Welcome to the Auditorium!
Teachers, in many ways, are like actors and can learn much from the rich tradition
of theatre voice.
Click on the illustration to learn helpful techniques.
Warm up your body
The theatre voice coach says:
Runners stretch and jog lightly before a race to avoid injuries. Similarly, actors warm up their
voices. The rich tradition of theatre offers a collection of effective techniques to
get the voice ready to go.
Do warm-ups daily. Think of these warm-ups as other routines you follow because
personal health is important to you: like flossing your teeth or taking a multi-vitamin
each day.
Actors stretch their bodies mainly to release unnecessary tension.
Excess tension impedes the free flow of breath and interferes with optimal
functioning of the muscles used for speech. Stretching also gets blood flowing to your rib muscles;
these muscles will work hard in your teaching day.
As you warm up your body, remember that good body alignment is essential to good voice use.
Exercises prepare your muscles to bring you to an upright relaxed posture so you are ready to speak.
Ready, set, breathe
The theatre voice coach says: Breath is the generator that powers the engine of the voice. Full and effective breathing gives the voice power, energy, resonance and flexibility. All actors work with the body and breath before moving onto other areas of voice development.
What are earmarks of a voice-friendly inhalation of air?
Breathe in through the nose to warm and moisten air.
Shoulders should not move upward, and upper chest remains still.
Diaphragm (area just above the navel) expands.
Abdominal muscles (around and below the navel) relax.
Your intercostals (or muscles between your ribs) in your sides and back expand
as the lungs fill with air.
Allow your breath to do the work of speaking. In other words, let your words float on air. Don't push from the throat.
Hum your folds to life
The theatre voice coach says: Mmmm, your vocal folds are buzzing to life.
To warm up your folds, try this:
Hum at middle pitch or slightly higher.
Use good breath support; feel the throat open.
Take new breaths to keep your hum going.
Think of humming as a vocal fold massage.
Once you've hummed a minute or so, glide your hum up in pitch, then back down to a low-pitched hum.
Imagine a silent "m" bouncing off your diaphragm like a trampoline.
Once your "m" has bounced, visualize it coming up your trunk and around the bend at the back of your
throat to just behind your closed lips.
Toward the end of the journey, do you feel the vibration of the "m"
just inside the lips and nose? Finally, release the "m" as a hum.
This exercise not only warms up your vocal folds,
but gets you prepared to effectively project your voice.
Warm up your articulators
The theatre voice coach says: Articulators — the tongue, lips, soft palates, jaw, and others — shape your sounds into words.
To get the most out of these parts, it's important to remember one thing: BREATHE.
For example, release the lower jaw by saying, "ouch." Did you breathe before you spoke? Disconnecting your speech from your breath forces you to "push" words out from the throat.
Articulator warm-ups relieve tension, but don't over-do them. "Little, but often" is a good motto. Your articulators get a strenuous
workout in your teaching day. Unnecessary tension only adds to their burden.
Judy Leigh-Johnson, a theatre voice coach and lecturer at The University of Iowa, demonstrates some of the exercises actors use
to prepare themselves to speak. See these videos in the Notes section.
Exploit your natural resonance
Resonance refers to the amplification, richness and quality of your voice.
Metaphorically, think of your mouth and throat as the speakers of your stereo system.
Are you projecting a voice with poor resonance or one that is fully resonant?
Exploiting your natural resonance spaces is a wonderful skill for teachers to develop.
By using the nooks and crannies of your unique vocal structure for resonance, you will find that your voice
carries well without increasing your volume. This takes the load off your vocal folds.
Resonant voice might be described as sounding "buzzy." Can you hear
the effect of resonance on the sound [ee] in these recordings?
Female, low resonance
Female, high resonance
Male, low resonance
Male, high resonance
How you can add resonance
We all have three sound-resonating areas: the nose, throat and mouth.
Not surprisingly, these are the places where you feel vibration when you speak.
Practically speaking, you can do little to alter the nasal cavity, but go for
optimal resonance with your throat and mouth.
Alleviate tension in the throat, keeping the airspace open for your
voice to pass seamlessly through.
Open your lower jaw during speech to expand the mouth.
Avoid excess tension in the soft palate, lips, tongue and jaw.
Keep the tongue out of the way, lying flat in the mouth with the tip behind
the bottom teeth unless needed to shape sounds.
Use your vowels. We mostly hear resonance through vowel sounds.
Strive for a balance of air passing through the nose and mouth for pleasant, clear speech.
Each one teach one
Select a poem or a paragraph from a work of literature. Read the selection aloud
to a friend or co-worker, and have your partner evaluate your speech according
to this checklist:
- How's your posture?
- Do you prepare your body to speak (by settling into a voice friendly position),
or do you mill around as you talk?
- Do rhythm, pitch and volume vary?
- Does the last word or two of every sentence "drop off?"
- Do your words float on your breath, or do they sound pushed out?
- Where do you pause?
- Are you relaxed?
- Are you emphasizing the important words?
Finishing touches:
10 tips to better speaking
1. Vary your rhythm. Have you ever noticed that President Bush tends to read
three words and then pause? The rhythm is not unlike a waltz. While this may sound soothing, is it
effective for motivating people to action?
2. Don't drop off the last word or two of every sentence. This is a common but ineffective
speaking pattern. Add energy to your thought. The difference is HUGE.
3. Pause at important points. When you do, your audience will absorb your thought.
4. Don't clench your lower jaw. Sometimes, people "speak through" their
back teeth, trapping their speech. Instead, make the most of your voice production
power, and let your words flow easily through the mouth.
Would you like more speaking tips?
Rediscover pitch that's perfect for you
Speaking in a pitch range appropriate for you is not only more effortless, it's
healthier. People can get into real vocal trouble by imitating a voice that doesn't
"fit" their natural vocal makeup. So, how do you find your natural pitch range?
The way you spontaneously say "mm-hmm" (as if you are agreeing with someone)
is usually in about the middle of a person's natural pitch range. Vocologists
sometimes also recommend a natural yawn or laughter as a mid-point marker for
a person's range.
However, habitual pitch and natural pitch aren't always the same. Habitual pitch
is learned, while our natural voice is innate. We may move from natural pitches
to a habitual range of pitches due to social upbringing or peer pressure.
So, does this mean teachers should speak at a monotonous tone all day? Not at
all. The natural way you "mm-hmm" is, rather, a springboard for
your spectrum of vocal pitches. It's healthy for your voice to vary pitches.
Clues in your speech
Pitch is powerful tool for adding meaning to your speech. Read the following question
in a monotone:
She took that boy to the party?
Now, raise your pitch to put an
emphasis on she.
Then, try reading the sentence, emphasizing a different word each time, playing with varying
pitches.
See how pitch can substantially change the meaning of the sentence?
Think about how your vocal clues make your meaning clearer and easier for your listeners. How could this technique be used in your classroom?
A bright idea
Integrate your voice work into daily routines.
Practice vocal warm-ups following your morning run, walk or workout. If you train
with weights, do your voice work at the opposite end of the day. Voice work and
weight training don't go well together.
Hum in the shower to warm up vocal folds. They love the moisture in steam!
Hum in different pitches to release the range, increase vocal variety and relieve
monotony. You can hum anywhere!
Exercise your jaw before or after brushing your teeth.
Warm up your articulators while commuting to work.
Release shoulder tension by moving your shoulders forward and backward in small circles.
Hum at the end of the day (perhaps as you reorganize your desk or drive home).
Stick to middle-pitch "mmmm's," and think of it as a cool down.
Vocal freedom workbook
Theatre voice is rich with imagery and ideas that may be new to you. Actors must develop
skills and habits that allow them to safely and effectively deliver lines from unamplified
stages performance after performance without a loss of vocal quality. An actor's livelihood depends on this ability.
As a teacher, you are also a vocal performer, but perhaps — as yet — have not received any vocal training.
You may wish to learn more about theatre voice. Explore theatre departments at colleges and universities near you for
beginning courses.
In addition to technical skills you can glean from theatre voice courses, you may also
learn about vocal self-expression. Tension, lack of self-esteem, or emotional trauma
sometimes can cause individuals to squelch their innate abilities to produce voice.
Want to learn more? Download and print your personal copy of the booklet,
Tips
and Tools to Vocal Freedom.
