Voice & the Actor 3

 Vocal development programme: Evaluation of Monologue & Duologue

Voice & the Actor 3

Sophia Hinchliff

Since I started this course last year, I feel I have learned so much about my voice, and my vocal strengths and weaknesses. I can hear a definite change in my voice and the way I articulate.

We were asked by our tutor to research any monologue of our choice that is suitable for each of us individually and to perform this in front of the class, whilst being filmed by our tutor. The monologue I have chosen is a young female monologue from www.aceyouraudition.com written by Kellie Powell. She is an American playwright, who specialises in writing plays which can be sectioned as monologue and duologues, she is quite a feminist and most of her plays are based around women, and everyday struggles they go through, particularly young girls at high school. My monologue is taking from one of her plays called , “ Thanks giving in the wilderness”  The play is about a young woman called Emily, who has given up all hope on all men as she has had so many problems with relationships in the past, she is very cynical of men, but one day she meets a strange man, who appeals to her, and he invites her to spend thanks giving with him in the countryside, she is thrilled but when she gets to his eery house, she meets the two guests he has invited, and they are two women he is also romantically linked with!  It is quite a strange play, and overall makes men look like lazy, rude and heartless pigs! I like this play as it is lighthearted, comical and dramatic and serious all at the same time, it produces great monologues for young imaginative girls, and the feminist style of the play appeals to me very much, and the monologue I have chosen is very familiar to me, and I can empathise with the woman in the monologue. My monologue is by RITA, who is Emily’s great friend, and she is VERY feisty, protective, angry, sarcastic and condescending. She is sticking up for her friend who has been hurt by this man, and is praising her friend. I feel the emotions in this monologue are very raw and upfront, which I like and I also like the fact that she is a feisty woman who is tearing into a man who has hurt her best friend.

The main vocal exercises I used in order to portray this monologue as well as I could were mainly, Articulation and Range exercises. I also used A LOT of Inflection in this monologue, particularly on the more rude words like “dick-head, pretentious, bastard, fuck, shit” All these words I feel had a point in this monologue, they were not just put in the monologue for the sake it, just to have “ swear words” they are used to portray her genuine anger at this man and to show just how angry she is. These words naturally make me use in inflection as they are strong words, and are necessary in a monologue like this, as it is spoken by a young woman who is angry and sounds as if she is at college or university, so is quite young, not to stereotype but young college girls when they are angry will use swear words! So I was able to relate to this anger, which helped me use inflection.

One main piece of feedback I have been given by my tutors, is that sometimes I naturally without thinking can drop words, particularly at the end of my sentences. In this monologue I made sure I did not do this, by varying my pitch and range, to make sure my voice did not fall flat and end up having a monotone sound at the end of my sentences. I used releasing the sound exercises for this, I felt it really helped me to maintain the strength in my words, rather than dropping them.

When I performed this monologue to my tutor and class a couple of weeks ago, I received mainly positive feedback, and what I needed to work on was mainly getting the emotions more established and using inflection in a stronger way. The exercises that helped me to do this were, releasing the sound, drop and release and Articulation exercises, one in particular was Shaping the sound: Lip exercises, this helped me because I was able to use my mouth more freely when I spoke, and it allowed my vowels to become more strong and accurate, which led to me being able to inflect better and to use stronger emotion with my words as I was saying them correctly and in a way that was clear for everybody to understand. My peers said I delivered this monologue with very good use of pace, pause and pitch. It was never just at one pace, I feel I naturally started talking quicker when I was talking about Emily towards the end, as this is where she establishes who she is talking about and how it effects her personally, and again I naturally used inflection on the swear words and right at the end when she says “I give up, lets go home” as this is when she has reached her final straw and cannot even be bothered to continue speaking to him

Overall I feel I performed this monologue with imagination, empathy, emotion and understanding. The main vocal techniques I used were Inflection, Articulation, Releasing the sound, Shaping the sound and Range.

The duologue I have chosen is from the popular film “Mean Girls” and I will be performing this with Izzy. It is a phone conversation between Regina and Katy about Regina’s ex boyfriend Aaron. It is quite a comical conversation between the two girls, but you can definitely sense the tension and sarcasm in their voices, particularly Regina. We have not decided yet who will be speaking as who, but as we both know the conversation pretty well as we have seen the film so many times, we are both confident with playing which ever character.

Myself and Izzy have both focused on the articulation of this duologue, as we have to be very clear with our words for people to hear us clearly and for the audience to understand the humour in this conversation. The sarcasm of this duologue is very apparent and I feel we have rehearsed this very well, we have been careful not to do impressions of the characters and to interpret them in our own way.

We have both focused on our pitch, pace and range in this duologue, as we both need to be in sync with each other and need to make sure that we do not rush this piece as it is an important conversation within the film as it shows just how manipulating and two faced Regina is, and how naive Katy is. I personally used releasing the sound vocal techniques when rehearsing this monologue as again they help me with maintaining strength in my words throughout my sentences, so I do not drop words at the ends.

I have not received any peer or tutor feedback for this duologue as I have not performed it yet with Izzy as I was off ill the week where we performed them, but we have been rehearsing together, and helping each other in developing the duologue even more. I feel this duologue is a good choice for me and Izzy as we both get on very well and can work together very closely, and are not afraid of criticising each other in  areas we feel need to be improved. I am looking forward to performing this duologue as it is fun, upbeat and has a bitchy nature to it, which I personally enjoy acting as I feel it is one of my strengths as an actress.

Assignment Sheet
Course Title				B0471 Acting 2
Qualification Title & Code				BTEC National Extended Diploma Performing Arts (Acting) 555/7600/3
Assignment Title:						Tutor/Assessor(s):
Voice and the Actor 3							Kirstie Maginn
Date set:	20/03/14		Deadlines:		Written Work 24/04/14 Performance 03/05/14			Return date:	10/05/14
Unit No(s)		Unit Title(s) & Code
103		Voice and the Actor
Learning outcomes:
On completion of this assignment a learner should: 1.     Be able to demonstrate a command of vocal technique in response to material. 2.     Be able to demonstrate vocal technique in performance.
Vocational Assignment description
The aim of this unit is to enable you to apply vocal techniques to a range of texts studied in class and perform a monologue and duologue/scene for 3 people.
Task list and instructions:										Grading criteria
1.     Apply vocal technique to a range of material studied in class.										3
2.     Perform a monologue and duologue/scene with 3 of your own choosing.										4

My triologue/dulogue for assessment

Myself, Izzy and Sav got together and decided that we would perform a "triologue" taken from the film MEANS GIRLS. We have rehearsed this a couple of times, and we have also got another option, that me and Izzy do a duologue from Mean Girls and Sav will do a duo with Sophie from Playhouse Creatures. But we are not too sure yet as to what we will do, but we have two options and are learning the lines together.

This is the "phone conversation" between Regina and Katy: which will be perfomed by myself and Izzy.

 Hello? 
- I know your secret. 

Oh, God, busted. 

Just start apologizing and crying. 
No, play it cool. 


Secret? 
What are you saying about? 


Gretchen told me 
that you like Aaron Samuels. 

I mean, I don't care, 
do whatever you want. 

But let me just tell you something 
about Aaron: 


All he cares about is school 
and his mom and his friends. 

- Is that bad? 
- But if you like him... 

Whatever. I mean, I could talk 
to him for you if you want. 



Really? You would do that? I mean, 
nothing embarrassing, though, right? 

Oh, no, trust me. 
I know exactly how to play it. 

But wait. Aren't you so mad 
at Gretchen for telling me? 

- No. 
- Because if you are, 

you can tell me. It was a really 
bitchy thing for her to do. 

Yeah, it was pretty bitchy, 
but I'm not mad. 

I mean, I guess she just 
likes the attention. 

Ok, love you, see you tomorrow!


Triologue between myself, Izzy and Sav. This is another "phone conversation" taken from Mean girls

“Gretchen thinks you’re mad at her because she’s running for spring fling queen.” –Cady 

“Oh my god, I’m not mad at her. I’m worried about her. I think somebody nominated her as a joke or something. I mean, nobody votes for her. She’s going to have a total meltdown. And who’s going to have to take care of her? Me.” -Regina 

“So you don’t think anyone will vote for her?” –C 

“Cady, she’s not pretty. I mean that sounds bad, but whatever. The spring fling queen is always pretty. And the crazy thing is, is that it should be Karen but people forget about her because she’s such a ****. Anyway, I got to go. I’m going to bed. *hangs up*” –R 

“Well she’s not mad at you.” –C 
“Hold on.” –Gretchen 
“Are you okay?” -C 
“Shh!” -G 
“Hello?” - Karen 
“If someone said something bad about you, you’d want me to tell you right?” –G 
“No.” -K 
“What if it was someone you thought was your friend?” –G 
“What do y-” *line beeps* “Hold on. Other line.” *switches over* -K 
“I’m not taking this anymore.” -K 
“Good for you, Gretch.” -Cady 
“Hello?” -K 
“Let’s go out.” -Regina 
“Okay, hold on. I’m on the other line with Gretchen.” -K 
“Don’t invite Gretchen, she’s driving me nuts.” -R 
“Hold on.” -K 
“Okay.” -R 
“It’s Regina. She wants to hang out with me tonight but she told me not to tell you.” -K 
“Do not hang out with her.” -G 
“Why?” -K 
“You don’t want me to tell you.” -G 
“Ugh, you can tell me. Hold on. *attempts to switch lines* Oh my god, she’s so annoying.” -K 
“Who is?” -G 
“Who’s this?” -K 
“Gretchen.” -G 
“Right. Hold on. *actually switches lines* Oh my god she’s so annoying.” -K 
“I know. Just get rid of her.” -R 
“*switches lines* Okay, what is it?” -K 
“Regina says everyone hates you because you’re such a ****.” -G 
“She said that?” -K 
“You didn’t hear it from me.” –G 
*Karen switches lines again* 
“Little harsh, Gretch.” -C 
“Whatever, she has a right to know.” -G 
“I can’t go out. *cough cough* I’m sick.” -K 
“Boo, you whore.” -R

My monologue for assessment

RITAS MONOLOGUE: THANKS GIVING IN THE WILDERNESS

This is the link to the monologue I have chosen for my vocal development programme. It is by Kellie Powell and is taken from her play " Thanks giving in the wilderness"

The play is about a young woman called Emily, who has given up all hope on all men as she has had so many problems with relationships in the past, she is very cynical of men, but one day she meets a strange man, who appeals to her, and he invites her to spend thanks giving with him in the countryside, she is thrilled but when she gets to his eery house, she meets the two guests he has invited, and they are two women he is also romantically linked with!  It is quite a strange play, and overall makes men look like lazy, rude and heartless pigs! 
My monologue is spoken by Emily's best friend Rita, who is fuming at the man who has hurt her best friend, and is tearing into him and letting her anger out on him, she is also comparing him to other men as well, she is generalizing men and comes across as a feminist, and she is extremely feisty. I love this monologue as I can relate to it, and I just generally love feminist monologues, as I am a bit of a feminist myself, and I love performing monologues that most girls can relate to. 
MY MONOLOGUE:
You know what, dick head? (i changed this from " jack-ass to dick head, as I am not doing an American accent and jack-ass does not sound as strong with an English accent!)
I am SICK of guys like you! Sarcastic guys, who spend their time, pointing out the short comings of others, rolling their eyes, shaking their heads and making JOKES.
Your NOT unique, your just a pretentious bastard. I've had enough of guys like you, you supposedly damaged guys, who do not believe in monogamy anymore, who want to just sleep around with anything that moves, not caring about how other girls feel and then announcing that they are not "ready" to be somebodies boyfriend just yet. 
You think HONESTY makes you a decent person?
But at the end of the day your still taking advantage of women, who do not seem to realise they can do BETTER.
Emily is an amazing girl, she is beautiful, smart and funny and if you think you can find another girl like her, you CAN'T. She is one of kind, and any man would be lucky to have her. 
And you have treated her like a piece of shit! Do you know what, fuck you and fuck this, I give up, C'mon lets go home.

This monologue roughly lasts around 1min and 20 seconds, which I feel is a good amount of time for a monologue as it is not too short yet still staying under 2 minutes so it does not loose its importance. It is a good monologue as the beginning, middle and end all have a good structure and it never drifts off, it always stays on topic and has a strong argument and clear objectives.

Chorus work video: December 2013

My groups chorus work: 10 Things I Hate About You

5/12/13: CHORUS WORK

In today's lesson we were given a poem written by Welsh poet Dylan Thomas. The poem consisted of three stanzas and signified how death had no power over somebody, how death did not frighten them or have any haunting effect over them.


And death shall have no dominion.
Dead man naked they shall be one
With the man in the wind and the west moon; 
When their bones are picked clean and the clean bones gone,
They shall have stars at elbow and foot; 
Though they go mad they shall be sane,
Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again; 
Though lovers be lost love shall not; 
And death shall have no dominion.

And death shall have no dominion.
Under the windings of the sea
They lying long shall not die windily; 
Twisting on racks when sinews give way,
Strapped to a wheel, yet they shall not break; 
Faith in their hands shall snap in two,
And the unicorn evils run them through; 
Split all ends up they shan't crack; 
And death shall have no dominion.

And death shall have no dominion.
No more may gulls cry at their ears
Or waves break loud on the seashores; 
Where blew a flower may a flower no more
Lift its head to the blows of the rain; 
Though they be mad and dead as nails,
Heads of the characters hammer through daisies; 
Break in the sun till the sun breaks down,
And death shall have no dominion. 

We were split into three groups and each picked out one stanza each to perform combining voice and movement, performing as a chorus.
My group chose the second stanza. In our performance we used forms of chorus;

• UNISON
• CANON
• MOVEMENT
• 1 WORD EACH 
• CALL AND RESPONSE

In my group I was with LIAM, GRETA AND JENNY

We all decided to say AND DEATH SHALL HAVE NO DOMINION in unison once at the beginning and once at the end, this has a strong effect and emphasises what the poem is about.

We created movements that matched the words, for example;

"TWISTING ON RACKS WHEN SINEWS GIVE WAY" 

I performed this line, and when I said TWISTING, I used a twisting movement and turned my body round in a full circle, twisting my arms around my torso. We used CALL AND RESPONSE so when I said TWISTING the group repeated using the movment, and when I said ON RACKS WHEN SINEWS GIVE WAY the group repeated. The movement I used for this was to lean onto GRETAS back and pull her back and forth, as SINEW is a word for muscles and joints giving way, so we wanted to portray this through her body.

We also used movements to symbolise the words when JENNY said "STRAPPED TO A WHEEL, YET THEY SHALL NOT BREAK" We symbolised a wheel turning using our arms when she said this, and all put our arms together within a circle when she said "YET THEY SHALL NOT BREAK" symbolising unison and power.

The movements we used when performing allowed us to project the words with power and meaning, and our performance came across as very powerful and confident.

Vocal development programme

Voice and the Actor 2

Vocal Development programme

Sophia Hinchliff

Since beginning Voice classes I have noticed my own personal strengths and weaknesses and have found particular exercises helpful to my own personal needs.

I feel some of the vocal exercises accentuate my strengths and as well help me to work on my weaknesses.

The exercises I find helpful to me are firstly;

Releasing sound exercise: Half neck rolls

This exercise helps me project my voice better and helps prepare my voice to be clearer and powerful before I speak.

The exercise involves, standing in neutral with feet parallel, dropping my head forward so my chin touches my chest, and then rolling my head over to my right until my right ear is directly above my right shoulder. When in this position I breathe in and out and then roll my head back to the centre. And go on to repeat this on my left side.

Another exercise from Releasing sound I personally enjoy is “Drop and Release” this exercise involves standing in neutral, blowing out my breath and then as the new breath comes in letting my arms float up until they are above my head, and as I breath out I let my arms come down and release my ankle, knee and hip joints so that my whole upper body drops over from my hips and my legs bend. When doing this my arms are swinging gently back and forth and when I run out of breath I gently roll back up and my arms will float above my head again. When doing this exercise I really feel that my whole body feels calm and released, and it helps with my breathing pace and how effective my sound release is. I like to do this exercise with sound added, so when I breath in and release my arms, at the same time I say something from my first performance, for example ‘” We can’t help you’ and then let my arms swing freely below my hips. I can hear how much stronger and powerful my sound is when doing this exercise as it is relaxing my body and building my voice up so it releases loud and clear sound.

The last exercise, which personally helps my vocal development from “Releasing the Sound”, is “Giggle and Sob”

This exercise involves really focusing on the inside of my throat above my collar bone. I release a giggle using the exericses “Hee Hee Hee, Hoo Hoo Hoo” and as I do this I can feel my throat opening up, I count from 1 to 10 giggling and feeling the opening in my throat on each number. I can repeat this exercise with a sobbing noise and repeat the same exercises. At first this exercise feels quite strange and I could not really notice anything in my throat, but after I began to really focus on my breathing and sound I noticed that there was a small opening in my throat after I repeated this exercise a few times. This exercise is very helpful for controlling the pace of your breath and alternating the pitch of sound which comes out from your throat.

The exercises below are the 3 main exercises I feel help me in my personal vocal development; these exercises are from Breath into sound….

Giggling the sounds from my diaphragm: This exercises helps me to open up my throat and be able to have a stronger breath, which leads to a stronger projection. I focus on my diaphragm in this exercise very carefully to notice any movement or improvement coming from there. The giggling voice exercises I use are ; “Hee Hee Hee, Ho Ho Ho, HaHaHaHa, HorHorHor, HeyHeyHey, High, High, High” these exercises help me work on my breath, every time I do this exercise my breath has improved as I do not get out of breath anymore like I did when I first started this exercise. Releasing my breath in between giggling each sound has became much easier and I now need to use less breath than I did when first began so I really feel this exercise has helped improve my breathing massively.

Bouncing words from my diaphragm: This exercise is similar to the giggling exercise except I am not giggling when doing it I am “bouncing words” which means projecting the words and placing my hands on my diaphragm whilst doing so and it feels as if the words are bouncing out from my diaphragm as it pushes outwards when I do it. The sequence I use to do this exercise is; “Nuh-Nuh, Nuh-Nuh, nuh-NO” “Yuh-Yuh, Yuh-Yuh, Yuh-YOU!”

So it feels like I am stuttering slightly before I say “No or Yes” which allows the words to almost bounce from my diaphragm, this helps my breathing as when I am saying “nuh nuh, yuh yuh” I am preparing my sound and breath in order to project “NO” in a powerful way, it is like preparing my voice to say a certain word and adds a build up for my voice.

Bouncing phrases from the diaphragm: This exercise is almost like a follow on from the last two I have explained and it is more developed as I am using phrases and not just words. The phrases I am using are as follows; “ High- high, High, High, HI” “ How-how, How-How, HOW ARE YOU?” “High, high, high, high, HI I AM FINE THANKS’

This exercise is more advanced using phrases as it requires more breath and more vocal projection. The build up to the phrases prepares my voice and warms it up before I say the phrase. I feel using “High high” before I say HI allows my sound to be much louder as it would be if I just said HI on its own.

I have listed 3 main exerices from Breathing below which have helped me develop my voice and work on my breathing and how often I need to breath in between speaking….

Centring the breath: This exercise requires me to lie in Alexander position, with my hands just above my navel with my full attention to where my hands are. When I feel the need to breath I do so but not consciously, I just imagine the breath flowing in and out of my body as it naturally does. And once the breath has flowed into my body, I let out an easy sigh and the breath will flow out again.

It is quite a simple exercise but I feel it helps me centre my breath and my chest and diaphragm always feel more relaxed and loose after doing this exercise. It definitely allows me to breath more freely and not get out of breath when saying a lot of words at a time.

Another exercise from Breathing I have chosen for my personal development programme is very similar to the centring the breath but it is more focusing on my out breath;

Developing the out breath: I again, lie in alexander position with my hands just below my navel. I then think of my body lengthening and widening and as I do this I blow out my breath from below my navel and imagine in my mind I am reaching down to the second half of my out breath for more air. After I have released my out breath I release my pelvic floor muscles and allow the in breath to flow in.

This exercise is very relaxing for me, and enables me to think about how I breath and notice any weaknesses I have which could be affecting my voice. It makes me feel calm and produces power and control from my out breath which allows me to project my voice much better than if I did not do this exercise. I do this exercise before any performance I have as it is great for relaxation of the mind and body, and also it helps me to create a stronger out breath which will clearly help me project my voice better during a performance.

Using the “H” technique: This exercise I can do standing up or lying in alexander position. I prefer to do this in alexander position with my hands above my navel, similar to the 2 exercises I have described. This exercise helps my “ In Breath” I have deep attention and concentration on the inside of my body and I imagine the letter “H” forming stretching across the centre of my body and its “legs” stretching right down to my buttocks and its “arms” stretching through my rib cage. I will release Out breath and wait for the impulse to breath in, when breath begins to flow in my mind I imagine the “H” being filled with all my breath and it expanding and growing through my body just as the breath does. This image in my mind allows me to create a stronger in breath in order to fill the “H” I imagine within my body. It really does work if I concentrate really hard and make it my job to fill the H as much as I can with breath.

The exercises I have included in my personal development programme all have helped me to enhance my vocal technique and they outline my weaknesses. Examples of exercises which show my weaknesses are; The giggling exercises, when I first started doing them there was not a lot of power or force coming from my diaphragm, but as I have practised the exercise more and more the pulses coming from my diaphragm have became more stronger and evidently my voice has became louder, stronger and clearer.

I have quite a rounded voice and my pitch is quite low so exercises which allow my voice to range more have helped me a lot. For example, the exercise I learned in voice class were we had to stand opposite a class mate and take a deep breath in and project are voices saying “ Yuh, yuh, yuh YOU RESENT THEM!” This allowed my voices pitch to range, as sometimes when I projected my voice it was higher than usual and other times it was lower than usual. I want to be able to have a wider range of pitch in my voice and this exercise has definitely helped me and my pitch is beginning to become more varied.

I feel exercises for Posture I have learned in class have helped the way I project my voice, for example Alexander Technique is a great way to create better posture as it is opening up your muscles and essentially trying to make my spine longer and more developed. Posture is very important for me, I feel I can project my voice very well and this is due to good posture and good breathing techniques I have learned in my voice classes so far.