The VoiceGuy » Voice

Intermediate Warm-up Series Introduction

earmstro — Sat, 30 May 2009 23:07:26 +0000

If you’ve been following along with the blog, you know we’ve worked our way through a ten step Basic Warm-up Series. Today begins the next series, a set of ten steps that, taken individually will increase your knowledge of your voice’s capabilities. As a group, they move a little bit further forward toward greater vocal awareness. Each of the exercises can be used in place of another step in the Basic series, and at the end of each post I’ll tell you which exercise you could replace in the basic series. Of course, once the Intermediate Series is done, you can use it on its own as a complete warm-up sequence.

The Ten Steps of the Series are as follows:

As a bonus, I’m adding a second post today, as this post really just spells out where we’re going next: I’m sure you want something new to do today, not just read! The bonus is a post on one of the most commonly done physical exercises used in voice work, the spinal roll, or “Roll-Down.”

This entire series is available for download in an audio format from the Intermediate Warm-up Series Playlist page.

Intermediate Warm-up Series Playlist

earmstro — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 17:09:42 +0000

The Intermediate Warm-up Series includes audio for each of the exercises outlined in the blog. These audio files can be downloaded here individually as separate .mp3’s. As the VoiceGuy develops, you will have the opportunity to download more steps in other series and you’ll be able to pick and choose the components you’d like to use for your warm-up.

Each step in the warm-up has two formats: long-form, and condensed. The long-form is me reading the blog post, so that you can learn the step properly and carefully, and come to understand the logic behind it. The condensed format is just that: it’s me leading you through the step, with very little explanation about how to do the exercise. Use this if you’ve already read the post, or have studied with me before.

Advanced Warm-up Conclusion

earmstro — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 13:06:16 +0000

We've made it to the end of the Advanced Warm-up Series, and now you have at least 30 possible steps from the Basic, Intermediate and Advanced series that you can mix to create your own, personalized warm-up. Owning this material comes from experimentation with it on a regular basis, taking the time to use it to develop your self awareness and your voice skills. If you've worked your way through the entire series, good for you! Give yourself a slap on the back.

The plan from here on out is to add voice exercises on a free-fall manner, as they come. We'll be walking our way through a menu plan, similar to the structure of the three warm-up series outlined already, so that you can pick and choose components in a manner similar to making a French dinner with the plan of hors d'oeuvres, fish, meat/poultry, cheese, desert, coffee… More to come!

The next "series" is a warm-up focusing on speech in particular, so that you can prepare for those days when you need greater attention on your articulation skills.

Text: Beginnings and Endings

earmstro — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 12:55:06 +0000

Peter Brook is known for having championed the idea of "beginning, middle, and end" in everything on stage, including the beginning, middle and end of the play, the scene, the beat, the moment, the speech, the sentence, the phrase, the word, the breath, the thought, the gesture, the action, etc. etc. etc. But many of us are unaware of our beginnings, middles and ends. We make our way through our work as performers, and as people, just doing. An awareness of how we start and end enables us to focus on transitions between parts of greater wholes, and in these transitions lies great interest and excitement for both the performer and the audience.

In this final step in the Advanced Voice Warm-up, we'll use beginnings and endings as a way to explore language. We'll use a poem to explore this idea, but you could apply the ideas of the step to a monologue from a play, a speech from a film, a bit of copy from a print ad in a magazine, or a long bit of narration from a novel.

As is often the case with voice work, we'll use a Shakespeare Sonnet today. They're great for this task as the have very clear beginnings, middles and endings, on many levels. You can use any sonnet you like, of course, but for here I'll use Sonnet 29.

When in disgrace with Fortune and men's eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon my self and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,
Desiring this man's art, and that man's scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least,
Yet in these thoughts my self almost despising,
Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
(Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth) sings hymns at heaven's gate,
For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings,
That then I scorn to change my state with kings.
Shakespeare's Sonnet 29

This text features many elements that are like a long list. Begin by recognizing that this sonnet is one sentence. Explore this thought by trying to make it through the whole sonnet as a whole, focusing on its beginning, and its ending, which is summed up in the last two lines (or couplet.)

It might be easier to conceive of this great idea as a gathering of many smaller ideas, as a bunch of bullet points and parenthetical phrases:

When
(in disgrace with Fortune and men's eyes,)

I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon my self and curse my fate,

Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featured like him,
like him with friends possessed,

Desiring
this man's art,
and that man's scope,

With what I most enjoy contented least,

Yet…
(in these thoughts my self almost despising,)
…Haply I think on thee,
and then my state…
(Like to the lark at break of day arising From sullen earth)
…sings hymns at heaven's gate,

For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings, That then I scorn to change my state with kings.

Read through this text in this new format out loud. I've broken the piece into many small parts, so that they link into larger chunks, and into the whole poem. The three largest chunks begin "WHEN…" and "YET…" and "FOR…" The first major thought marries the first 2 quatrains into an 8 line long chunk.

Beginnings…

To reinforce the beginnings of each of the subthoughts in the text, add a gesture to your reading for each major word that begins a thought, like this:

When
(in disgrace with Fortune and men's eyes,)

I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon my self and curse my fate,

Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featured like him,
like him with friends possessed,

Desiring
this man's art,
and that man's scope,

With what I most enjoy contented least,

Yet…
(in these thoughts my self almost despising,)
…Haply I think on thee,
and then my state…
(Like to the lark at break of day arising From sullen earth)
…sings hymns at heaven's gate,

For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings, That then I scorn to change my state with kings.

Of course, this is only one level of the exploration. We could dig deeper and look at the meter of the poetry, focusing on the counterpoint of the ideas in the phrases and the rhythmic flow of the pentameter (or poetic line.) You might explore a similar gesturing on the first word of each line of the sonnet and see where that takes you.

…and Endings

Choosing a single final word to each thought phrase is challenging, because sometime we need to stress more than one word to get the full gist of the line. For instance, in the first line we don't want to just "whallop" the word "eyes," as it is very important that the idea is about "men's eyes," as the character of the sonnet is disgraced in the eyes of men. With that in mind, try to work your way through the sonnet once more, this time explore the idea of that end of thought with a little self-hug: wrap your arms around your chest, and on the end of each thought phrase, give yourself a squeeze through the words. [We'll ignore single word lines for this time around. Try it out:

When
(in disgrace with Fortune and men's eyes,)

I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon my self and curse my fate,

Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featured like him,
like him with friends possessed,

Desiring
this man's art,
and that man's scope,

With what I most enjoy contented least,

Yet…
(in these thoughts my self almost despising,)
…Haply I think on thee,
and then my state…
(Like to the lark at break of day arising From sullen earth)
…sings hymns at heaven's gate,

For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings, That then I scorn to change my state with kings.

This squeezing certainly needs to be explored with the ends of the lines as well, as that kind of ending needs to be valued at least as much as the ends of thought.

Our final step is to work our way through the entire sonnet, trying to feel both beginning and endings of thoughts at once. I'll ask you to jump back up to the top, and read it in standard format again, this time trying to feel both the beginnings and ends of the thoughts as they appear to you. In this way, you can begin to notice the pattern that your reading of my division of the text may have had an impact on your work, or not. For what is most important is that you not copy some "right way" but that you greet the text afresh, letting your mind investigate the beginnings and endings of thoughts (and ultimately lines as well) with vigour, curiosity and relish.

Next Step: Advanced Warm-up Conclusion

Articulation of L and N on the Gum Ridge

earmstro — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 12:51:36 +0000

This post is available for download as an audio file.

One of the things we work on a lot in my voice and speech classes is isolating the tongue from the jaw. Put simply, the goal is to train the tongue to do its work on its own, without the jaw helping out. Especially when your jaw is dropped, we want the tongue to be "reaching up" to articulate, rather than the jaw giving it a boost. The hope is that the action of the tongue can be quicker and more deft than the action of the tongue and jaw combined. Generally this is true, though there are some sounds that don't work quite as well at this as others. But generally getting the tongue to be more active while the jaw is more static is a good thing.

To begin, start by dropping your jaw with your lips apart, with your tongue resting behind your lower front teeth. Now, without moving your jaw, lift the front edge of your tongue to behind your upper front teeth, in preparation to make an /n/ sound. Make an /n/ with the jaw relaxed, and then drop the tongue back to its starting place on an "uh" sound. The action should feel "flap-like," with the front of your tongue (the so-called "blade") rising and dropping independently of your jaw. Now try doing three "nuh"s in a row: "nuh-nuh-nuh," being sure that your tongue doesn't linger on the /n/ sound, and that your jaw doesn't move at all.

Okay, so far so good. Now we move onto /l/. Similar to the action of /n/, the main difference is that the /l/ tongue action is more narrow, so that the sound can escape around the edges. The classic singing exercise where people go up and down the scale on "la-la-la-la-lah" is very much like this. Again, start with your jaw dropped, and bring your tongue tip up to the gum ridge, and then drop it down into the bottom of your mouth, /la/. Now string 3 of them together: "luh-luh-luh". Remember: no jaw action.

Now, try doing the two sounds in alteration: "nuh-luh-nuh-luh-nuh-luh". Keep your jaw relaxed, and your tongue is energized. Focus on the flap action, slapping your tongue down into the bottom of your mouth, and don't sustain the /n/ or /l/.

Finally, try adding in the the other two stop plosives that articulate in this same place: /t/ and /d/. [Note that the first, /t/, is rather tricky with your jaw completely dropped—expect the sound of the /t/ to be a little weaker than you might normally expect it to sound.] Try this sequence (each sound 5X): "tuh-tuh-tuh-tuh-tuh," "duh-duh-duh-duh-duh," "tuh-tuh-tuh-tuh-tuh," "duh-duh-duh-duh-duh…" Then try alternating them "tuh-duh-tuh-duh-tuh-duh-tuh-duh-tuh-duh." The last step to this sequence is to insert the /n/ and /l/ sounds into the mix with "tuh-duh-nuh-luh." I'll say it again: drop your jaw, and keep it from moving while you focus on the flap-like action of your tongue!

Next Step: Text: Beginnings and Endings