Some of the information that I'll be posting in this entry would be carried over from my Voice and the Actor Assignment 1 - Entry 1: Analysis of the Voice (https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=931375328338557687#editor/target=post;postID=7688149128442167901;onPublishedMenu=allposts;onClosedMenu=allposts;postNum=3;src=link)
I think that I'm very well spoken, I portray a typical British accent. I'm very precise in my wording, I have the ability to enhance my voice with emotion. I have a good command of the English language. My tone is good and my diction is clear. I am quite articulate. I have good posture - which contributes towards my breathing, which originates mainly from my fitness level. My vocal 'colour' is focused. My weakness is articulating the tones of sadness, and upset etc.
I have a habit of, when being chastised, muttering under my own breath comebacks towards what the other person is saying. I speak at a medium pace, but, when placed in a scenario where I'm upset or angry, my pace is accelerated. I think I vary my rhythm, I speak at the same pace as my peers, depending on the situation, circumstance, and topic of conversation. My pitch is strong and precise because of how well I hold myself - due to the fact of my fitness levels, which ensures correct posture. My fitness levels also enables me to breathe correctly, which in turn, ensures me to complete my sentences without sounding rushed and/or short of breath. Where required, I can display dramatic pauses - an example for me, was when I performed the monologue by Skin-Lad in our performance of Jim Cartwright's play named 'Road'.
Unless I'm 100% dedicated to I'm saying, my confidence can falter, leaving my voice quieter and unsure in tone. In articulation, I have a weakness sounding the letter 'r'. I am able to project my own voice depending on the environment of the performance taking place. At times, I can sound monotonous. Because of my current home environment, I have been exposed to a larger vocabulary, more adult interactions, which, in turn, has increased my confidence in front of any audience. Although both of my biological parents are from the north of the UK, I don't in fact possess any of the vocal mannerisms that they would use. I do have a weakness with some accents, a strong example would be the Northern accent in-particular.
Reflecting upon my Voice (Vocal Strengths and Weaknesses)
Posture
Going to the gym and exercising has now become a prominent reason as to why my voice has improved over the course of 2015 to now. One of the things that has definitely improved from doing this is my posture and overall balance of myself. I now hold myself quite upright because of both the strength in my core muscles and my back. This has a positive affect on my voice also, as it allows me to project my voice with ease and efficiency.
Along side this point, I always try to follow what my teachers say when it comes to vocal ability, and also following along with the research I have previously done for the subject. Having good posture is an important thing to have when it comes to improving the voice, it allows you to hold much more air to project your lines/sentences with ease, it gives you much more stage presence as you hold yourself upright with confidence and could also make you more noticeable on stage, and it also puts less restriction on your bodily movements when performing, you don't want to be hunched over when moving your arms for example because it would just look silly, it's much more worthwhile to make the effort of standing up straight and performing to the best of your ability.
Tension Points
The place where I definitely hold tension the most is in the shoulder and/or lower neck area. There are multiple reasons I can come up with as to why this is:
- Sleeping at a certain angle: When I go to sleep at night, I do have a tendency to position myself in an almost awkward position which just feels comfortable to me to make me eventually drift off. I have been trying recently to sleep with a straight back, but I always shift around during the night to wake up in a random position. For example, just last week I tried this method, to then realizing I woke up in the fetus position. Admittedly, this is a position which I do find quite comfortable, so I'm not entirely surprised of waking up to be like this. Other than how I position myself when sleeping, it could just be me placing my head at a certain angle which causes it to become a bit stiff in the morning afterwards.
- Lifting heavy weights when exercising: Although this may benefit me in most areas of my vocal, and also physical ability, it does have its drawbacks. I do lift some moderately heavy weights when working out my shoulders. It may be to do with the position I have to place my arms in order to do the exercise that might be bothering my shoulder/lower neck area, hence causing the tension that I get.
Breath Capacity and Control
Here's me using my fitness levels excuse again, but it has really improved my overall air capacity from previous performing experiences/social interactions. I can control the flow of my breath when speaking lines with a decent effort, I say this because of my moderate ability in articulation and pace, I can sometimes speak too fast and mispronounce words. Another reason as to knowing that my breath capacity has improved is because I can hold my breath underwater for a much more extended period of time when compared to a few years ago. It could also be because I have been performing vocal exercises in this area of the voice that may have improved this.
Resonance and Projection
I feel that my voice does have a sense of resonance, since, because it's quite deep, it does come across as vibrating to audience members. I feel that this also compliments my ability in projection. People have told me that my voice can come across as quite soothing when placed in the correct scenario, hence improving my confidence in performance areas.
Diction and Articulation
My diction and articulation does tend to fail me quite a bit when it comes to my vocal ability. I do and know that I mispronounce words, but I feel that it's mainly because of the pace of my voice that does this. If I was to work on vocal exercises to do with the pace of the voice, it may actually come to some benefit for obviously pace, but also in terms of my ability in diction and articulation.
Delivery of a range of different texts or styles/Feedback from peers and/or teachers
Recently, I had performed a monologue in my voice lesson to an audience. The monologue is called 'Life is Hard'. It's just a random monologue which I found on the internet, but I had used this monologue because of its relativity towards my own personal experiences throughout the past 2 years of my life. This is a monologue I hadn't yet learned off by heart, so I had to read it off of my phone, which I felt hindered my ability in performing the monologue. But, regardless of this, I had performed it to the best of my ability as I always do when it comes to doing something like this. My voice teacher had complimented my efforts saying that I had performed it very well, but there were a few problems which needed to be fixed.
- Am I speaking in the 1st or 3rd person? One of the main things which needed to be pointed out for the delivery of this monologue is whether or not it should be performed in the 1st or 3rd person, or to simply put it, is the character talking to himself or to another person. When I had performed it a second time, this time with me talking to someone, some of the lines where delivered in a different way, but it also had much more meaning behind it when compared to me just talking to the audience, or what might appear as me talking to myself.
- Pronouncing the letter 'r': One of the main problems which my voice teacher had picked up from my performance was that words with the letter 'r' wasn't being pronounced correctly, the letter was completely overlooked from the word when I had said it.
Over the next couple of entry's for this Vocal Development Programme, I shall be exploring these 3 statements in the form of a table of comparison. What I mean by this is that I shall be comparing how my voice performs one week to another doing the same set of exercises to see if I've had any, if at all, significant improvements. Here are the 3 statements:
What other exercises could possibly improve these areas of the voice?
How are these exercises suitable for improvement of the vocal technique?
Why should I keep doing these Exercises?
Why should I keep doing these Exercises?
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