Last Normal Day before Finals Week!!!

Greetings.

Today we reviewed all of the work we'd done over the course of the semester and gave positive and constructive criticism as is our style. We reworked:

• The nonesense poem
• The IPA work
• The final monologues
• Overall voice warm-ups

Hopefully we all do well next week. Monday our book reports are due, oh did you want a sneak peek? OK! :D

Stage Dialects

Introduction

As far back as I can remember I have always been fascinated by different dialects in media and performance. I seemed to have a knack for mimicry with my voice, especially now that I’ve taken a special interest in it as an adult. But it’s not nearly as easy as I supposed it would be when I was younger. My favorite dialects, from the beginning, have always been those derived from England. Like America, it had so many to offer because of its geographical diversity. Films like Marry Poppins, My Fair Lady, and The Sound of Music showed to me the many different sounds that England could produce. They also were the first to truly peak my interest in dialects. I knew that it would take hours of practice to truly cultivate a strong, believable dialect. Though, I never in a thousand years would have thought that the learning of a dialect could be broken down to a science as it is done in Stage Dialects, a book written by Jerry Blunt. 

Pretty intense eh? lol. See ya! :)

Monologues and Dialects Revisited

Greetings!

Today we showed off our hard work from over Thanksgiving break by doing our memorized monologues! And with dialects too!! It was fancy. I've been reading a book called "Stage Dialects" by Jerry Blunt. It's cool because it's taught in IPA, and that's what we've been learning all along in class!!! Makes it so much easier to be honest.

I'm trying to work on two monologues. The first is my old one from acting 1, Beneatha from A Raisin in the Sun. I was memorized, thank goodness, but still Sally saw where there could be some improvements. She pointed out that sometimes, putting emphasis on different vowels or consonants can completely change the tone of a monologue or the sound of a character. I tried it a few times, and of course I heard what she meant.


I'll keep toying with it.
Okay!! Gotta Go.

Cool Dialects Lady!!

Nov 7

I have recovered, slightly, from my earlier illness and today promptly worked on picking out a monologue to consider for final exam! I am caught between an old favorite and a new character that I've been suggested. I think I'm leaning towards Beneatha from A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry. She's the old favorite:

Me?...Me?...Me, I’m nothing…Me. When I was very small…we used to take our sleds out in the wintertime and the only hills we had were the ice-covered stone steps of some houses down the street. And we used to fill them in with snow and make them smooth and slide down them all day…and it was very dangerous you know…far too steep…and sure enough one day a kid named Rufus came down too fast and hit the sidewalk… and we saw his face just split open right there in front of us… And I remember standing there looking at his bloody open face thinking that was the end of Rufus. But the ambulance came and they took him to the hospital they fixed the broken bones and they sewed it all up…and the next time I saw Rufus he just had a little line down the middle of his face…I never got over that…

That that was what one person could do for another, fix him up—sew up the problem, make him all right again. That was the most marvelous thing in the world…I wanted to do that. I always thought it was the one concrete thing in the world that a human being could do. Fix up the sick, you know—and make them whole again. This was truly being God.

Cruddy Day for a Voice

Greetings.

Today it rained a lot. It was cold and yucky. In other words: not very good voice work weather. And speaking of weather, I was under it a bit. I sat this class out and slept it off in the lounge or at least I tried to. It wasn't very comfortable so I ended up coming back and listening to nonesense poems anywho.

Voice was shy and

lots of cough drops

feeling ill

Bleh.

Finally!! The Play is Over!! Well Almost.

This is the last weekend for the play! I loved the experience, but let me tell you it's been some hard work. Well here, you can see this paper I've been slaving over! :D

Tartuffe

This was an exciting, fun play to work on. The outcome was wonderful and the experience was memorable. Tartuffe the play was filled with twice as many voices as there were characters. It was a thrill to watch actors transform into their characters and traverse the tiers within the vocal choices for those characters. It would begin with a simple notion, back in the acting studio, while rehearsing. Then it transforms into multi-faceted living breathing characterization. Speaking as a novice, the experience was stressful, yet invigorating. I didn’t know how I’d handle it initially; the vocal strains and demands of practice and the performances were totally new to me. But it was a learning process.

The vocal journey was not in itself cumbersome, however, intense ongoing session of hard work were required. Vocal capacities were put to the test across the board or ‘stage’. Stressors, illness, and use threatened to tamper with the vocal works in progress of many actors. However, we were soon encouraged that the finished products were things we could be proud of presenting onstage come opening night.

Dorine was my favorite character. As portrayed by Stacia Sexton, she owned the stage whenever she spoke. I admired that very much. Her voice was not merely ‘loud’, it carried and had depth. The most noticeable quality to me was the range of her vocal variety. She could go from zero to one hundred in seconds and back again. Stacia was very conscientious of the well being of her voice as well. She understood that she needed to take good care of it. There were times, however, when I noticed she put some unnecessary strains on her vocal folds through glottal actions, as a result of some character choices. For emphasis in certain puns and jokes, she may have forcefully growled out words. The effect was hilarious. However, I question whether she felt some soreness afterward. For example, she yells a response to her master Orgon at the top of her lungs in a guttural, rasping voice, “Let’s reason without boiling over, sir!” The audience laughed boisterously, but it sounded like it could have hurt. She is also a character with a sizable amount of lines in the play; which often calls for closer care of one’s voice. In the long run, though, I sense she preserved her voice to the best of her ability.

I feel that Dorine led with a sort of vocal energy that can be described as: witty, sarcastic, at times, and overtly comedic. Dorine lives for the moment, and she loves to feed the flames. Every fiber of her acting voice radiates that. This also played a part in the believability of the character. I knew Stacia was Dorine onstage. It was completely believable and incredibly well done.

Breathing Deeply

Greetings.

We talked about the breath and how to manipulate it through counting seconds of inhale and exhale. It was pretty cool. But it was extremely hard to stay awake because it was so darned relaxing. I found the I breathe easier on my back, but it makes me fall asleep. It's difficult for me to lay on my side for too long because I have very prominent hips... lol. It's also a bit hard for me to lie on my back and breathe deeply because it feels laboured.

Field Trip Dayyyyyy

Greetings!!

Fun, fun, FUN!! :D


Yes. By the way, today was fun. We went on a field trip to our local Dekalb Farmer's Market. It was really extraordinary.

We toured several aisles of the Super Market and found several different healthy alternatives to the foods we ate everyday, or weekly. We found sweets that weren't so sweet. Produce that was fresh and exotic. And one of my favorite parts: spices that were aromatic and beautiful.

We also took some time to visit the in-store resturaunt, which was extemely satisfying and offered MANY vegetatian options to my great pleasure! :D I was so excited. Good thing I set a budget or I would have blown too much money. :P

Anyway, we headed back to campus with goodies and new snacks, promising to ourselves shop better, and smarter, and healthier.

For Voice and Articulation Class??

Yes! Because it's amazing  how the health of the entire body affects the voice. Keeping a healthy diet is detrimental to the way we feel and sound, to the production of our voice, and the preservation of it.

Hell Week

Greetings

Partially unrelated to the class: Next week is hell week for play rehearsal. We will be rehearsing all week long. Every night 5-10pm. It's kind of a scary thing. From this side anyway. Who knows how I'll feel after opening weekend. I can't believe it's been so long. Months of practice. Sure pray it pays off. :)
Well, anyway. We were told today to please preserve ourselves for the week, knowing what will be demanded of us. We were cautioned to take care of ourselves. We need to eat right, get rest when possible, and stay hydrated and current on vitamins. And most of all don't get sick.

We also spoke on how  not to be stressed out in the middle of a show [especially when you have other things going simultaneously, like work, school...life...etc].

1. Don't think so hard on it.
2. Your perception is everything.
3. Stay positive.
4. Take a moment for yourself... all the time. Meditate, breathe, pray.
5. Take your time.
6. Accept what you cannot change.
7. Change what you can.

Toe Dance

Greetings.

Well, today (October 15th) we needed to turn in our IPA for the 'sexy monologue' piece I've been working on for a while. We were supposed to do a 'very warm' read of it with feeling. :D

Oh, by the way:

Cold Reading: a term used by actors, in theatre and film alike, to describe reading aloud from material they have not rehearsed, or studied previously at all.

Hence my term, warm reading. ;)

I thought I did well, except, well... that darn actors tick again. That DARNED YIP!! >_<

It moved all the way down to my toes, which Sally says were doing a little dance. :-/

Anyway, I was forced to attack the verbal beast from a cabaret approach [aka pretend to be working a cabaret whilst reading from the page]. It felt awkward for me because I wanted to get rid of the paper. But Sally assured me that being able to read from notes/paper while connecting with and moving through an audience was a useful skill to have. Especailly when speaking at conferences, or events. Her suggestion was notecards.

And darn it, wouldn't you know I had notecards I could've used!! >_<


Oh, well. There's always next time.

Ciao!! XD

Mundane Monday

Greetings.

It wasn't really mundane. ;D I'm just using an alliteration.

Speaking of repetitive letters and/or sounds at the beginnings of adjacent or closely connected words, we worked on our vocal warm ups today.

We used the corks again and assaulted the floor with endless sprays of spittle as we tried to properly pronunciate each syllable of our "monologues".

During my turn to present the monologue (minus the cork) my instructor and peers spied an actor tick (or a yip) in my veneer. :D I was shuffling and flexing my left foot around, mostly from lack of focus. I wasn't really nervous. I just needed to zero in on what I was saying. So, I tried again and nipped that in the bud. Did much better.

But the actor tick moved up to my left hand instead....

I was all like.... huh?


but anyway. I did better. And now I have an actor tick to chase around... sigh...

toodles.

Tests, Quizzes, and Other Things with Questionable Origins

Greetings.

Yes, yes. We had a quiz today on our book which we continue reading throughout the semester entitle Actor Speaks by Patsy Rodenburg. She is a voice teacher for actors in the theatre and apparently she's worked with all the greats. ;) Anyway. We were quizzed today on part three of her book which included a range of exercises and tips which are meant to help us through this class with greater ease and also stuff our actors toolbox with nice goodies for shows to come.

According to Patsy, one of the worst things you can harbor as an actor, especially before or during a performance, is tension. Get rid of it! She provides several techniques and methods for relaxation and how to maintain that relaxation.

After that quiz aka rare for of toruture, we got to watch a recording of a program entitled "Do You Speak American?" which was actually very fun. During the segment we saw, the host traveled from the northeast of America all the way through northern and down to the south listening to the way people "spoke American". It was fascinating. And I for one found myself actually writing some of those accents down to explore for later mimicry. ^_^ but then again, I'm pretty weird.

Here you can find out more on the program we got to watch through the old fashioned, yet still handy and cool art of videotaping shows with your VCR.

Toodles.

Yum Yums... or Yuck Yucks...?

Greetings.

Did you know what you put in your body even affects the way you sound and how you speak?

I didn't think it was possible to make the two subjects mesh but, we did it in this class. And honestly I can't tell you where the conversation began or ended, but it was very edifying. Mentally. :D And hopefully in the future nutritionally as well.





Sexy Monologue

The Women AKA Fast-talkers

Greetings.

We've started watching the movie "The Women" [the 1939 version]. It's freaking awesome. I mean, I liked black and white movies. But now I absolutely love this!! We have to write a three page analysis on a specific character's voice. I thought it would be simple. But boy did I have another thing coming.

See:

 Just listen to them babble! They talk so darned fast it's a wonder their speeds didn't pitch like a high frequecy and ruin the film camera. Like old hens! And most of them aren't that old! Sigh. Good thing this plot is so enticing and interesting or else my  brain would be fried. Wish me luck. I got the dvd recently I'm goingt to finish watching on my own at home tonight.

Cherrio, dahhling. ;)

Wednesday 9/19/12

Greetings.

These are the notes taken today with my wonderful awesome app called Handrite. It's pretty cool. I can write with my finger and take notes just as fast as she's talking. And we save the trees!! Woot! Win-win. :D

Accents, Mate

Greetin's.

That's a bad typing example of my poor British accent. ;) It sounds much better than it looks I swear. And it's so darn fun to do.



Today, a few classmates and I started goofing off with different Brittish accents and we found out some pretty cool things. First off, we didn't know how we sounded. We must have sounded funny because we made Sally laugh a few times. She proceeded to tell us that if we did go to the UK and decided to try and speak [the way we'd spoken today] people there probably would ask:

"Where exactly are you from?" with a skeptical expression on their face.



Are you sure yoor from round 'ere?


And beacuse we'd never actually been to the UK [Sally has and her husband is from Wales!] we'd not have a clue as to how to answer. But it's the same thing here in America funnily. We could just as easily tell if someone were not originally from the States.

She eventually found a way to tie it into our having to learn IPA. Because she's rather brilliant. You see, IPA is all about sound, not spelling, so it can help with pronunciation of accents as well as names and foreign words. It's bloody brilliant if you ask me!

These are the IPA notes from the second half of class. :D

Toodles.

Wednesday Class

Greetings!

Guess what?

We made it to four repititions of Sun Salutation!!

(Which actually means eight...)

Well, beacuse like balance and equalization in Yoga, we do left and right which is [one] salutation. Lovely isn't it? Once we stopped struggling to meet every pose and took mind not to contort our face in pain or displeasure at downward facing dog, we got better at them. We seemed to achieve a sort of flow from one post another. Each of us understood what positions our bodies needed to linger on, what stretches we needed to deepen [or which ones Sally would want us to deepe]. And it all became very fluid. I enjoyed reaching that equillibrium. It made me feel accomplished.

Toward the second half of the class, it truly did affect the way I spoke. We did some more work with the cork. Some peple forgot theirs and had to borrow. Poor souls. :P Anyway. Having been fully physically and mentally calmed and relaxed, everything was easier to do. I know I keep saying the same things, but they bear repetition. The stretching works!!




Don't hurt your eyes there.... lol


Ciao!

First IPA Lesson

Greetings.

Today I was really looking forward to the yoga part because I seriously needed to relax.

However, our lovely instructor had other things in mind. ;)

We started in on the basics of IPA. For those of you who don't know what that is, refer to back to this post: http://voiceandarticulation.blogspot.com/2012/08/yog.html .

So here are the notes from that session (which turned out to be less scary than I thought, and overall interesting) :)

So, as you can see, we've only scratched the surface. I'm actually really excited to find a way that will enable me to pronouce (properly) words and phrases from all over. Not just English. We didn't go into the advanced stuff yet, beacuse she didn't want to blow our heads off. :P

Expect to see some notes on dipthongs and such though, pretty soon.

After a session of IPA tutorial, we got into my favorite part: the yoga and breathing exercises.

New Favorite/Most difficult Exercise:

1. Lying flat on back
2. Hoisting legs up into air over your head
3. Possibly until feet touch ground above your head
4. Breathing into back and sides
5. Trying not to crush your neck and head with your enormous lower half...

And I'll close on that note.

Words to Contemplate:

Dipthong

Ampersand

Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow

Greetings.

On a personal note: I really need to start taking notes in class so I can remember all of the awesome points I want to bring to my posts here. Ugh. That would seriously help.

Anyway.

Last Thursday, we did most of our basic warm-up work which included, but was not entirely limited to:

1. Sun Salutations
2. Warrior's Pose (one of my faves)
3. Breath work

• Timing the intake and release of breath
• Ululating (yes like a native)

    4.   Meditation

After we were completely and totally zen, we were instructed to choose three triggers that would, no matter what the circumstance, return us to this present state. They could be sights, sounds, smells, feelings, or people.

I'll tell you one of my three: Rolling in freshly washed white linens, straight out the dryer with  lavender dryer sheets!  ^_^ Heavenly.

The other two are private. >_>

Anywhoose.

The next thing we did was to stand slowly and try to recite a segment of a famous sililoquy from Macbeth by Shakespeare.





 Spoken by Macbeth after he has lost his wife.


"Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow
creeps in the petty pace
from day to day
to the last syllable of recorded time..."

Gloomy, eh?

Well. We had to recite that under different breathing patterns and see the results. One thing I noted with this particular exercise was that saying the lines became easier when you spaced the breaths closer, rather than father away. For instance:

"Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow (breathe)
creeps in the petty pace
from day to day (breathe)
to the last syllable of recorded time..."

Was easier than, say:

"Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow

creeps in the petty pace

from day to day (breathe)

to the last syllable of recorded time..." (breathe)

Get it?

Then we broke off into groups of two (or three in my case) and said the lines to each other with feeling. The main point of this exercise was to find the "yips" in each other.

Yip: a tick, or nervous jump which moves about the body once it's been pinpointed, due to an actor trying to feel  the lines.

 (Correct me through comments if you have a better definition).

Some people flicked their middle finger against their thighs, others blinked excessively, still other tapped their toes incessantly. It varied, and then miraculously it changed once we identified it. It was the darndst thing. But it also showed us how we expend some of that valuable energy that we need to harness for our performance. If we could isolate and completely vanish that yip , we could use that energy to better portray our character...

But yeah. That's just words. Let's see if I can do all this in class huh...? :D

Words to Ponder:

carmel vs. caramel....

hey did I already say this???

Toodles!



Saluting the Sun

Greetings.

Today we really delved into the Yoga section of our class. Last time was apparently just a 'taste' (lol). Aside from the fact that we did about 6 repititions (and soon started feeling it) and are expected to eventually do 12 (in actuality 24: one is considered a rep of left and right), I still was completely psyched! Maybe I'm just some sort of weirdo exercise freak lady, but I really enjoy when I get to stretch and listen to my body.

Aside from the extensive physical portion, we moved onto using our mirrors.

"Why on earth would you need a mirror for a voice and articulation class?" you ask.




Well, duh, so you can see your mouth as you speak! It's funny how much we don't pay attention to how we move our mouths (or in some cases not move our mouths) in order to say words we use all the time.

For instance, "Hi, how are you today?" or, "I love Monday's. They are the best day ever."

(For the record, Mondays are not the best day ever in my opinion...)


Anyway, you get the idea. Small observations or variations in how we speak can make a big difference. Like, say, oh... talking with a cork in your mouth. It does sound yucky, and counter-productive, but it really does work!

I'll explain:

See it's like running with ankle or wrist weights. If your body can adapt to the motion of running or walking with the weight, then it can perform even better without the weight. Speaking with a cork in your mouth may impede your speech or that moment, but once you remove it: VOILA! You sound like a pronunciation guru. (Don't quote me on that...)

One more thing that I really did enjoy was this new 'exercise' we learned to help clear the sinuses and/or resonators. It's called the Y-BUZZ. It's a combination of a humming noise and a loud 'ee' sound made through puckered lips. This is done is different positions including beding over and shaking the clasped hands. It felt really good, but I hadn't been able to tell if it loosened up any phlegm or not... yeugh... :-/

lol.


A Few Words for Thought:

Glottal
Diaphram
Sun Salutation
Y-Buzz

/ˈyoʊgə/

Greetings!

That there is IPA! Get used to it folks, because I'm going to have to start using it on the regular. (lol) By the way, that word is yoga in IPA format.

"What on earth is IPA, anyway?" I hear you cry.

IPA:

International Phonetic Alphabet

 

noun

the set of symbols and modifiers designed, principally on the basis of articulatory considerations, to provide a consistent and universally understood system for transcribing the speech sounds of any language: devised by the International Phonetic Association.

 by

Source: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/International+Phonetic+Alphabet

So there. Now you know what on earth I'm talking about. We didn't do much with IPA  on Wednesday. Except the end of the class, where we reviewed some words we wrote on the board, we hardly touched the topic. But what we did get alot of was

YOGA!



We didn't actually do this pose... Thank heavens...



Yup. It was exciting. I haven't done yoga in a few semesters. Actually, since I've started at GPC, I won't lie. But thank God, I have been stretching regularly or else that would have been painful. :/

We discovered how stretching (and nutrition) could supplement our voices and help with the overall health of our speaking abilities. I quite enjoyed it. I was relaxed and, oh, the breathing part was my favorite.

I've disovered:

• I've missed yoga
• How stretching affects my breathing: it brings breath to the forefront and makes you pay more attention.
• About the Respiratory System (how breath affects speech)
• How posture affects the speech
• How to maintain good vocal health regualrly

A Few Words for Thought:

Larynx

Oscillator

Resonator

See ya on the flip side! ;D

First Day

Greetings.

Oh, don't be offended. I didn't say that you had a big mouth. I'm just saying. Well, technically that's the gist of what Sally was saying. Oh, yeah, Sally is my totally cool-tastic professor for this class: Voice and Articulation. It's a theatre class offered for the actors voice, the performer's voice, orator's voice, or anyone's for that matter.

In our first session, I pulled three main components from our discussion. Basically, we needed to/ would cover the following points:

• Breathing
• Pronunciation
• Understanding/Comprehension 

They seemed pretty simple outside of the class, but when we put them together as a concept for the class it was pretty profound. I practiced most of these things on a daily basis, but hardly ever all at once. Of course there would be some writing, reading, and testing done throughout the semester. But the class, from what I gleaned, would primarily be focusing on cultivating my voice and the overall impact/effectiveness of it.

I got pretty excited when she started talking about the materials we would need for the physical portion of the class.

• Yoga mat
• Hand Towel
• Small mirror
• Wine Cork
• Tote bag

The wine cork idea reminded me of "The Great Debaters".  :D



Anyway, we're supposed to use this journal to record observations of our voice and the voices of other. I hope I got that right. As of now....

My personal observation is... I'm pretty ok...

At least I think so. Now to listen to the recording....