Voice and The Actor - Blog Entry 1

Vocal Development Programme

In this week I focused mostly upon Radio as it is coming up soon and I feel I need to devote a good amount of time to it, in order to portray Patrick Moore's character to great ability.

I shall reflect upon different things that may affect my voice:

Posture - I feel overall, posture is a weakness for me as I have a tendency to slouch and this takes affect on my voice as when slouched, vocal organs get constricted and don't work to the best of their ability, also when in a bad posture, it can affect your voice psychologically as you start to take a more laid back approach. This is mentioned by a wonderful voice coach named Patsy Rodenburg who talks about the second circle.

Semi Supine position used for Alexander Technique.

Tension points - I find that I often have tension in certain places in my body, I often see myself having my shoulders in a raised position and not relaxed. This may also be due to that I am often wearing a back pack on my shoulders so I have gotten into a bad habit. Having tension is bad as it can affect your posture and your voice. A good exercise to do is called Alexander Technique, which many actors do to relive tension, actors like Hugh Jackman have talked about this wonderful technique made by Fredrick Alexander in the 1890s. The technique is in the semi supine position showed by the image and by thinking about tension being relieved it helps release areas with high tension.

I feel that these exercises will help me with my vocal weaknesses and I will be using them throughout the next few weeks leading up to my radio play in order to portray Patrick Moore to the best of my ability.