Voice and The Actor - Blog Entry 3

A class waking up their resonators

In my last blog entry, I was looking at the radio assignment I was in. The exercises I had chosen to do were very helpful from last week and helped me to deliver a concise vocal performance in my final radio assignment. The exercises I had chosen to do helped me with my tone, missing beginning of lines and posture. I felt that all the exercises I chose helped immensely and helped me to achieve a greater understanding on the vocal needs of audio production. The exercise I chose to help with my tone, was to look and analyse the script and understand my characters objectives, relationships and the setting of each scene. I also did the exercise of waking up my different resonators so I was able to use them for different tones. I started off by waking up my head resonator and doing some humming in my head voice, this was good as I could access a different vocal register and it would be of use to me if I decided to use it for tone changing. For my nose resonator I tried to make a nasal sound but I found this quite difficult, this may have been because I was suffering from a cold at the time. I found it a lot easier waking up the chest resonator, I did this by making a fist and hitting it against my chest quite lightly with a low humming tone. My voice resonator was already in action.

The other exercise I used was to help with getting the beginning of lines, I felt I did this well enough. I started to put emphasis on the beginning of lines, at the start I found it difficult to put emphasis on the words so I would do a movement which would help me put more of a structured projected sound on the word. For example I found the line 'On the planet Gliese...' quite difficult to put the emphasis on, so I would make my hand into a fist and move my arm and fist downwards to give off the expression of power, this helped me gain emphasis and put it on the right word. I found that this exercise worked each time I did it. After a while I took out the movement and I found I was putting emphasis on the words anyway, then after that I was saying the words without emphasis yet I was still saying the beginning of the lines with good clarity, which I wanted to achieve from the start.

The third exercise I did was Alexander technique to help with my posture as I felt throughout recording, my posture could have been better and I felt it effected my voice. I have been doing the Alexander Technique regularly and I feel it has made a difference to my voice and posture both physically and mentally. After I did this I felt quite relaxed yet also motivated. I felt less tense but also at the same time present and in the moment. I recently did this exercise and I noticed a difference in my posture and also my voice, I felt I was more grounded in my posture and I felt little to no tension throughout my body. I also felt it had a positive effect on my voice, I felt my voice was more free and I could use a variety of tones, pitches and volumes that would be beneficial to me for the final recording of 'Far Side of The Moore'.

I enjoyed the challenges that arose this week relating to voice and I am finding the new project fascinating, especially incorporating the French dialect.