Friday 11 December 2015

Week 9

This week was a step forward from the rest, having taken into account everything we have learnt in the past 8 weeks, we had to step on our own 2 feet and try things without guidance as such. We were told to find a space in the room and carry out our own voice warm up. Starting with stretches I did the sun salute twice over to stretch both sides of the body evenly, I had a few glitches having been put on the spot and forgot what stretch to do next but I got there in the end.

Moving on I began to do the lazy days exercise, starting to focus on breathing to get it steady at a consistent pace, once I was happy having focused on the breath and relaxing my muscles I moved on to using my voice, starting with the ‘f’s and v’s, moving on to the hums and ‘mah’s I built up using my voice to warm up my voice efficiently. From the lazy days I went into the prayer position to repeat the voice warm up before crouching with my hands on the floor to do it one final time. After that admittedly I completely forgot what next, and as instructed afterwards, I would move on to repeat the voice arm ups to the wall and then project out into an open space.


After the warm up, going round the group we each took in turn to read aloud our speech to an audience for the first time given that our ‘performance’ is in 2 weeks. When I read aloud I was aware that I was speaking too fast, to begin with that was the nerves but towards the end of the speech particularly, it was evident that I had worked on that far less than the beginning of the speech so I know what to focus on over the next few weeks. I was told that I had good articulation and pronunciation and I could connect well with the argument presented, but I needed to slow down my pace to get the point across. Additionally, it was evident that I was less confident with the speech as a whole and I needed to be more confident with what I was saying to be able to look up and connect with my peers to get my argument across so learning the script would be beneficial for me. 

Week 8

This week was an interesting one for me. We worked on the idea of portraying your point in a creative manner and being passionate about what you’re talking about. After the usual warmups the theme for this week was ‘painting a picture.’ We were given an extract from a poem of a ship describing it in detail.

 We took ourselves off to a corner of the room and reading line by line we used our and the empty space in front of us to paint a picture in front of us. This allowed us to truly feel and be a little more passionate about what the speech was saying. We came back into the middle and read it out line by line delivering passion. We then went back in pairs, one person shut their eyes and the other took them around the painting using their voice to express the passion as well as the beauty of what they originally painted before. Having come back into the circle again, every one delivered each individual line with more clarity as if they could see it. whilst using the correct posture and having clarity in pronouncing the words, everybody’s facial expressions were more relaxed and convincing as they used facial expression to further the passion in their voices making the speech come to life and pull the listeners in. After that, the exercise was taken further, we went back and we acted out the speech putting ourselves into the action of it and using our voices to feel the emotion within the text further. For me this exercise proved to be the most useful as it allowed me to feel a different tone within each of the lines as if it was a completely different emotion than I had envisaged before. This for me helped with the preparation of my speech as I was able to transfer this over and feel some different tones within my speech that I wanted to portray. 

Week 7

Week 7 was an important lesson for me considering I struggle to slow my pace down when talking. After doing the usual warm ups of lazy days and projecting our voice in the motions of prayer, crouching, resonating your voice to the wall and the room and then mouth warm ups we looked into the idea of detail within speeches. After doing the usual warm ups, yoga, lazy days, and exercising our mouth muscles we went on to picking detail out of speech.

We started by getting into pairs and reading out parts of a speech and at the end of every sentence, the partner who was listening had to ask questions which the reader would answer by placing emphasis on that part of the speech which answers the question.


After this, another exercise that helped massively was ‘drop the bag.’ This game we all started walking around holding a bag in the ear. At the end of every full stop, we put the bag down and swapped bags. As the game continued, at every separate punctuation a new move was added in. for example, commas you had to turn on the spot, semi colons you had to stand on your tip toes before continuing.  

week 5

This week was working on mouth exercises, using the mouth and tongue correctly when talking. Once thing I was intrigued by was making yourself yawn which helped you work out the different muscles in your throat that create different sounds. When you yawn you can feel the part of your voice that makes it go deeper. When you raise your Adams apple up and down it changes the pitch and tone of your voice also. We focused on the larynx and pharynx in this lesson to study our resonance. Swallowing and moving the Adams apple that way helps you locate your larynx, and yawning helps with the pharynx location.


 I had stated before that I have a particularly high pitched voice so this lesson aided me to give me something to help bring my voice down a tone or two to come across as more professional and more convincing in giving my speech. Additionally we focused on the soft palette and the jaw, producing sounds like ‘ng’ and massaging the jaw as we talk also. The exercise that was the one most beneficial for me was one where we placed our hands on our foreheads and hummed, we moved our hands down to our nose, then mouth then chest and each time our hand moved down our voice dropped a pitch and helped see that your pitch can lower so when talking you can picture where your resonance is coming from and how to change your pitch. 

weeks 3 and 4

For weeks 3 and 4 we were began to put a bit more focus on our voice particularly working with the diaphragm and the breathing in the right way. Week 3 we started to incorporate our voices into the lazy day’s workout. We started off the lesson with a bit of yoga to stretch our muscles and then laid on the floor. When we were comfortable with our breathe having reached a steady rhythm of breathing in and out, we did the same motions with our body, breathing in as we lay still and as we rolled over we started to use our voice. For the first set we made ‘f’ sounds continuously in a vibration with our lips and teeth. The second was a ‘v’ sound as we hummed through it. This started to warm up the vocal cords. Third was a little louder as we hummed a ‘m’ sound and finally projecting our voice that little bit further we hummed a ‘mah’ sound. Following on from this we rolled over and repeated the voice motions in order in the yoga prayer position as we were encouraged to feel the voice coming from the pit of our stomachs rather than our throats. This resonates the voice further. Finally we got up into a crouch position and as we bounced on our toes we continued the voice motions which allowed us to project our voices that little bit more.

Alongside working on the diaphragm, we experimented with vowel sounds using our mouth in different ways. particularly working on the articulators that helped with pronunciation and using our voice correctly. 

One of the exercises was the ‘three suns’ which was where we breathed in using our hands to demonstrate our breathing and this also helped to elongate my breath which is a good exercise for me to practise in slowing down my pace when talking.

We also incorporated the idea of breath and emotion, for me this was the most interesting as it helped with the idea of breathing and talking on certain lines of my speech to deliver a certain effect. We walked around the room to begin with and we used breath to deliver compliments anonymously, this was heart-warming and it certainly lifted the mood for all students. Then we played a game called ‘breath play’ stood opposite a partner and in a similar manner we practised giving an imaginary gift, saying a heartfelt comment and each time trying it with a different breath; breathing out, breathing in and simply no breath at all! Breathing in for me was the warmest and happiest way of delivering those, breathing out made it less heartfelt and not breathing at all portrayed no emotion for me. This extenuated the importance of breathing at particular parts of the speech I want to deliver!


Following on from this we incorporated facial expressions with breathing. Standing in a circle we looked to the right of us. We pick a compliment to say to that person in our head and we breathe the compliment to them without saying a word. This helps facial expression delivering the emotion also. Following on from this we say the compliment with the breath. 

Week 2

Today marks the first of our voice classes, today was a simple lesson to get to know the warm ups we could use. This included ‘the lazy days’ warmup, a granny dance, sun salute yoga workout and what I like to call body manipulation.

We were welcomed into the class and were told to find a space and lay down. Having done so we had to lay on our backs, have our legs up and knees at a 90 degree angle so our calves are parallel to the floor. From this position we lay on our sides and have both arms pointing out in front of us, our knees stay apart. To do the warm up the idea is to relax the muscles in our body and focus primarily on our breath, to do this we began to roll from side to side, knees staying apart. We breathe in as we lay on our side and as we roll over to our other side that is when we breathe out, the arm that was closest to the floor draws a semi-circle above our head, the other arm runs droopily across your chest. This allows for you to achieve a constant steady breath and soft muscles in preparation for voice work.

Moving onto the second, we did some stretching, one I am already familiar with, this is a popular yoga stretch that is advised for every day- the sun salute. Combining deep breaths, lunges, cobra, down dog, and simply trying to touch your toes…(which after 5 years I still cannot do!) this particularly helped stretch the muscles inside your body to and also afterwards achieve a better posture to be able to use our voices effectively and without straining.

Following on from this we did some short work on our stance ensuring legs were shoulder width apart and grounded with the floor keeping us balanced. Our legs were relaxed, butt tucked in, this keeps strain particularly off of your back muscles when standing I found. Shoulders back and down which in turn meant our chests were naturally out giving our lungs more space to breathe without being hunched over, it clears the airways! Then you hold your head high and this should enable you to talk standing comfortable without putting strain on your voice.


Afterward we did the ‘body manipulation’ in which you lay on the ground and relax all of your muscles as of you were sleeping. Then your partner goes around your body, starting with calves, then elbows down to your hands, shoulders and finally your neck going up to your head. They take the limb in their hands and rub gently and relax the muscles before laying them down. This also allowed me to focus on my breathing and especially when going about day to day to try and relax your muscles too.  

Wednesday 7 October 2015

Voice Analysis: First Impressions

Hi there!

My name is Sophie Franklin! Welcome to my second blog! I do have a first one, it’s dedicated primarily to books but more recently I’ve taken a more casual approach to it uploading poems and weekly thoughts! Here, however, I shall be uploading to aid my university work! This will become apparent as some posts will be simple assignments and some may be dairy recordings of what happened to aid my memory towards the end of the year when deadlines are approaching!

For the first week we were asked to record our voice and analyse it. Before listening to my voice, I am aware that I mostly speak fast pace, and at times I can have a slight stutter, this becomes more predominant if I am excited or nervous in any way as I stumble over particularly the first few words in my sentence. Having originally come from the South East in Kent, I have been bought up with a typical ‘Queens English’ accent being told to pronounce words correctly and use my ‘t’s etc which many people to this day even comment on how posh I sound.

I wanted to make this analysis accurate so rather than sitting in a room awkwardly recording my voice not knowing what on earth to say and being consciously aware of how I am talking, I asked permission of someone who I was on Skype to one evening to see if they wouldn’t mind me recording the conversation for 20 minutes so I could analyse myself accurately and honestly. This seemed to work well because a few minutes in I had actually forgotten I was recording myself which towards the end of the recording, I actually commented on!

So here goes…

Just at the beginning of the recording I have already noticed that I incorporate ‘um’ and ‘er’ into my speech when trying to explain what it is I need to do, additionally I also use the word ‘oh’ and ‘like’ a lot when explaining stories of what I have been up to. The first 2 may be linked slightly to the minor stammer I have of not being able to process what I want to say into saying it directly and fluently. As I was on Skype, I have noticed that I have a relaxed tone of voice that whilst my voice is naturally high pitched at times I did have a slightly lower tone of voice, being relaxed I also wasn’t speaking fast pace as I thought I do. I have a typical ‘Queens English’ ‘posh’ accent but at times I skip my ‘t’s at the end of words.

This isn’t very often, but at times I have noticed that I also like to elongate some of my vowels in the middle or at the end of words, on the other hand I am very irregular with this because at other times I shorten my vowels a lot and it sounds like I am between 2 accents. This may be because I had a heavy influence from someone from Manchester over the past 2 years so I may have some accentual aspects of the Manchurian accent in my voice.

My volume stayed the same throughout the recording more or less, but taking into account the factors of at the time I had a cough and was rather tired so I was able to keep control of my volume. It is important to take those factors into account with having the result that they did because I have noticed, particularly in the past year, people have made me aware that I sometimes talk louder than is necessary for the time or place I am at.


I may revisit this post at a later date having analysed my voice to a better standard from a different setting, perhaps with a group of friends to see how I differentiate.