Voice

Voice

In this assessment I will be focusing on the voice and different techniques to help warm up the voice and help maintain an healthy voice. In this assessment the task is to create a 15 minute warm up as well to keep a vocal diary of the techniques that i have used in any warm up and that I have done at home which I will set targets for my self to achieve. 

The 15 minute warm up

The 15 minute warm up has to includes a physical warm up which warms up the body which helps get the blood pumping around the body as well the physical warm up has technique that can work on an actors core also the physical warm helps open up the body up which can help the oxygen get to certain parts of the body. 

The 15 minute warm up has the have a vocal warm up which includes techniques that work on a an actor voice such as singing, the dynamic of the voice and range etc all these techniques that we use in a vocal warm up can help an actor when they perform. 

This was the check list that we got when planning our own warm up....

1. Arrive on time - clothes that you are able to move in - and water have plenty of water - this is so you can get in and start you warm up, the clothes when you are giving examples of what you want people to do and the water to help keep the body hydrated and help the voice after you have used it.  
2. plan the warm up though in bullet points, so you can refer to them when delivering the warm up. 
3.  Have an aim of your warm up- So you know what part of the vocals that you are going to focus on. 
4. Think about all the warm ups that you have done- this includes the ones in class so you could use them in your own warm up.
5. Think about using "Call and Response" - this can help when you are teaching a song to the class if they don't know the words you can give the example and get them to repeat it after you. 
6. Make sure you know what you are talking about and why you are doing it? - there is no point getting the class to do something if you don't know what help it's going to have on their bodies.
7. Look up physiology and us terminology during the warm up- this will show that you know what part of the body the certain technique is helping. 

My plan for my Vocal Warm up

Physical side 

1. Head rollers three times in both direction to relax the body.
2. shoulder rolls three time one way and three times the other, also a way to relax the body. When do this breath in though the nose and out though the mouth. 
3. Head on chest and slowly fall to the floor and hang there, then using your cord pull your self up then shake it off.
4. Repeat with your head on chest then hang but this time continue to the floor into the child position to stretch the back then looking up to the sun and finally move into the dieing swan position, use your cord to help you back in to standing with you head the last thing to come up. 
5. In pairs interlock your hands then slowly sit on the floor using each other strengths and weigh ( pairs need to be roughly the same weight) then do the same to get back up to standing, then repeat the same technique again but this time do it back to back once down on the floor try to get back up again. 
6. Stay back to back but this time but slowly one person from the pair start bending there back so the other person feet are of the floor, this is helping to stretch the back. 
7. After the back stretches take it in turns to give each other a massage this is to help relax the body and get blood pumping around the body.  

vocal side

Breathing 

1. Open the body up which has been done by the physical warm up the there is oxygen in the body and there is blood pumping around the body as well. 
2. Take a deep breath in through the nose and release the air in the sound of an "S" it doesn't matter the speed or the pitch, repeated three times.
3. Now to include the voice lay on your back with your weight spread out evenly on the floor and a position that your feel conferable in and have you knee raised, I want you to breath in as normal and make sure that your jaw is relax if not massage the jaw starting from behind the ear all the way round the jaw, then I want you to massage another part of your face that feels tense. 
4. As before do the same breathing exercised but this time I would like you to release on a "Z" sound, it doesn't matter how fast or slow or the pitch, repeat this three times so you can really get a feeling of the voice coming through the body. 
5. stretch out the body by rolling on to your side then on to your knees and using the cord pull your self up with your head the last thing to come up. 
6. Now in pair name your self A and B and all I want you to do is to have a conversation but without words but hum instead in this I want you to change your pitch and add emotion to your humming. 

Articulation

1.  To start stretch your faces make it tight then wide, tight then wide and tight then wide. 
2. lick your tongue around your teeth and mouth.
3. with your tongue start to make the a "D" sound then a "T" sound and keep repeating and also use range. 
4. to finish with 4 tongue twisters "World Wide Web" , " I scream, you scream, we all scream ice cream", " She said she should Sit" and "Red car, Yellow car" 

To finish the warm up with a song which is the Banana Song, in this split the group in the pairs and sing the song in cannon with one pair starting the song. 

Evaluation of warm up 

Overall when I presented my warm up I feel that it went well it got everyone going but I did find that going last people we tried of doing warm ups but I am happy with the out come, at some point I should have explain more what I wanted people to do as well with the tongue twisters for everyone I got everyone to do in cannon with wasn't working and you couldn't always tell who was starting the cannon, To improve I would use cannon a lot less meaning if I did tongue twisters again I would do cannon with everyone and I would also made some on my instructions more sense so people know what i am asking them to do.

How the voice works?

Your voice comes from your Larynx (the voice box) but to get the sound to come from the voice box air from your lungs and diaphragm which pass through your Larynx which helps make the sound.


How to Keep a healthy voice?
To keep your voice healthy it is clear that you should always warm up the voice before a show or even sing as for an actor damaging your voice isn't good one of the ways that you could damage your voice is shouting.
exercises that you could is breathing, articulation and singing.


To keep my voice healthy I have kept a vocal dairy of all the exercises that I have done to keep my voice healthy, My target was to be able to a sing a song right with my breath control and working on my articulation. 

13th May 2014
This was the day of which I lead a group warm up which I focused on breathing exercises and as well articulation, I felt from the this warm up my articulation is improving just as well as my breath control.

14th May 2014
Today I worked more on my breathing as I was walking to the train stations as I was walking I took a deep breath in and then release the breath on an A or an E or an S sound I notice when doing this that I was that I could hold the sound a little longer then before talking another breath.

15th May 2014
Today I started to practise my singing, I practise with the song called "Undo" by Sanna Nielsen, This song was helping me with my breath control as there is a part of the song where the artist holds a note longer, I noticed when singing the song when it got to the part of the long note that I could hold the note but for the same amount of time as the artist could just a few seconds short but with practise I should be able to hold the note.

16th May 2014
Today I worked on articulation for this I started with D and as well a T, articulation is something I need to work on as I don't pronounce word fully, I also did some tongue twisters as well to help with pronunciation I notice whilst doing this exercise that some of my pronunciation was improving but it still needs more work, I ended the warm up with a song called "Children of the universal" by Molly which also help with my breath control.

19th May 2014
Today as I was walking down to the train station I worked on breath control by humming different notes high and low and seeing how long I could hold certain notes, I have noticed that I could hold the low notes longer then the high notice as I am not using as much breath on the low notice but with practise I can work on holding the higher notes for longer.

20th May 2014
Today I worked on articulation as I walked down to the train station I started with some tongue twister to get the tongue going and as well I worked on making D and T and I add a new sound a G sound to get the tongue and month going whilst doing this I have noticed that doing the tongue twister is helping me with my pronunciation.
 
21st May 2014
Today I worked on my breath control but this time before I left for the train station I laid on my bed so I could be relaxed and my body weight spread out evenly and just took a deep breath in then out I repeated this three times to then move on to breathing in and then releasing on an S sound I kept doing this but the sound change as the sound come from different parts of body, as I did this I noticed the how the sound was different as it came from different parts of my body and also I notice that I didn't seem as out of breath as I sometimes do after doing these sort of exercises.

22nd May 2014
Today I worked on my singing and I was also practised my breath control by working on the same song as last week and seeing if the breathing exercises I have done during the week have helped my breath control so I started to sing undo again and when the artist got to the long notes I tried to see if I could which I could but only just, I have notice that singing the song today that my breath control is improving as I was able to hold note but it still needs a little bit more work so I can fully hold the note and not feel out of breath after.

23rd May 2014
Today I worked on my breathing and articulation by repeating an exercise that I did on 21st May but this time after doing the breathing exercise I did articulation by still laying on the bed but in a slow motion way I practised saying my D's and T's very slowly so you could could hear very letter being said I did this as sometimes when you say the letter fast I am not always saying the letter correctly that what I have notice so by doing this slowly I have worked on my articulation in a new view.

27th May 2014
Today I worked on my breathing by humming to songs I know so I was humming the lyrics of a song instead of singing the song to see if I could hold a note in a humming mode instead of singing but when the humming any of the songs that had a note to hold I was able to hold the note fully, I have noticed that I could hold the note longer and didn't sound out of breath after which has shows that the exercises are working.

28th May 2014
Today I worked on my articulation for the end of year by going over the lines for the show and finding the lines that I find to have trouble pronouncing correctly or stumbling on also by doing this it also help me with learn the lines that I wasn't sure on I have notice by repeating the certain lines that I am able to say the line more clearly.

2rd June 2014
Today I worked on my breathing and articulation for the end of year show I worked on my breath for the big paragraph I have in the first scene so I could work out when I need to take a breath and as well working on my articulation so I can pronounce all my line correctly and not stumble on any of the lines. I have notice by doing this it help my performance I knew when to take the right breaths and my articulation was correct on my lines.

3rd June 2014
For my Last entry for the dairy I have done a recording of my singing the song "Radioactive" by Imagine Dragons for this performance I have using all the exercise that I have down for the past three to four weeks to make this performance work. (please note this is recorded through a laptop and might not sound very good)