My Vocal Development Programme/ Voice Work

MY VOICE- ANALYSIS

My voice is naturally deep and therefore I am restricted to a low (and perhaps trapped) voice; and am also vulnerable to mumbling as I tend to speak at a very fast pace. This affects my performance as I can come across as very quiet although what I would be doing physically might contradict that. In attempt to widen my pitch ability, I shall focus on a series or exercises to support my voice and strengthen my overall speech. These exercises include tongue twisters such as "Chuck a chop of chicken or chuck a chipotle chilli up" or "Round and round the ragged rock the ragged rascal ran". Tongue twisters are proved to turn our brains on to fully pronounce each letter of each word and as a result, speak clearly and fluently without any major struggle- avoiding the mumbling. In addition, to get my higher resonators in shape, I could try humming through the nose and head; however starting from the chest as that is where it sits comfortably and can progress from there. Furthermore, gently tapping the sinuses supports this exercise as you are then preparing your resonators for action

MONOLOGUE/ PROGRESS

For my monologue, I have decided to read the character 'Mum' in Steven Berkoff's play 'East'- segment 'Mum's Speech'. The passage explains the Mum's role in her 'run of the mill' family and her place in society as she talks fondly about her television programmes and moans about her husband and dreams of what her life could've been with her ideal partner-just to return to reality quickly with a groan from her husband. I have chosen this particular monologue to read as it really stuck out to me when we were doing research into Berkoff- and I thought the character interesting as well as complicated as she has so many dynamics to her- the most obvious being that she has to be played by a man. This would provide me a varied way of portraying her- I could go down the route of playing her as she was at the time of the original performance or nowadays- however not much different, the script and perhaps the character's mannerisms would change or be slightly altered. However, I did not want to focus on this now as it was the voice I am going to be marked on, nonetheless it may guide me to improve my performance vocally if I am fully embodied as the eccentric character.

This week I performed my monologue to Karen and the class. For my mini-performance I used Logan as the dad and therefore my husband in the scene; I thought this may bring the attention to my character's journey in the speech and how it is very mental and the husband is there as a reminder that it is not in any shape or form physical or realistic. He is also there as a physical reminder that she is trying to reach out to her dreams, but there he is on her shoulder- almost dragging her down.

However, I was not yet fully adjusted to the script when I performed and therefore struggled with presenting, faulting and stuttering at main points in the speech and as a result, the character and style of the monologue was not really put across to the audience. In addition, I felt incredibly awkward as it was mistake after mistake in my mind and, instead of the script acting as support, I completely relied on it and that really hindered my performance and let me down massively.

Karen noticed that my performance was not up to its usual standard and said that I could really do with introducing the Berkoff-like movements and making sure that it is clear that the voice is actually in her head and she gets carried away.

I took the constructive comments and started to rewrite the script to contemporise it so that it would have the effect for modern audience as it did in 1975- when 'East' was first produced.

For this I firstly updated the television programmes that Mum talks of fondly; so that contemporary audiences would understand what the character was actually on about as the script has a tendency to jump from point to point as it is Berkoff and therefore very un-naturalistic. This entailed changes such as turning ‘On the Buses, What the Papers Say and Sunday Night at the London Palladium’ into ‘Downton Abbey, The X Factor and Poirot’; and then adding movements to the shows as Karen said it would make the piece less still and bring it to life. Therefore I would take my new additions and apply actions to represent the show; for example for Downton Abbey I would adjust my stance and poke my chest out and stiffen my lip to look ‘pompous’- the idea that that would be mum’s opinion on the dialect of the show as everyone is very well spoken. Then, for ‘Hawaii Five-O’ (which obviously wasn’t in need of changing as it is still on TV along with ‘University Challenge’) I focused on the action of the show and mimed drifting in a car- by placing both hands out and ‘steering’ frantically- then pretending to fire a gun. I plan to practice this piece to show to Karen next week.

This week I introduced my vocal exercise to the class and it was fair to say that most of the group struggled with the pronunciation of the ‘ch’ sounds in ‘chuck a chop of chicken or chuck a chipotle chilli up’- much like I did at first. However, during rehearsals for ‘Earthquakes in London’, I have noticed that I struggle with one line in particular that comes in Act Four when my character has his third and final encounter with Katrina’s character Sarah; it comes at the beginning of the scene where Katrina says ‘I’m feeling really good thank you’ after the character’s night out the day before, where they form a more than professional bond (as they meet through a business agreement). I respond to this with ‘Stronger constitution than the country you’re running. Not many people can say that.’ It is noticeable that I mispronounce the first line as it has been brought up that I say it too quickly and therefore I go back to my previous flaw of mumbling; as a result, I have been practising this line in order for me to execute it perfectly when it matters most- the performance. I can then ensure that I include a phrase like this in my vocal plan so that it can challenge me.

The build-up of phlegm and saliva in my mouth is a recurring problem when performing, yet it has got much better in time; ‘The Wardrobe’ and ‘The Cherry Orchard’ along with the Greek Chorus work provides a great example as I really struggled with‘s’ sounds put together in a line, especially noticeable when I attempted to speak Jewish in ‘The Wardrobe’. This may be because I have a slight lisp (perhaps caused by the build-up of phlegm and saliva in my mouth) which I had not noticed until recently, which would make sense as I am exploring my voice more compared to when I started the course. However, in ‘The Cherry Orchard’ it was diction that I struggled with as I was adjusting to a bigger stage space thus I had a tendency to be very quiet whilst upstage- above all when I had to engage in a kissing scene with Georgia; I felt it very hard to project whilst in such an intimate space.

On the other hand, during my Greek Chorus performance, I had none of my previous problems and spoke very clearly with great projection. This may be due to the fact that the piece was so grotesque that I grew into the bizarre and flamboyant nature of the characters that I was portraying at different times. As a result, I feel that my voice has strengthened both in diction and in clarity.