Developing an Effective Voice: -A key part in acting, depends on bodily relaxation, proper breathing, and good posture.

-Combined with emotions and the body -Voice = air passing over vocal cords, which create vibrations that create sounds and amplied when striking the throat, head, nose, and mouth areas. -What kind of sounds produced depend on shape of chambers, shape is determined by position of tongue, soft palate, lips, and lower jaw -Exercise of the voice is very important for actors, students of theater should start training as soon as possible. Relaxation: -Degree of relaxation determinnes the power of the vowel sounds -Proper vowel sounds are the key to a clear and powerful voice, which are made by a open and relaxed throat, relaxed jaw, and exible lips. -Before any vocal activities, you must RELAX physically and mentally. Tension can result in hoarseness or irregularities when speaking -Doing so to relax = excellent to solve stage fright -Before vocal work, run through posture exercises. Breath Control: -Determines carrying power and volume of your voice -Enables rehearsing and performing for long periods of time, with less strain/damage to your voice -Regular Breathing = inhaling and exhaling are of equal length -Breathing for speech = very brief inhale period and a slow, controlled exhale Using your Voice Effectively: Quality: -Quality depends on resonance and correct formation of vowel sounds by speech organs -Resonance = vibrant tone produced when sound waves penetrate the nose, mouth, and head areas -Best way to practice = humming with throat relaxed -English voice = only m, n, and ng should be sounded through nose, all others shoud could from mouth alone -Nasaility: Occurs a lot with american voices when vowel sounds are directed from oral cavaity into nasal areas, cutting down the tone and making it sound at. -Vowels very important in quality of your tone, positioning of lips and tongue determines the sound. Pitch: -Relative highness or lowerness in voice = pitch -Female voices pitched higher than males, while childrens are even higher -Many pitch their voices at too high a level, low voice is far more musical and easily heard. -Expressing excitement, interest, or any high emotion usually uses pitch change to represent the emotion = interest from audience in a scene -Important Skill = when and how to bring the voice back down -Inection = makes the voice musical and interesting -Monotone = speaking continously on one level

Adrian Ma

Friday, 5 October 2012 8:02:33 AM Hong Kong SAR China Time

-No variety in pitch = lack of interest -Notice your own and other voice pitches, comparing them to normal conversation, and how they are when inuenced by emotion, thoughts, and feelings Volume: -Relative strength, force, or intensity when sound is made = volume -Volume = not pure loudness -Depends on the pressure which air from the lungs strikes the vocal cords -Tension should be at minimal, if throat is relaxed = no hoarseness in voice upon speaking increased volume or shouting -Two types of force when speaking in high volume = explosive and expulsive -Sudden, sharp breath pressure = explosive, used for commands, shouts, loud laughter, or screams -Breath held steady and released gradually = expulsive, useful for reading long passages without loss of breath or building towards a climax -Volume also connected to building emotions or to suggest feelings, low voice = dissapointment or dullness -Quiet voice with full tonal expression = shock, despair, or joy Pause and Rate: -Breathing pause = necessity in speech -To prevent breaks in sentences, you must train to breathe through thought pauses -LEarn to nd the perfect spots to breathe as you think and read through your words. -Plan your thought groups carefully, too much breaks will make speech choppy -Illusion of the rst time= gives a sense of spotanity and freshness to your performances -Rate: speed at which words are spoken -Also inuences characters state of emotion and ideas, steady increasing rate = tension and excitement, slow delivery = a heavier appearance to the voice -Light or happy rate = rapid rate -Calm, tragic, or slow paced passages spoken slowly Combining Techniques in Interpretation: -Key words of every passage must be highlighted to be heard and understood by the audience to send the main message -Words can be emphasised either by delivering them with great force, holding them for a longer period of time, raising or lowering the pitch, and by pronouncing the vowels in a rich resonant quality and the consonants strong and quick. -Emphasis = tone placement and projection -Done by forming sounds with lips, lower jaw, and tongue, then by projecting voice through the audience area, accompanied by breathing deeply, while continuing to project to the people farthest away -For climatic passages, start off with a low voice and tone, speaking at a slow rate, and slowly increase the tone, energy, and rate as the passage continues into higher expressive points. Improving your Diction: -Diction = selection and pronounciation of words and their combinations in speech -Speech training in acting = choose words carefully and pronounce them distinctly Vowel Sounds:

Adrian Ma

Friday, 5 October 2012 8:02:33 AM Hong Kong SAR China Time

-Vowel sounds classied as front, middle, or back vowels -Based on position of tongue as vowel is formed determines type of vowel -There are six vowel letters, but many vowel sounds, which can often represent more than one sound -Speech Sounds represented by speech phonetic alphabets -To allow speakers of any origin or dialect to pronounce clear english vowels, IPA, International Phonetic Alphabet was formed -Many variations of vowel sounds, certain ones can sometimes be misinterpreted as another Ex: -O sound (audience, daughter) -E sound (sleek, creek) -A sound (have, man) -ur sound (perfect, purple) -E sound (men, engine etc.) Consonant Sounds: Pronounciation: -Good pronounciation uses the correct vowel and consonant sounds in words -Mispronounciation = due to pronounciation of letters that do not have to be pronounced -Pronunciation of words depend on which syllable is accented, some words vary depending on the placement of the accent Voice and Diction in Acting: -Good plays come when voices and words of the actors provoke emotion through the lines than are presented to the audience -Actors must present each passage clear to the audience, must not spoil the rest through mufing, or speaking nervously -Characters expressed through voice quality, pitch, and tempo Important ve principles: 1. Vowels are the sounds actors can work with in interpretation. Can be shortneed, lengthened, or inected 2. Verbs are the strongest words. Except for forms in be, verbs should be stressed 3. Look for color words, words that truly express their meaning such as crash, stab, or grunt 4. Rarely stress negatives, pronouns, and articles 5. When word or phrase is repeated, stress each repetition more than the previous one.

Adrian Ma

Friday, 5 October 2012 8:02:33 AM Hong Kong SAR China Time