Neck Stretching
In this post, I’ll be reviewing how to do neck stretches. The goal here is to stretch out your neck muscles prior to beginning your voice work-out. There are muscles on all sides of your neck, so we need to …
Author: Eric Armstrong
Eric Armstrong is the voiceguy. Eric is a dialect, voice, speech and text coach based in Toronto, Canada, where he normally teaches full-time at York University’s Dept. of Theatre. Eric has been teaching voice for the actor full-time since 1994, and has taught in Canada and the US, at the University of Windsor, Brandeis University, Roosevelt University, Canada's National Voice Intensive and York University. He has worked for nationally and internationally recognized companies such as Crow’s Theatre, Volcano, SoulPepper, & Canadian Stage in Toronto, and The Court Theatre and Steppenwolf in Chicago.
Eric holds a BFA from Concordia University (Montreal) in Theatre Performance, and an MFA from York University (Toronto) in Acting. His mentors were David Smukler (York, Canada’s National Voice Intensive) and Andrew Wade (Royal Shakespeare Company). He has also studied at the Drama Studio, London, and Il Stage Internazzionale di Commedia dell’Arte in Reggio Emilia, Italy.
He’s a long time member of the Voice and Speech Trainers Association, where he has served on the board, as a conference planner, photo editor for the Voice and Speech Review, Founding Director of Technology and Internet Services, and has written numerous peer-reviewed articles, essays and reviews for the VASTA Newsletter, the VASTA Voice, and The Voice and Speech Review.
Strong Forms and Weak Forms
This weeks blog post is about strong forms and weak forms of words and how they help to make the language we speak more intelligible. Weak forms occur on small, less important words (like prepositions and articles) that link the …
Over-Articulation
Last article was about Mumbling, so, to be fair, this article will be about its opposite, Over-Articulation. Over-articulation is, as one might guess, the process whereby we give too much energy to the articulation of our thoughts, dialling up the …
The Mumble Method
In this second instalment of the Intelligibility Series, we’re going to look at what Intelligibility isn’t. Of course, we’re talking about mumbling, which is defined as “to say something indistinctly or quietly, to mutter something under one’s breath.” What I’d like …
What is Intelligibility?
When an actor works in a large space, there are at least two major concerns: can we hear her, and can we understand her. Being audible is one thing. Being intelligible is quite another. Today actors are called upon to …