'V' IS FOR…VOICE, MIND & BODY + VOCAL EXERCISES

The MIND is the element that tends to dominate most. Have you been in a small group where one person does almost all the talking? Not much input from the other members of the conversational group.The person doing all the talking might indeed be interesting, entertaining and knowledgeable. And if all you want to do is to sit back and be entertained, without contributing anything - great, then sit back, nod your head and say "uh-huh" once in a while.But - the "conversation" would lack something. It would lack the depth, insight, ideas, personality and surprise that the other members of the group could contribute to the conversation, if they were given a chance.

Many actors, especially beginners, let their mind dominate the acting process. As a result, their performance lacks depth, insight, range, personality and surprise. It lacks input from the other members of the acting conversation, the body and the voice.Actors who let their mind dominate their acting say, "OK, here's what I 'think' the character is all about, and 'here's how I'll play' the character." Then they go about playing the character the way they "thought" it should be played.It might even be a passable performance. But it lacks input from the other two important elements in the acting process. The actor was too quick to "think". They were too busy imposing their preconceived notions about the character to allow themself to hear the contributions their voice and body were willing to give; too preoccupied with their own notion of how the character "should" be played to allow themself the chance to explore, discover and develop a character far different from their initial thoughts.

To explore, discover, and develop a character, an actor must learn to encourage their voice and body to join the conversation, and then listen to what they say.
Your Body's Contribution to the Conversation
Everybody knows what it feels like to be hungry. This is your body communicating with your mind. It is saying, " I need food. Feed me!"
Your mind did not initiate this communication. Your mind did not say, " I have not had anything to eat for four or five hours, I think I'll make the stomach grumble and hurt a bit, and get cranky, and maybe I'll even start to think up food thoughts. OK stomach, start grumbling..."
Your body initiated this communication. Perhaps, you got a bit irritable, then your stomach might have started to pain you a bit, then you might have started thinking about food, then after receiving all these hunger messages from your body, gradually, your mind became aware of what was going on and you became conscious of the fact that you were hungry.
Your body initiates communication with your mind all the time:
Your nose smells smoke, then you decide to look for fire.
You see a big dog, hear him growl, you stop, then you decide it is wiser to walk in the other direction - fast.
You feel the warmth of the sun on your back at the beach, you relax and feel happy.

Of course, once the mind is aware of something, it communicates back to the body to take a course of action:
Prepare a sandwich for lunch.
Sniff the air and slowly seek out the source of the smoke.
Move to the other side of the street and keep an eye on the dog.
Roll onto your back because your back is hot and you don't want to get sunburned.
This is a conversation between your body and your mind. This kind of conversation happens so quickly and so often, we hardly think about it. But it happens whether we think about it or not and it propels us through each day of our lives.
The actors' job is to encourage this conversation between body and mind and to become as consciously aware of it as they can.
Encouraging Your Body to Enter the Conversation
The mind tends to dominate the acting process, especially in the beginning. There is a lot of thinking that goes on. Script analysis, character analysis, interpretation of relationships, blocking, all sorts of thinking. The conscious mind gets a real workout.
Rehearsal is the place where actors can do their best work at getting their body involved in the conversation. Your body can't get very involved sitting in a chair reading and thinking about a script. You have to move.
For example, you read in a script the stage direction: "Character enters."
Seems simple enough, right? Well, not exactly. HOW is the Character going to enter? Will they enter slowly? Quickly? Will they open the door slowly? Will they fall against it? Will they close the door behind them? Will they be smiling? Frowning? Flat expression? Crying? Wailing?
Then you read the Character's first line of dialogue in the script.
Are they sad? Happy? Crying? Emotionless? Weeping? Matter-of-fact? Preoccupied?
Lots of decisions to make, and the play has only just started.
Do we play the Character as happy or sad? Well, during initial rehearsals, the actor can experiment a bit, think out loud, try it both ways, and see what happens.
If you try playing the Character as sad… How "sad" would you play them? Sullen? Sorrowful? Despondent? Morose? Suicidal? Crushed? A little bit blue? Which one is right? You'll have to try acting them all, one at a time.
Of course, one cannot "act" an emotion. Emotions arise as a result of attaining or not attaining a desire. One has to perform actions that hopefully will elicit the intended emotions from the audience.
As you try out different ways of speaking the Character's lines, ask what does your body tell you about them? About who the Character is? About what they want? Let your body talk to your mind. Let your mind listen.
"How do these movements feel? What do these movement tell me about the Character, their situation and feelings and their relationships with other characters?" Let your body talk to your mind. Let your mind listen.
Do the same exercise numerous times. Each time perform actions for a different level of sadness: Sullen, Sorrowful, Despondent, Morose, Suicidal.
Each time, make yourself aware, ask yourself, "How do these movements feel? What do these movement tell me about the Character. About my situation. About my feelings, my relationships..."
Let your body talk to your mind. Let your mind listen.
Exploration leads to discovery.
As you explore the full range of the Character's "sadness", you will discover a lot about your character that you simply would not have thought of if you had only "thought" about your character.
After you have explored the full range of the Character's "sadness", then explore the full range of their "happiness"... blissful, buoyant, cheerful, joyous, mirthful, rapturous, sunny, pleased... Try on different levels of "happiness", finding actions for each, exploring the range of actions using the dialogue as a foundation for the actions.
Think of other desires that your character might have. Explore the emotions that arise from the fulfilment or non-fulfilment of those desires. Emotions or states of mind that you can explore through your body: fear, jealousy, anger, passion, paranoia, shyness... whatever.
Repeat the above exercise with each. Each time, make yourself aware, ask yourself, "How do these movements feel? What do these movement tell me about my situation, about my feelings and relationships?"
Repeat the above process for other scenes in the play.
Preparation and rehearsal are a time to explore, so be open to whatever happens. Don't make any final determinations about any particular desires, emotions or set of actions, yet. You can start narrowing and selecting later.
Take notes as thoughts occur to you. You will discover that most characters are quite complex. They want many different things at different times. Their success or lack of success at attaining their desires evokes many different feelings.
Like real people, characters can be both happy and sad, joyous and fearful, in shock and in bliss - many things at many different times. And they can change in a matter of seconds. Their desires and emotions can shift several times within a single line, at a single word, a look, an expression.

All of this is up to you to discover - with your body and your mind, working together, conversing together, to shape an interesting and in-depth character.Your Voice's Contribution to the Conversation.When you are going through the above "body" exercise with the lines of the script, you will notice that your voice changes as you try out different emotions or states of mind. You have sad voices, happy voices, joyous voices, defeated voices... all kinds of voices. Frequently, actors impose a voice upon their character without exploring the full range possible. For instance, try reading the following dialogue out-loud in an "angry" voice:
"I just can't believe you'd be so selfish. Did you not, not even once, think about me? About how I might feel? Tell me. Please. I need to know…"
Many actors would have shouted the lines. Initially, to many people, "angry" means "GET LOUD". Sometimes it does. But there is also a quiet anger. A spitting, hissing anger, a glaring, searing, piercing anger, a rigid, taught, in total control anger, there is a sweet and melodious anger.
Depending upon the character and the circumstances of the moment, there are many ways to express anger other than raising the decibel level of one's voice.
All these ways of verbally expressing anger need to be explored. In fact, you need to explore the dialogue with the full range of vocal possibilities, to see how things sound, to see what your voice has to say about the lines, words, phrases - independent from how your mind thinks those lines, words and phrases should sound.
First off, let's take a look at the range of your voice.

NO SOUND/SOUND
The text of a play is composed of non-verbal sounds, verbal sounds and no sounds.Non-verbal sounds are things like: snapping fingers, the thud of a body hitting the floor, the crack of a whip, the blast of a gun, music. Non-verbal sounds are usually used for emphasis or effect.Verbal sounds are sounds the actor makes with her mouth. Sighs, screams, hisses, groans, laughs and of course, words. We will get back to this part later.No sounds are - no sound. Silence. The lack of sound, silence, is extremely important to actors, and is usually not used well. Usually not at all, intentionally.
Read the speech again:
"I just can't believe you'd be so selfish. Did you not, not even once, think about me? About how I might feel? Tell me. Please. I need to know…"
If you follow the punctuation, there are up to 8 places where one might stop talking - at each comma, full stop and punctuation.However, there really is no rule that says you have to strictly follow the punctuation. You can stop talking wherever you want to stop talking.
Let's take the same speech, and add our own punctuation.
"I just can't believe you'd be so… (PAUSE)… selfish. Did you not… (PAUSE)… not even once, think… (PAUSE)… about me? About how I might feel? (LONG PAUSE) Tell me. Please. I need to know…"
Now, Read the same speech, but make the silence still longer.Now, Read the same speech, but make the silences each 5 seconds long.Count to yourself: "One AND two and…" etc. It will feel like an eternity between words. But do it anyway.
You can repeat the above exercise, extending the duration of silence for as long as you want. Seems odd? Well it is odd. People don't usually talk this way. Or do they? As you do the above exercise, make yourself aware of how the silence between words effect the dialogue. Effects the way you think about how you might say the dialogue.
Of course you will not say each word with 5 seconds (or more) of silence between each, but then neither should you say each word with no silence between each. Become aware of silence. Play with it. Experiment with it.
Listen to what the silence tells you about your character. About what your character is thinking, feeling, intending. Learn to use silence - long periods of silence and short periods of silence, even though the punctuation does not agree.
So much for no sound.
Now for verbal sound. Verbal sounds are made up of words and non-word sounds (yawns, screams, laughter, groans, etc.)Non-word sounds can convey a tremendous amount of meaning and insight into character. These sounds need to be explored… as do WORDS.
Words, otherwise known as "dialogue", are deceptive things. For instance. Let's take three words - "He ran home." A simple, declarative sentence, right? What does it mean? Well, it means a person - He - did something - ran - to someplace - home.
Well, yes and no. Let's try a little exercise. Emphasise the first word: "He."
HE ran home. Now the sentence takes on the meaning that a particular person, HE (as opposed to all other possible people,) ran home.
Now, emphasise the second word: "Ran."
He RAN home.
The sentence now has a different meaning. A person did a particular action (as opposed to all other actions,) he RAN home.
Now emphasise the last word: "Home."
He ran HOME.
The meaning is again different. A person ran to a particular place (as opposed to all other places,) He ran HOME.Three words, three different meanings.Actually, there can be many, many more meanings. What if the character who says the line, "He ran home." is telling another character a story about a man who was leaving a shop, pushed an elderly lady to the ground, then, instead of helping her, he ran home.And what if the character was appalled at the man's insensitive and uncaring behaviour.
Now the simple declarative sentence, "He ran home.", takes on another meaning. "Isn't that man a terrible, uncaring, insensitive, brute of a man?".You can make up numerous scenarios, each one conveying a different meaning. Each one interpreting the same three words, "He ran home.", in different ways.What would be the "RIGHT" way to say those three words?
Acting is art so… There is no "RIGHT" way to say them!
So if there is no "RIGHT" way to say a line, how do you "decide" how each line of a play should be said? Well, at first, you don't "decide". You explore. The deciding comes later.

With any scripted dialogue, there are many, many ways one might say those various lines. There are many, many ways one might manipulate the way one speaks dialogue to convey different meanings, such as:
·Stress
· Pitch
· Volume
· Rhythm
· Repetition
· Diction

STRESS
The "He ran home" exercise is an example of this manipulation of dialogue. Intentionally stressing specific words or phrases easily affects meaning. You should say your lines, stressing different words to see how the meaning is altered each time.As you stress different words and phrases, keep yourself open to how the meaning is effected. Does one variation seem to emerge as dominant, or seem "right" in the context of attaining your character's desires and what else is going on in the play?Does one variation seem to create new revelations about your character? New insights or a perspective you did not think of before you began exploring your lines by altering the stress of words and phrases?

You should explore variations of stress with all your lines in the early rehearsal stages. Do not lock into a specific pattern too early. Keep yourself open and flexible. Even later on in rehearsals, as you begin to set patterns of stressing certain words or phrases, occasionally try new ways to stress words and phrases, especially in places where you are unclear of intention or meaning or relationships among characters.Let your voice enter the conversation. Explore the dialog. Let your voice lead your mind to discovery.

PITCH
Pitch has to do with how high or low your voice is. Pitch can reveal a lot about a character. A character who is afraid, agitated or nervous will often times speak in a higher pitch than they normally would.A character who is trying to project an air of authority or control, might speak in a lower pitch than normal. Like with "STRESS", you should say your lines using different pitches. Try saying you lines in a very high-pitched voice - as high as you can make it, even if it sounds ridiculous for the character or scene. Keep your mind open. How does saying the lines this way affect what you think about the character, the meaning of the lines, the situation?

Now try saying the lines in as low a pitch as you can. Keep your mind open. How does saying the lines this way affect what you think about the character, the meaning of the lines, the situation?Now try saying the lines in a sing-song fashion, starting very low, gradually getting higher and higher, then getting low again, repeating the low-high sequence over and over. Keep your mind open. How does saying the lines this way affect what you think about the character, the meaning of the lines, the situation?Obviously, you probably would not say your lines this way. This is an exercise to help you explore the full range of your voice. To help you use your voice to discover something about your character that you would not be able to discover by simply thinking about your character.
Let your voice enter the conversation. Explore the dialogue. Let your voice lead your mind to discovery.

VOLUME, RHYTHM, REPETITION, DICTION
You are probably getting the idea of what you need to do to explore the full range of you voice. Do exercises like the above ones focusing on each of the elements, VOLUME (loud/soft), RHYTHM (fast/slow), REPETITION (repeat sounds, words, phrases, even if they are not written in repetition in the dialog), and DICTION (how precisely you pronounce a word).With each element, explore the FULL RANGE that you are capable of using. When exploring VOLUME, get loud - REALLY LOUD. Then explore soft - really soft, and everything in between and various combinations.
For RHYTHM, explore saying your lines fast, really fast, then slow, really slow. Then explore everything in between and various combinations.
For REPETITION, Say the dialogue, but add repetition of words, sounds, or even entire phrases.
For DICTION, speak each word as precisely and correctly as you possibly can. Then try speaking the same words screwed up, mispronounced, unclear. Play with your voice and the sounds of the words. Explore the words. Experiment with speech.
With each exercise, keep your mind open. How does saying the lines this way affect what you think about the character, the meaning of the lines, the situation?
Remember, these exercises are to help you explore the full range of your voice. To help you use your voice to discover something about your character that you would not be able to discover by simply thinking about your character.
Let your voice enter the conversation. Explore the dialogue. Let your voice lead your mind to discovery
NON-WORD SOUNDS can convey a tremendous amount of meaning and insight into character. These grunts, laughs, sneezes, sniffs, sobs, sighs, and all the hundreds of other noises performers produce with their voice-parts (lips, tongue, teeth, lungs, etc.) need to be explored.People make non-word sounds all the time. Often times these noises have no particularly dramatic meaning, like sneezing during hayfever season, or coughing because one has a cold.
Other times the sounds might have a specific meaning, like "Mmmmmmmmmm…" to indicate something tastes good, or like clearing one's throat to quietly indicate to someone you want them to shut up because they are saying something stupid or embarrassing.

Actors can use non-word sounds as character mannerisms, like a character who always sniffs loudly when they get angry. Such mannerisms would not likely be written into the script by the author. The actor invents them by playing around with different non-word sounds until they find one that seems appropriate to the character. Keep in mind though that non-word noises are generally used sparingly. Doing too much can easily have a comic effect, which might be OK if its comedy you are after. But generally, that's not what you are trying to accomplish. For instance, if you were to start sighing, moaning, or inhaling audibly before every sentence - it would sound pretty funny!
As you rehearse the dialogue, look for opportunities to include some non-word sounds. Use them for emphasis or to help establish your character.

VOCAL EXERCISES
As well as warming-up and exercising mind and body, actors must also warm-up and exercise their vocal apparatus.

Here are some exercises to help you do that.
EXERCISE 1: Breath in through your nose for four seconds. To ensure you count slowly say to yourself: "That was one breath… That was two breaths... etc) Now hold your breath deep in your lungs and count slowly to yourself for four seconds. Now breath out through your mouth, counting slowly to yourself for four seconds. Repeat and repeat and repeat. Not only will this simple exercise help breath control it also helps calm you down if you have stage fright and helps you to focus.
EXERCISE 2: Breath in by pulling in the diaphragm. Inhale through nose and mouth at the same time
EXERCISE 3: Breath control: Breath in deeply. Inhale through nose and mouth. Round the lips. Release air gradually through the lips in a silent whistle.
EXERCISE 4: Sit in straight chair, upright but relaxed. Pant rapidly with the mouth open, but don't inhale. "Huh-huh-huh" - pant seven times, pause briefly, inhale deeply.
EXERCISE 5: Pant as above but with three slow "Huh's" followed by a short pause
EXERCISE 6: Pant with strong "Huh's" inhaling between each.
EXERCISE 7: Take a deep breath, slowly let out through rounded lips until it feels like you have emptied the lungs. Inhale deeply.
EXERCISE 8: Inhale. Hum the air out. Go up the scale, one note with each breath. Empty lungs each time.
EXERCISE 9: Inhale, count on each exhale One (refill), One, two (refill), One, two, three (refill) etc. - to ten.
EXERCISE 10: Now you have worked on breath control and relaxation try warming-up your voice by:
· Repeating vowel sounds.
· Repeatedly saying tongue twisters (e.g. Red lorry, yellow lorry)
· Try saying those tongue twisters REALLY fast!
· Count. Loudly. Get faster. Slower. Quieter. Louder.
· Project your voice. Remember - if it hurts - you are not projecting - you're yelling! So stop yelling and practice some more…
· Read everything out loud. Books, magazines, scripts, letters, plays - everything! Get used to using your voice.