Vocal Development Programme Entry 3: 2nd Table of Comparison

Date of Session: Wednesday 10th February 2016

What Exercises did I perform in this Session?

1. "Red Lolly, Yellow Lolly"
2. The Alexander Technique (with Spinal Role at the end to finish)
3. Rolling the tongue around the mouth in a clockwise and anti-clockwise motion for 8,4,2,1 counts
4. Reading through one of my monologue's using the punctuation included in the text.

Vocal Reflection Post-Exercise

Posture

After having performed these exercises, especially the Alexander Technique, my posture for the day did feel a lot better than before the exercises. I felt like I was really standing quite tall, but I was also relaxed in all areas of the body, which tells me that I had performed the exercise correctly.

Doing this with the spinal role at the end did make me feel a bit light headed at first, but after a couple of moments, I returned to normal, feeling relaxed physically. My voice was also affected by doing the Alexander Technique. I'd made note that my voice seemed to come out of my mouth much lighter than before. What I mean by this is that there is less tension on the throat and I guess the mouth whilst speaking. My voice had also slowed down in speech, I guess because I was relaxed and had zero tension following the exercises. This tells me that I should do this exercise more in order to work on one of my vocal weaknesses being Articulation.

Tension Points

Following the exercises I'd done in my two previous recorded sessions on this Vocal Development Programme, I didn't feel any, if at all, much tension whilst performing these exercises. However, there was a point whilst I was performing the Alexander Technique that my leg started to tense up rapidly, causing me to make my leg straight again. I'm not entirely sure what the cause of this was, but it has happened before. Maybe a way to get rid of this is to perform more stretches throughout the day, especially before performing any exercises.

Breath Capacity and the Control/Delivery of the Voice

After finishing the main exercises, I'd performed my Skin-Lad monologue from the Jim Cartwright play called 'Road'. This was to test whether or not these exercises had worked well mainly with articulation and I guess projection since I'm speaking for this monologue. What I'd discovered is truly fascinating. Whilst reading the monologue from the script, I'd noticed, since my voice had slowed due to having performed the Alexander Technique, that I was including much more punctuation within my speech. It's also good to make note that I'd at one point dropped the script entirely to go through line for line since I've already learned the words off by heart, and since my voice had slowed, I'd noticed clearly that the punctuation was coming out of my mouth, and I'd went back to the script to see if it was correct, in which it was.

This tells me that the Alexander Technique is a good exercise to perform if you're trying to include punctuation in your speech, but the other exercises could come into question as well. The "Red Lolly, Yellow Lolly" exercise for example, could be another cause as to why my voice had slowed down, since it's quite hard to go through these words with fast speech, because when I went through at first with my normal voice, which is quite fast paced, I'd noticed I was saying "Red Lolly, Yellow Lorry" instead. I hope that performing this exercise more will counter this, and hopefully I can speed up the tempo in which I say the line without slurring my voice.

Articulation

As I've stated quite a few times in the headers above, my articulation after having performed these exercises did come across as being quite strong. I started to test this more so by not only reading my monologue, but also a couple of books lying around the house. I went though a page or two after having done the exercises to discover that my voice did sound quite articulate, as it should be. To me personally, because of my weakness in articulation, and the fact I don't really read too many books nowadays, I was very surprised and pleased with the end result. This will definitely influence me to perform these exercises more, to see how far I can bring my skills in articulation, hopefully to the point that I'll be able to make Articulation one of the strengths of my vocal traits.

Projection

Along with my articulation improving post exercise, my projection had somewhat gained a kick also. Alongside analyzing the development of my articulation whilst reading the monologue and the books, I was also keeping an ear out for how my voice was coming across in terms of volume without putting too much stress on the voice (shouting).

I'd had my step mum also witness me perform my monologue in front of her to get an extra set of ears, and also another opinion, especially if it's someone else listening to me. She had told me "Your voice is very clear and comes across in a nice enough tempo that I can understand what you're saying. Your voice also has a very good resonance, so those weird exercises I had to see you do obviously worked!"

So as we we can see from my step mum's interesting comment, my voice had definitely improved post exercise. Perhaps for the two weeks that I'll be performing these exercises, I'll make a time to compare a before and after exercise analysis, to see what these exercises really do in terms of affecting my voice's efficiency in both Articulation and Projection.

Areas of Improvement

After completing this first session, I don't think there's really anything that needs much improvement. As I'd stated, I'll do more stretches throughout the day to counter the weird tension I had in my leg during the Alexander Technique so it hopefully doesn't occur again. Something I could also do is to just try and speak much slower whether I've performed the exercises or not throughout the day, to see if it catches on, and also to see if I'll come across as being much more articulate than before.

Date of Session: Wednesday 24th February 2016

Vocal Comparison to Previous Session


Posture

I'd taken the liberty of performing the Alexander Technique after finishing my main physical exercises at the gym, and also before I go to bed in the evening.

For when I finish my gym exercises, performing the Alexander Technique afterwards did make me feel both relaxed and gave me the impression of having a good workout session. I could feel this particularly when I was working on my back muscles on a certain day. Performing the Alexander Technique, and finishing with a spinal role, did make my back feel much straighter than before the Alexander Technique, when I'd finished my gym session. This could only affect my posture from here on out, and walking home from the gym, I could feel like that I was walking quite tall and with a straight back also. I didn't really have the chance to see if this affected my voice in any way, but I would think that it'd have some sort of difference than if I hadn't performed the Alexander Technique that day after my gym session.

Performing this exercise before going to bed obviously made me much more relaxed, thus making me go to sleep quite quickly. I'd noticed that, once it was time for me to wake up, I felt much more energized and ready for the day. This became obvious when it only took me about 10-15 minutes to get myself ready for college, when before, I'd normally take about 30-40 minutes. This has allowed me to have more sleep in the morning before college, so doing this exercise before bed is definitely worth it to have more sleep.


Tension Points

As I had made note from the last recorded session, I did have a certain moment with my leg tensing up during the Alexander Technique. Since then, I have performed much more stretches throughout the day and I've also done some light yoga in order to become a little bit more flexible in my movement. From recent studies of me performing the Alexander Technique, my leg hadn't tensed up at all, in fact, it only happened again for the second time a couple of days ago, but this was after I'd been running that day, so perhaps that was the main cause of why it happened the first time? In any case, I've had these two weeks to perform the Alexander Technique twice a day, once after I was finished at the gym, and again before bed, to see if there's been any sort of improvement, and I feel that I've achieved this.


Breath Capacity and the Control/Delivery of the Voice and Articulation

As I said in my last recorded session, I was going to try and speak at a slower tempo, to see if it catches on, and to also see if I come across as being more articulate than before. Doing this alongside performing the exercises did stir some attention from a couple of people I've had conversations with.

They had noticed that I've done something to affect my own voice, in which I told them what I did, leaving them quite surprised. I do manage to go through more sentences in a much more controlled manner than before, which tells me that this is a good thing for me to keep doing in the future. The people that I spoke with haven't really delved into how to improve their voices, and me telling them what and why I was doing these exercises left them feeling quite uneducated if anything.

One of these people was someone that goes to my gym, and he was wondering why I was doing the Alexander Technique (he didn't know what it was, so he was simply asking me what I was doing). Once I'd told him what it was, he looked quite confused, perhaps because he didn't see the logic behind performing it. So this was when I asked if he'd like to try it, in which he did. I instructed him through what he had to do in order to perform the Alexander Technique correctly, and once finished he said roughly along the lines something like this: "Wow, I do feel a bit light headed from doing that, but I do definitely feel much more relaxed. Before I felt quite tensed up in my arms, but now, they feel quite light. I'm not sure I like the feeling... But I can see why you would choose to do this after your exercises definitely."

So this was definitely an interesting experience to go through, to be able to teach and direct someone about a vocal exercise.

Projection

Through me reading my monologue and a couple of books, I was able to analyze my projection. After two weeks of studies, I've come to the conclusion that my projection wasn't affected too much from doing any of these exercises, but projection is already one of the strongest traits of my voice, so it doesn't really have to be worked on as much as Articulation for example, which is what I've been doing.

What other exercises could possibly improve these areas of the voice? 

In terms of Articulation, any exercise that requires me to go through a piece of text that is kind of difficult to say quickly over and over is the perfect choice. A line like "Through the tip of the tongue, and the teeth and the lips" is a good choice, but I'd already done this phrase in the past so I thought it'd be good to do "Red Lolly, Yellow Lolly" instead.

How are these exercises suitable for improvement of the vocal technique?

They're mainly suitable because it affects how your voice works in everyday life, as I've recorded down in this entry. People do indeed pick up if you've changed something about yourself, whether it be physical or even vocally. They're also suitable because, like with physical exercises, doing vocal exercises can only mean you'll get better progressively over time, thus making your voice stronger and stand out over others.

Why should I keep doing these Exercises? 

Like I said before, if I keep doing these exercises, my voice is only going to get better, which is an essential thing to process when it comes to being a professional actor in the performing arts industry.