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.