Unit 23 - Developing voice for the actor

Tuesday 7^th November

In the session today I was performing my monologue piece in front of the rest of the group. Performing the piece to my peers enabled me to receive feedback from others and helped me to gain confidence. However, before this we carried out a full vocal warmup.

To start the warmup we carried out some exercises to make sure that all of our body muscles were nice and warm by doing some general body shakes from the feet right up to the head. We then did our usual intercostal diaphragmatic breathing exercise where we breathe in for 4 counts, hold for 6 and then breathe out for 12. We then did the EE OO and humming exercises to make sure that the lips were warm to help with articulation. Next, we carried out some diction exercises which would also help with our articulation and clarity. Finally, we finished the warmup with some tongue twisters.

After the warmup, I performed my piece for the group. At this current stage my piece is still not ready to be performed for the final time because I am still not 100% certain with my lines and I feel like there are still some areas which I could improve in. Hopefully I will be ready to perform this piece within the next week or so. Here is a video of me performing the piece to the group and then receiving some comments at the end from my peers and from my lecturer, Cara:

As you can see from the video, my peers gave me feedback at the end of the delivery. The main comments that they gave me where that I need to be able to maintain the character by keeping the accent going throughout. The first half of the monologue currently isn’t as effective as the second half so this needs some work before the final delivery to ensure that the speech is more believable. Another comment was that the separation of thoughts during the speech was clearly shown by the movement around the space. Lastly, my projection was clear throughout the piece which made it easy for the audience to hear and understand what was being said.

I think that this piece went well overall. However, I do still think that there are some areas which I could improve in. For example, from watching back this video, some of the ends of the lines aren’t very clear. This means that my projection decreases towards the end of the lines. I need to be mindful of this and work on this to make sure that when I come to deliver my final rendition, the whole piece is very clear. I could do this by carrying out the diaphragm kicks exercise more often, going over the lines again and again to ensure that I know them and working on the pace of the delivery as this may help to improve my projection. I also think that I need to work on the accent a bit more. The accent then enables me to make sure that my diction is the best that it can be. I will continue to work on this piece and hopefully it will be ready soon to perform for the final time.