Some Introductory Thoughts on Voice and Speech Part 2

Thanks for reading the last blog article on Voice and Speech. What do you mean you didn’t? You can read it here.

This is primarily intended for students in my Introduction to Acting course, but feel free to read it anyway if it helps you!

We just finished discovering the three parts of the voice: the excitor, the vibrator and finally the resonator(s). It’s possible to explore the 3 resonator cavaties personally. Try this:

Close your lips, gently lower the soft palate and continue to make an ‘M’ sound – That’s one resonator.

Close the mouth and use the pharynx and nose to continue to make the ‘NG’ sound – the like the end of the word ‘SONG’ – That’s another resonator.

By opening and closing the resonator, you can get an EXPLOSIVE ‘B’ sound. When you narrow the exit, you get a ‘V’.

The difference here is that Voice is sound making equipment. Speech is shaping the sound into communicative words and noises.

Don’t be confused, it’s a matter of practice like any other physical skill. You can’t expect to learn to juggle in a few minutes, it takes hours of practice, but once you’ve got it, you’ve got it.

The next area to look is BREATH: the excitor.

Normally we don’t think about our in-breath and out-breath too much unless we experience pain. We breathe in slowly, we breath out quite quickly. BUT THIS IS THE OPPOSITE OF THE BREATH PATTERN NEEDED FOR ACTORS.

In order to speak powerfully on stage, radio or screen, the actor needs minimum in-breath time and maximum out-breath time, to produce enough vocal power to tackle even Shakespeare’s tricky length of lines.

In the NEXT part ‘Introductory Thoughts on Voice and Speech Part 3′, we’ll look with more focus at the BREATH and how to achieve a deeper in-breath through rib and diaphragm movement.