05/12/2013

1. Why is the exercise you have chosen important for vocal development?

The exercise I chose was nasal resonance. This exercise is useful for vocal development because it helps you to use and develop resonance in your voice.

2. Chorus forms of speech

The chorus forms of speech are:

• Unison
• Call and response
• Cannon
• Unison on last word

We were given a poem and split into groups, each group had one section of the poem and had to create a way of saying it in chorus and movement to go with it. The first group did it in a sort of gospel form, they mostly used call and response and some unison. My group, the second group, used all the forms in our speech, including two different types of cannon (1 word and 1 line). The final group used cannon.

10/10/2013

1. Why are the exercises you have chosen important for vocal development/you personally?

The first exercise I chose was nose circles. This exercise helps to release tension in the muscles at the back of the neck. This is important for vocal development as any tension in the neck will affect your voice production.
The second exercise I chose was drop and release. This exercise is important for vocal development as it helps to release both your voice and body and can help to ground you and make full use of your breath. This is particularly important for me because I want to work on my breath control so I can further improve my projection.

03/10/2013

1. Why are the exercises you have chosen important for vocal development/for me personally?

The first exercise is about bouncing words from the diaphragm. It is important to utilise your diaphragm fully, when breathing, for vocal development, to be able to project your voice. The second exercise I did was initiating supported speech from the lower belly. It is also important for projection and breathing, in speech, to engage your lower belly muscles. Both of these exercises are important for me, as one of the things I need to work on is projection.

2. What feedback have you been given when performing text?

From my poem recital, today, I was told that my pauses and articulation were good. However, I need to work on projection. To improve my projection I should work on calling exercises and the 'shh' exercise from today's lesson, also I should work on breathing exercises and I should make sure to utilise the bodywork exercises we have learnt to make sure I am releasing all of the tension in my body, as any tension in the body can hinder breathing and as a result affect projection. Also I have been advised that I have a naturally high tone and for next lesson should find a piece that will focus on my lower tones of voice.

26/09/2013

1. Why are the breathing exercises you have chosen important for vocal development or particularly for you?

The exercises I chose were developing the in-breath and the diamond points. Both of these exercises are important for me, as I need to improve my projection and breath control and these exercises can help.

2. How can you use pitch, pause, pace and/or inflection to convey a particular emotion?

To convey anger you can use a higher pitch and vary the pace. Also adding pauses and stressing particular words can emphasise anger.

19/09/2013

Neck Rolls

Spinal Peel

1. Why are the exercises I chose important for vocal development?
Neck rolls help to release tension in the neck. This is important because having tension in your neck can have a negative impact on your voice production.
Spinal peels help to relax and stretch your spine, which helps in improving your posture. Having a good posture is very important in voice as it helps you to breathe properly.

2. One thing that I personally would like to work on for my vocal development.
I would really like to improve my projection, as this will be very important in theatre for my voice to be heard by a whole audience. There are breathing exercises that can help to achieve this, which we will be looking at in class later on.