13/09/18 Vocal work

In today’s lesson we did vocal work. To start off the lesson we laid on our backs with our eyes closed and focused on our breathing. Breathing work is important as an actor because not only does it relaxed you and help you become more centred, but use of breath can really impact a performance. It can change the way you deliver lines and use of breath as a chorus can help dramatize a moment.

From there we did various vocal warm ups some connected to breathing, such as exhaling with vowel sounds, and others to help with annunciation. Using consonants that sound similar, for example ‘D’ and ‘T’, we repeated them quickly and focused on pronunciation. These types of warm ups are essential because annunciation is a key factor in acting. An actor’s annunciation can affect what roles they can be considered for and bad annunciation can hinder an audiences understanding of a performance.

After the vocal warm ups we were each given a poem. I received Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley. Individually we went over our poems and then performed in front of the class. I applied some of the annunciation techniques we had learned, making sure to pronounce the ‘T’s’ at the end of words and speak clearly.

 

• Embrace the fear of sounding incorrect and be generous with each other as everyone makes mistakes. 
• Not just actors have vocal training, TV and Radio presenters receive it too as they need to be clearly understood. The same goes for politicians.
• Poems were used in our exercise today because it’s hard to be truthful. Generally people read poems how they think they ‘should be read’, reading them in a false voice. As an actor you must be truthful to the moment (from pantos: Chekov) you must be true to your character at that moment in time.
• Speak clearly and take your time with the words to avoid telescoping which is speaking quickly and shoving all your words together.
• Avoid starting off energetic and then dying. Keep the energy level throughout the line and don’t let your volume or annunciation go down at the end of the sentence. 
• Pacing is also essential as, if you talk too quickly the focus of the audience gets lost.