connecting your breath and voice will guide you to use your body as an instrument - is what she teaches.

One of her unique techniques is to release tension to unlock the natural resonance of the voice, producing a rich and authentic sound.

Over time, Patsy’s aim is for actors to develop a greater control over their voices to expand vocal range and flexibility through exercises and warm ups.

The major idea of how to make a powerful performance is presence and projection. And Patsy’s techniques help actors do exactly this, developing a strong and resonant voice that can fill a space and captivate audiences. To make every work heard, actors need to be able to utilise breath and proper vocal placement to project their voice. Not only is this supported by vocal aspects, Patsy believes the importance of physicality in vocal work, to fully embody their characters and use their bodies to support their voices. One thing every actor wants is to make a lasting impact with their performances, so through these techniques, they can command attention effortlessly.

Patsy believes that most actors don’t explore their full effect and potential of their voices and their ranges. She also encourages actors to experiment with their voices, with accents and dialects to expand their range, bringing further depth into their performances.

For effective communication on stage and screen, you need great articulation and diction. This is why by using Patsy’s methods, actors can open their eyes to ensuring every word they speak is understood and clear to the audience. She focuses on the tongue and mouth placement, breath control, clarity work, enunciation and intention and purpose.

Emotional truth is a huge thing for Patsy, teaching to connect breath with emotion to portray genuine feeling. Vulnerability and authenticity vocally is largely important to embrace a characters personality and expressions to really make actors perform at a meaningful level.

Regularly practicing Patsy’s techniques within acting rehearsals is the most benefit you can get out of it. This can be done with warm ups and exercises, also including vocal work for specific characters. Consistently using her techniques, you can develop a strong voice that comes to you naturally and by constantly practicing and being dedicated will help you master power and elevate your performances.

Overall, Patsy is an amazing and passionate woman that wants to support talent of young actors throughout their training and performing. Therefore, by including Patsy’s techniques within my warm ups before rehearsals or voice classes, will eventually help this become second nature to me, increasing my talent in acting and being able to express myself as a performer.

pattielemon (2024). A Guide To Patsy Rodenburg: A Revolutionary Approach To Voice In Acting. [online] Available at: https://actorstoolkit.co.uk/a-guide-to-patsy-rodenburg-a-revolutionary-approach-to-voice-in-acting/.

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What we learnt today in our voice session was the importance of plosive sounds within use of our voice. Plosive sounds are when consonants are made by blocking the flow of air which can support expressing emotions within acting pieces. Therefore, applying plosive techniques to future acting work will guide me in auditions to draw them in and make sure they are listening to me all the way through.

Later today, we completed an exercise specifically focusing on plosive sounds, we read through a poem with our vocal buddies, emphasising the fricative and plosive sounds. After expressing the poem to my vocal buddy, she thought it was great and gave me the feedback that I had great pace and diction throughout. Due to this, my tutor asked me to read it to the class, and from this I got more feedback that I had good projection and my emphasis on words was perfect. Now I know that I can prove I can do this, I am definitely going to apply this to future acting work.

Strengths within myself from today was again, what I applied to the activity with my vocal buddy. The fact that I am already applying things like diction and articulation, will significantly improve things like monologues for auditions and further work in college.

A weakness from today was something from my vocal buddy. She mentioned to me that I start words extremely strong and applying technique, but then I lose the energy at the end of the words which will in the future be a disadvantage because audition panels will end up getting bored and gradually lose interest.

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This is a list of poems that me and my vocal buddy could choose between and then had to recite to each other to portray how good or bad our plosive and frickative sounds are. 

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Here is a voice recording of my vocal buddy reciting the poem we both chose so I could discover her method of speech, specifically focusing on plosive and frickative sounds 

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Here is the voice recording of me reciting the poem both me and my vocal buddy chose together so she could discover my method of speech, specifically plosive and frickative sounds 

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Here is a voice recording of Olivia’s poem feedback given by me 

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Here is a voice recording of my poem feedback given by Olivia, my vocal buddy

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Here are some extra notes I made from today’s lesson, specifically focusing on ‘plosive sounds.’ 

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Reciting and practicing Shakespeare as an actor will really support your use of voice, this is because within Shakespeare there is loads of clever phrases and the use of opposites, alliteration and rhythm. So all of that and including the punctuation itself really guides an actor into when to breathe and when to shift emotion.

Most actors look at Shakespeare and at first they can find it frightening especially with the analysis with it. Unfortunately for some, learning and reciting Shakespeare is a key aspect of becoming a successful actor and they should get started from a young age.

Why Shakespeare is so key to the voice is because he purposefully wrote it so with every bit of punctuation, you breathe and with every breath, you generate a new thought. Shakespeare’s main goal when we was writing was for it to be in the theatre performed by actors, speaking it aloud as he believed that’s what brought his work to life other than just a printed page.

Overall, because I have to do a Shakespeare monologue for most self tapes and drama school auditions, going over and constantly practicing the monologue that I have chose, wont only support me for upcoming auditions, but also my voice within much more acting work I aim for in the future.

Voiceone.com. (2024). Shakespeare and the Voice. [online] Available at: https://www.voiceone.com/verve-posts/shakespeare-and-the-voice [Accessed 9 Oct. 2024].

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Voiceone.com. (2024). Shakespeare and the Voice. [online] Available at: https://www.voiceone.com/verve-posts/shakespeare-and-the-voice [Accessed 9 Oct. 2024].

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Today within voice, we focussed on intonation and inflection within the voice. When we first arrived, we completed a warm up which included the semi-supine method. We then later did an activity to focus on intonation and inflection which was called 'bread and butter'. My vocal buddy and I were given the words 'fish and chips' and our scenario was a romantic relationship.

When applying this technique to my voice today, I noticed how much this improved my acting therefore I would really like to continue using this within my monologues and any future acting work.

After me and my vocal buddy performed our small piece today, I received a lot of feedback specifically towards the end of my words and that I need to focus on adding colour to my speech to significantly portray the correct and intended emotions.

A weakness from today was that I began to get slightly embarrassed when having to constantly repeat the same word. Although this activity is something I probably wont ever perform on stage, it was still crucial to take it seriously because to be able to perfect intonation and inflection, these activities are what I need to focus on.

I saw a strength today within the tongue twister activity that specifically focussed on intonation and inflection. An example of one was 'A proper copper coffee pot'. Over these lessons since the start of the year, I have noticed a major improvement doing these tongue twister activities. And this week I managed to express the phrases the best I have done so far which gives me motivation to continue working on these techniques to apply within my voice work.

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Here is todays warm up, completing similar activities from the last weeks but leaning more towards todays topic, intonation and inflection.

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Here are some notes made today, focussing on intonation and inflection 

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12/11/2024 - An example of the activity we completed today with our vocal buddies 

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12/11/2024 - An example of the activity we completed today with our vocal buddies 

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Here is a recording of our warm up before our lesson today, and for some this was extremely useful as they were recording their monologues for university auditions 

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We only had a fairly short session today on voice due to a quarter of the class filming their monologues for university auditions, which did not include me. However, despite this I shill managed to learn important information. An example of this was the contrast of different emotions you can portray into pieces of acting work when you are just altering your tone of voice. Such as, by lifting the pitch of your voice at the end of a sentence will make it sound like a question. Therefore, I am going to take the techniques (specifically intonation) that I learnt today and apply them in future work when I am wanting to convey important emotions within a given acting performance.

A specific activity we were asked to complete today was with our vocal buddies. And this was to take the sentence ‘no I never again she stole my money’ and turn it into a scene/story of our own. After me and my buddy created our piece and performed it to the class, some feedback that was received was to project more on crucial moments and focus more on when I am switching up pitch and tone.

A strength from today was how quickly I managed to think of an idea of a scene with my vocal buddy. From when we were given the sentence, I was able to create something in my imagination within two minutes which portrayed me as a clear hard worker and proves that I am determined to make my work stand out.

However, a weakness would again be projection like some of my peers mentioned. At times I found it difficult to portray the sound across the room which is important for an acting piece as they don’t necessarily always have mics.

Next week within our voice sessions, I am completing and filming my monologues for auditions. This means that over this week my main goal is to perfect these monologues and apply every little technique I have learnt to it.

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Intonation and Emotion activity with my vocal buddy

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12/11/2024 - Intonation and Emotion Activity

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12/11/2024 - Intonation and Emotion Activity

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Here we have circled all of the plosive/fricative sounds within the tongue twisters 

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Here is our vocal warm up from today, this was extremely important for me for focus on as today I completed my monologue self tapes for auditions 

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What I learnt today in our voice for the actor session was exploring different plosive sounds. We did this by completing an activity where me and my vocal buddy were given a paragraph with many plosive sounds and saying them with contrasting emotions for us to get use to naturally adding it to our day to day sentences, especially in acting sessions. In our second lesson, I completed my filming of my monologue self tapes for drama school auditions. This included both my contemporary monologue and my classical monologue.

The plosive sounds are something I will be applying to future work as today I immediately saw an improvement on my voice when acting. Therefore, when performing scenes in the future, I need to remember this technique to build upon my acting skills.

When me and my vocal buddy performed our small piece to our tutor, she gave me the feedback that in her opinion, when I focus on applying plosive sounds, I lose focus on applying character which so I need to work on my multi tasking and coordination for the future to be able to perfect this.

A strength from today was when I was performing my monologues. During my contemporary monologue, I really felt myself slip into the character and completely become her and receive all of her true emotions. Therefore, to be able to do this is an amazing skill that I can apply to many important roles and auditions in my future in performing arts which will guide me to go very far.

On the other hand, again when performing my classical monologue, I kept messing up a specific part of a line so I had to re-do it. This was caused by pressure and anxiety from the camera being right in front of me. However, after messing up, I then completely got in the zone, managing to try again and perfect it.

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03/12/2024 Warm Up and Brief Introduction 

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03/12/2024 Warm Up and Brief Introduction 

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03/12/2024 - Iambic Pentameter Exercise 

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03/12/2024 - Iambic Pentameter Exercise 

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03/12/2024 - Iambic Pentameter Exercise 

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03/12/2024 - Iambic Pentameter Exercise 

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03/12/2024 - Our Lessons Iambic Pentameter Purpose

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03/12/2024 - Our Lessons Iambic Pentameter Purpose

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Cressida’s Monologue from Troilus and Cressida 

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03/12/2024 - Finding The Iambic Pentameter Within my Monologue

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03/12/2024 - Finding The Iambic Pentameter Within my Monologue

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In todays voice lesson , we learnt about the Iambic Pentameter. I have previously learnt about this technique within my GCSE's so slipping back into it was fairly easy. Iambic Pentameter is when you stress certain words within a word or phrase in a monologue or acting script, most commonly used in Shakespeare Sonnets. As I am required to do a Shakespeare monologue for most of my auditions, applying this technique will significantly guide me a support me in learning it and delivering it affectively.

When looking at my monologue this session, I was finding it fairly difficult to pick out where the stresses would be so my tutor helped me by giving me the method of tapping a heart beat sound with my hand on the floor to keep in rhythm and count out how many stresses there are in each line.

Despite this, a strength of mine throughout this class was that all of my focus and attention was to be able to understand the technique as best as I could, as Iambic Pentameter, especially within Shakespeare is exceedingly challenging. However, I powered through and managed to eventually begin to get my head around it and I will hopefully be able to apply it to a lot of my future work.

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Here is a recording of the warm up we completed today which was actually led by me and my vocal buddy Liv

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Today we continued with our learning into Iambic Pentameter, therefore I have gained deeper knowledge of what this is and how to find it within certain monologues.

Again, throughout this whole lesson, I was the whole time thinking about how I am going to apply this to future acting work and where I am going to use it in the future. Where I got from this thinking, was that I am going to apply the technique within ever monologue I receive in my future as in my opinion, it is a great way to memorise and learn the lines and furthermore, it defines the diction and speech within the way I am speaking.

I wasn't given much feedback today due to the fact that I have read this monologue many times and I believe I am next to perfecting it, but one weakness I would say to myself is that I need to actually take into account punctuation. This is because punctuation is where a character is stopping or taking a breath etc, so making sure I am acknowledging where these are, will extremely help me step into character more and become them completely.

A strength that I found out I had within me today is how quickly I can take on instructions and apply it to my work. I saw this when I was asked to perform my monologue at the end of the session and I managed to apply Iambic Pentameter naturally and take into account punctuation a lot more than I did previously.

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Here is a slightly longer example of our voice warm ups

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Within our lesson today I learnt how important Iambic Pentameter is to rap music. This is due to our tutor splitting us into groups and each of us creating a rap battle between eachother and the performing it to the class while still managing to maintain iambic pentameter.

During this exercise, a huge positive was that I found that thinking about the iambic pentameter helped me take my mind off the words and therefore I did not mess up, so it really guided me through the song. This means that I am definitely going to take this technique into further acting and singing work.

The only feedback that we were given today was to stand closer to the audience during our small performance as they found it slightly difficult to hear what we were saying in specific parts. This can also reflect an often weakness of mine which is becoming fairly nervous and shy when seeing an audience so I always tend to stand quite far away from them but this needs to change as confidence is a key thing in the future I want for myself.

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Todays warm up was slightly different due to the fact that one of our HNC students led todays entire session.

Therefore, her warm up consisted of some small stretches, followed by facial massages to warm up the muscles and a short vocal hum where we hummed through the vowels.

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Today our session was slightly different due to the fact that one of our HNC students, Phoebe, led it as part of her creative unit. What we learnt in her lesson today was mainly focussing on lung capacity and using our voices and bodies at the same time.

As I am a musical theatre performer, this technique is significantly important for me to practice and use in the future. This is because I have to do a large amount of singing and dancing at the same time which can often be challenging but by using the techniques taught today by Phoebe should eventually build myself up to use my diaphragm more and build up my lung capacity to a healthy level.

Some feedback that Phoebe herself gave to me today was that because I go to the gym, when I am running on the treadmill, I should sometimes maybe hum or sing to myself as this is a quick and amazing way to build up breathing techniques to increase my singing skills in the future as a whole.

A strength of mine from today I would say was when we were completing exercises, I actually found myself not out of breath or struggling at all which really portrays that I am fit and I already have a great stamina.

However, a weakness of mine would be that when I am being physical, I find it difficult to also focus on being vocal at the same time. Therefore, by using what I have learnt today I am going to focus on rapidly improving this.

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Within our acting lessons today, we started accent work. The accent that we concentrated on today was American, learning many tips and tricks behind perfecting an American accent.

An example of a technique that I absorbed today was that for American, what significantly helps people is elongating the vowel sounds throughout words. Also, when looking at a 't' in the middle of words, like 'written' this will then become more like 'wriDDen' when spoken in American.

Some feedback and something to work on received from my tutor today was that when speaking in an American accent, I sometimes turn fairly New York Bronx or Southern. This can work against me due to the fact that in the future, if I am working on a project that requires a straight tone and original American accent, they don't want to hear me turn slightly into New York as they may doubt my abilities.

On the other hand, a huge strength of mine was that during one of the exercises where we had to perform an improvised scene, our tutor threw a random accent at us. The accent that I received was Northern (Yorkshire) and I had to start talking in this accent and my peers had to try and guess what it is. I rapidly managed to switch between my normal accent and this new one which I was actually fairly shocked about, and what was even more incredible was that my peers guessed what it was straight away which means I managed to pull it off perfectly and even pleasantly surprise myself.

Over the next week, me and my chosen partner Scarlett, have been tasked to pick any scene from one of our favourite Tv shows or films, learn it, and perform it to the class next week in a original American accent to portray to everyone and specifically our tutor that we have been practising this accent and going over it as much as we can in our own time.

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Here are some sheets we got given today to help with our American accents

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Here is the warm up that we completed today, focussing on guiding us in our accent work today

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21/01/2025 - My Vocal Buddies Notes From Her American Scene Today

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21/01/2025 - My Vocal Buddies Notes From Her American Scene Today

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Here are my notes for gm vocal buddies scene that she chose to do for American accent practice

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21/01/2025 - Notes Made Whilst Watching American Scenes 

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21/01/2025 - Notes Made Whilst Watching American Scenes 

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Here are the notes for the scenes people chose today for America an accent work

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Today our warm up was not too long and it was the same as we have completed in previous weeks, which involved stretching and many vocal techniques. Before we starting this however, we did Semi Supine to really get into our acting mindsets, ready for the lesson ahead.

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What we learnt in todays session was further learning into the American accent.

An example of a technique that I gathered today that I am going to take with me for future projects is to relax more into the words to make the accent more natural rather than sounding really fake and loud American, some would call it ‘Californian’, this was actually a piece of feedback received from one of my peers today, and it was a weakness that I kept slipping into this ‘fake’ accent which made the scene feel unrelated and unnatural.

On the other hand, a strength from today was being able to act through the words and accent perfectly, so my balance of focus towards aching and the accent were equal and I didn’t pay more attention to just one of them.

Over this next week, we have been tased to start listening and practising our Northern accents as that is what we are going to start looking at next lesson. This means that I am going to start listening and watching TV shows and videos with Northern accents involved to really start to embed it in my mind for next week.

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Here are our help sheets from today on how to say words and phrases within a Northern Accent

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Here is a recording of our warm up that we did before todays lesson 

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Here is a video of me and one of my peers, Scarlett, doing a Northern accent exercise from todays lesson

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Here is a recording of me doing a Northern Accent exercise that we did in todays lesson

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Here is a recording of me and one of my peers, Rachel, doing a scene together in a Northern Accent

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What we learnt in today's voice session, is an introduction to a Northern accent, and the techniques to naturally slip into it.

All of the many techniques that I am going to carry into future performances are in my practical skills column. What stuck out to me was removing the 'H' sounds from certain words. For example, 'happening' would turn into 'appening'.

Feedback given today from my tutor was also a weakness I reflected upon, this occurred specifically when I was saying the word 'how'. It should be pronounced 'ow' in a Northern tone, but I was still continuing to say the 'H'.

Despite this, a strength of mine today was being able to channel what I have watched and listened to (as I am a fan of Coronation Street) into my work which guided me to slip into the accent more easily than others had.

Over the next week, our tutor has assigned us a group task where we have to create a scene inspired by Coronation Street to really put our Northern accents to the test.

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Here is the script me and my group wrote for our Northern scene that we performed in front of the rest of the class applying our new techniques learnt 

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Here is a recording of the warm up we completed before our lesson today 

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What we did today in our voice session was continue working on the Northern accent.

A technique that l will be applying to future accent work that would be the use of Phonetics as this is something that will be useful for when I go to drama school.

What weaknesses that I spotted in myself today, and it was actually a piece of feedback from my tutor, was that I pronounced my 'H's' quite a lot, when Northerners do not pronounce them at all.

To contrast this feedback, something great that I came across today was how natural I could slip into the accent, and how easily I could retain all of the techniques and apply it to my performance.

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Here is todays warm up that was led by our HNC student - Phoebe

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Todays session was led by our HNC student, Phoebe as part of her unit. Within this lesson she put on activities for us like a fun tongue twister relay and a competition where we had to come up with a rap to portray our diction and pronunciation practice. In our second voice session, we got into small groups and chose a favourite childhood book, ours was 'We are Going on a Bear Hunt' and we assigned each other the roles narrator, character voices or background noises when reading the story.

Techniques that I gathered today that I would like to take with me into my future would be how to maintain great diction when speaking or singing fast. As I would say this is a weakness of mine as sometimes I tend to talk to fast which can mess up and mumble my words, therefore putting attention towards diction exercises will really guide me to work on this weakness and slowly improve it.

An outstanding strength and a positive bit of feedback I received today was how good I was at doing character voices, especially young boys, girls and babies. My teacher was extremely impressed with the way I was doing this and she even said it is something that I can make a really good career out of.