Further Lip Isolations
Lip Isolations [An earlier, more basic version of this exercise is available.] Waking up the muscles of the face is a great task that helps prepare an actor for the work ahead, whether it be a rehearsal at home, in …
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.
Squat Breath
Encouraging breath in the lower part of body is something that I like to do in all of my classes. The best way to get started with this is with the squat. Squatting is one of the exercises that many …
Habit vs. Natural
In one of the early posts on this site, Breath Basics, I suggest that you just use the breath that comes naturally, or habitually, to you. Are those the same thing? Well, I guess that depends on how aware of …
Bathtub Breathing
Here’s something for you to try out next time you take a bath. I am generally a shower kind of guy, but the other day I opted for a bath. Our family tub is, compared to others we’ve had in …
On Knowing it All
I remember helping out a grad student once when she was doing a voice pedagogy related thesis that required some input from voice teachers by way of a lengthy survey. As a thank you, she sent the participants some fridge …