AAU28D: 20 mins Vocal and Physical Warm-up Routine

AAU28D: Set Reading 5- Besides cultivating good habits of voice and speech production, how can we actively care for and maximise the use of our voices in terms of modifying our lifestyle and environment?

Bunch (2009) mentions that the balancing of muscular activity within the larynx as well as the opposing muscles is vital in maximizing the efficiency of voice production. An example that was brought up was about how singers that perform every single night, working hard to make themselves heard for long hours in a smoke-filled environment will often get their voices affected. The voice of such singers suffers from long-term chronic misuse and being in an environment filled with smoke and alcoholic beverages do little to alleviate the situation.

CityCost (2017, March). Nightclub picture.

The example is brilliant because such places are often known to accommodate drug dealing so anyone who has to be there for a prolonged period of time will inevitably be at higher risk of substance abuse. In order to adequately care for our voice, the most important thing we can do is to isolate ourselves from all factors like smoke, alcohol, drugs, voice misuse and lack of rest to the best of our abilities!

Too much of anything is never a good thing. As such, we can aim to strike a balance by eating a variety of healthy food and trying out different kinds of fruit juice each time instead of sticking solely to what we usually consume. Another important thing is to make sure that we get the medication for respiratory diseases instead of letting the situation drag on to ensure that no permanent damage is done to our voice!

CityCost (2017, March). ‘Smoky Disco’ ups the immersive in a new nightclub experience coming to Tokyo. Retrieved 2018, November 13, from https://www.city-cost.com/blogs/City-Cost/Gya7G-living_tokyo_shibuya-ku

Bunch, M. (2009). Dynamics of the Singing Voice (4^th ed.). Wien: Springer-Verlag, pp. 123–137.

AAU28D: Set Reading 4- When giving a speech, what verbal aspects of delivery must you pay attention to?

Chen (2007) is right in saying that the medium is the message and refers to our voice. Our voice can reflect personality, power, strength, confidence, belief, and most importantly emotions. Giving a speech or a presentation is a method of communication between the presenter and the audience. With clever use of our voice, we are able to surpass the contents of our speech and connect directly with the audience by making a good choice of words, good articulation and placing emphasis on the right words.

However, the method of using words, articulation and emphasis is not to be fixed because there are lots of different situations to consider. Lucas (2007) categorizes the speeches into 4 main types- objects, processes, events and concepts. Information and method of delivery for each type of speech differ greatly and thus, it is vital for us to be able to understand that we have to customise our speech each time.

For example, you would not try to make an educational talk into a stand-up comedy because the content is too heavy, and humour relies on a light and easy content to be successful. Turk (1985) mentions that interest and enthusiasm in listeners are generated by verbal and non-verbal signals given off by the presenters. Listeners also feel more secure when they can see the person who is giving them new information. With that level of trust, you will be able to introduce a more shocking or controversial topic gently to them and let them accept the message which you are trying to get across to them as compared to bluntly presenting them with the topic of which you may receive jeers, insults and an occasional rotten egg thrown at you.

Being fluent and well-articulated helps bring across a feeling that you are passionate about your topic, which will let your readers value your views heavily and not doubt a word that you say. Cleverly using jargon that is known to most of the audience reduces the time you take to bring your message across the audience and they will remember you as an expert on your topic. There are a wide variety of things you can do to verbally deliver a great speech but at the end of the day, careful construction of an effective speech that is easiest for the audience to understand in the limited time available after thoroughly analysing the audience is the most important thing you can do (Turk, 1985).

Chen, Ernest. (2003). Earnestly Speaking: How to Achieve Success in Public Speaking. Singapore: INTERCONEX Management Pte Ltd, pp. 116–130.

Lucas, S. E. (2007). The Art of Public Speaking (9^th ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill, pp. 300–312.

Turk, Christopher. (1985). Effective Speaking: Communicating in Speech. London: Spon Press, pp. 129–143.

AAU28D: Set Reading 3- How can we connect to language in dramatic text?

Corrigan (1997) has mentioned that there is the relevance of the teaching of voice with psycho-physical techniques when it comes to speech production. A physical activity can induce a mental correlation in the same way language can bring out the urge to act in you. This is especially evident in class, where we play engaging games that are fun for any age and get everyone excited and running about. The inhibitions that we placed on ourselves are released when we get caught up with having fun and focusing on the game at hand. Similarly, famous speeches inspired feelings of pride, righteous anger, patriotism and more with them and it was for that which the speeches were remembered for.

The dramatic text is written specially so that they could be delivered in a dramatic context, and what helped delivery the drama in the text was by the emotions that are infused into each word. In the poetry recitation of Jabberwocky by Lewis Carroll, the words do not make sense. When delivered by someone with a full understanding of the story of the Jabberwock, the gibberish words came to life and became a full story that everyone could understand.

Stobierski (2018, May). Desperation picture.

This relates to how we pick up non-verbal signals in body language; what we picked up instead was the emotions and intent that resides behind the way a word is pronounced. You don’t have to understand a foreign language when someone is shouting at you until their face turns red to know that you have upset them. You will not mistake a face full of helplessness and desperation trying to hold your hand while talking frantically as an over-friendly handshake. You will not mistake language in a dramatic text which, therefore, becomes a universal language just like facial expressions and body language.

Corrigan, M. (1997). ‘Psycho-Physical Techniques and Their Relevance to Voice and Actor Training’, in Hampton, M. & Acker, B. (Eds.), The Vocal Vision: Views on Voice by 24 Leading Teachings, Coaches & Directors. New York: Applause, pp. 93–105.

Stobierski, Tim (2018, May). Student Loan Desperation: My Crazy Student Loan Repayment Story. Retrieved 2018, November 13, from http://studentdebtwarriors.com/students/student-loan-desperation/

AAU28D: Set Reading 2- How does the larynx work to produce voice?

Crannell (2000) mentions that a voice is produced by the means of a vibrating agent. In the production of sound, we found that sound is in fact made by the combination of air passing through the vocal folds within the larynx. The vocal folds vibrate from the moving air and create sound waves that reverberate through the larynx and up towards the pharynx, nose and mouth.

We all know that sound travels the fastest through a solid because neighbouring atoms are closely packed in an orderly manner and form what we call a crystal lattice structure. A larynx is made of cartilage surrounded by fibrous tissue like the thickening and stretching muscles and contains the posterior cricoarytenoid, the transverse and oblique arytenoids, the thyroarytenoids and vocalis, and lastly the cricothyroid. Being physically linked side by side to each other, all these parts will thus receive the vibrations from the vocal folds, manipulate the vibrations and produce a variety of sounds.

Miller-Keane Encyclopedia and Dictionary of Medicine, Nursing, and Allied Health, Seventh Edition. (2003). Larynx photo.

How do these parts manipulate sound? The posterior cricoarytenoid that widens during inhalation and narrows during exhalation gives us the ability to whisper. The transverse and oblique arytenoids open and close the vocal folds so that we may produce phonation. The thyroarytenoids and vocalis will loosen the vocal folds and allow us to talk at a lower pitch during exhalation. The cricothyroid does the reverse by stretching out the vocal folds with help from the stretching muscles and increase the pitch of our voice. The thickening muscles shorten and thicken the vocal folds so that the vibrations are suppressed, allowing us to produce low notes. Altogether, the larynx acts as a sum of all the different parts and is adequately known as the voice box.

Crannell, K.C. (2000). Voice and Articulation (4^th ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth/Thomson Learning, pp. 35–42.

Larynx. (n.d.) Miller-Keane Encyclopedia and Dictionary of Medicine, Nursing, and Allied Health, Seventh Edition. (2003). Retrieved 2018, November 13 from https://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/larynx

AAU28D: Set Reading 1- What does it mean to support the voice?

McCallion (1998) mentions that an actor must be able to fill up the entire theatre with the voice and that the voice reflects what is physically and mentally going on with the speaker. Therefore, to produce any sort of voice and speech, it is important that we prepare ourselves physically and mentally.

Physically, all muscles in the body are linked together so any physical injury will gradually produce strain on the voice even if we do not notice. This much is verified by McCallion, as the first part of his book claims that 'Most of the things which go wrong with the voice do not begin with the vocal organs' and 'most people actively interfere with the way their voices should work, and that interference begins the way they use the body as a whole.'. Therefore, it makes sense that the first step to supporting our voice should start with protecting our body.

It is widely known that to prevent injuries, one should always take warm-ups and stretches seriously before any form of physical activity. Conducting proper warm-ups would also improve the blood circulation of our body, thus making it easier for us to move away from any potentially dangerous situation. A good warm-up begins with breathing properly, which also helps to directly protect our voice. To breathe properly, our ribs should be free to move upwards and outwards without any pain in the process of breathing in. From this action alone, we already see that having upper torso injuries and back injuries will certainly impede the movement of the rib cage and indirectly create a problem for breathing. Going by the same reasoning, even having an injured toe can lead to a short gasp each time the toe gets simulated. Multiple short gasps will cause us to take in cold, unfiltered air through our mouth, causing our throat to dry up and that affects our voice!

McCallion also describes how a baby can cry, wail and scream for hours without losing their voice, while enthusiastic football fans may just lose their voices just after a few matches. A baby uses its voice as a response to anything it perceives as a danger while a football fan cheers in response to each scored goal. Since when a goal will be scored is relatively unpredictable and the football fan may be distracted by other activities that went on before the goal is scored, the body is not prepared to give a long and loud cheer abruptly. This is thus the difference between being mentally prepared and not mentally prepared to produce a voice.

In short, we must get ourselves warmed up and practice more before a speech so that our bodies will be in the optimal condition to support our voice for the speech.

  

McCallion, M. (1998). The Voice Book: For Everyone Who Wants to Make the Most of Their Voice. London: Faber and Faber Limited, pp. 3–35, 39–50. 

AAU28D: Appendix- Breathing Techniques

Breathing Technique:

Fitzsimmons, A (2014, October) Breathing picture.

Proper breathing techniques to protect our voice.

•        Breathe through the nose. Our nose hair will filter out unwanted air particles and warm up the air that we take in because there is friction produced by air current flowing through our nose hair, which is good for us.
•        Breathe using our diaphragm. We should not do clavicle breathing as the intake of air is too much.
•       Breathing should be slow and relaxed to prevent hyperventilation.
•        Breathing should be silent and peaceful.

As we inhale, the external Intercostal muscles contract and the internal Intercostal muscles relax. This causes the ribs to move upwards and outwards, thus increasing the chest cavity to allow the lungs to inflate. At the same time, the central tendon will contract, the diaphragm will move downwards, and the lungs will be able to expand downwards as it inflates.

When the lungs inflate, the air will be sucked in through the nose where it is filtered and warmed by our nose hair. The air will then travel down the windpipe to reach the alveoli through the bronchial tubes where oxygen in the air will be absorbed by the red blood cells flowing through the alveolar capillaries. The red blood cells will discharge carbon dioxide to the alveoli.

As we exhale, the external Intercostal muscles relax and the internal Intercostal muscles contract. This causes the ribs to move downwards and inwards, reducing the chest cavity and helping the lungs to deflate. At the same time, the central tendon will relax, and the diaphragm move upwards again.

When the lungs deflate, the waste products and carbon dioxide that accumulated in the alveoli will be released back into the air.

AAU28D: Voice Study and Production Lesson Ten

Having come to the final lesson, our hearts were a little heavy because there have been no lessons like this module. We began with a short Q & A session to clarify any last-minute doubts on the reflective journal and kicked off the day with some warm-ups. Pretending to an animal, then running and hopping around the class was pretty fun and I really felt this type of physical activities would help me a lot more to release my tension and relax my voice. As we progressed with the other games like catching and so on, I could not help but notice everyone else becoming really engaged like never before. As I looked upon the behaviours of people, I realised that this body language meant that everyone really felt like communicating more.

Body language is a universal, non-verbal communication where we convey signals to the recipient without speaking and accounts for more than 50% of all communication. The signals can come from our facial expressions, how we look at other people, whether our lips are turned up or turned down, whether our palms are facing up or down, how we open up our arms and legs, our posture while we sit or stand and even how close we are standing to each other. It may sound complex, but we tend to subconsciously pick up the signals and react accordingly (Cherry, 2018). It would be something really useful to me as I often encounter situations which I wanted to be a part of but have no idea how to start. Now that I am aware enough to give off signals of openness, it should make it easier for other people to accept me in the conversation and interact more with me.

With our energy levels elevated by the games we played, we soon moved on to the presentation. It was unique, as everyone was presented with a small Steve Jobs sticker while Ignatius started off by remembering the 7^th year and 26^th day anniversary of Steve Job’s death. I thought it was a little weird as the mood became somewhat awkward with the mention of his death because it could be phrased better, but my concerns were soon displaced as Steve Jobs was adequately reintroduced with mentions of his greatest achievements.

The key things to take note of was always mentioned in groups of 3, a method utilised by Steve Jobs and this fact was made used of brilliantly. The presentation helped as well because there were lots of pictures of Steve Jobs doing all sorts of stuff that they were describing throughout the presentation.

I learned here how the right choice of words could help dramatically in the presentation and the setting of the mood, like how Steve Jobs described the iPad from ‘just xx thick’ to ‘super thin’. Along with how the nexus of Steve’s take-home message is compressed within 140 words to fit a tweet, these are very important but yet easy to miss points that were brought up. The presentation was easy on the ears overall and successfully implemented all the great tips that came from Steve Jobs!

Finally, the last activity of the day was to commence with the balloon debate. It is where we take a famous person and argue over who should stay in the safety of the balloon because the balloon is sinking over the hungry shark-infested sea. In short, we have to win over the audience to win the spot in the balloon and move on to the next stage. I was lucky to be in the first and final group to actually try out the balloon debate in class. The key to the balloon debate was to be active and constantly participate in the debate as the famous person we have chosen. Our group consist of Shawn, Hadi, Ian, Wei Suen and me, which was great as Shawn and Ian got the ball rolling for the rest of us who weren’t sure where to start.

Wei Suen who picked the artist Van Gogh was the first to get off the balloon because she was not able to make any claim at all as to why Van Gogh should stay in the balloon. As the debate went on, Shawn got booted out next followed by Hadi while they got confused as to my claim as Nikola Tesla who can remove all the advanced form of technology in the world. I quickly realised that what we say did not have to be valid, but the key was to constantly make any point at all and maintain active. I eventually triumphed over Ian, who could not make a stronger sense logically over any of my claims! It was unexpected but a fun activity that will definitely stay in my memory for sure!

A final photo of our Wednesday 1230-1530 class (unfortunately without Ryan)

AAU28D: Voice Study and Production Lesson Nine

It’s finally time for my group presentation this week. I could not help feeling nervous despite preparing because Ryan, Corliss and Ian are much better speakers than I am. Nervousness aside, the lesson begins with a discussion on the objectives of a presentation. I originally thought that all presentations are the same, but the style of presenting differs from one person to another. I turned out to be wrong as the lesson went on about how different type of objectives requires us to present differently. An educational presentation will show more information to the audience because they're too many important information to impart to the audience who knew little to nothing about the topic at all. At the same time, the simple language should be used so that the audience can take in the information easily and can start digesting the information that has been presented to them. As such, the pace of the presentation will vary according to the level of understanding that the audience has which will have to be confirmed from time to time. While this concept is not new to us, it is something that we do not often experience even in university! In my personal opinion, there is a general misguided concept with the style of presentation and the type of presentation as it was with me.

Gould (2017, July). Argument picture.

A persuasive speech is an argumentative presentation. We are really familiar with argumentative essays since our secondary school time and we all know that ultimately, an argument meant that there will be disagreement. The interesting thing I learnt was that we are unable to defend against every criticism. I looked up for an example of how disagreements in a presentation are dealt with because it’s not a common situation that I often encountered. A disagreement arises from offending someone but is almost unavoidable in discussions about provocative views because being able to disagree is a right of free speech. To argue is to communicate with the audience, and the criticism is their view. As such, it is advised to take a step back and paraphrase and relay back the question such that everyone else with a different view can correctly understand the opposing viewpoint. We should never get defensive about a criticism but instead try to focus on the facts that are being presented (Evans, 2015).

Overall, our group presentation seems rather good according to Prof Matt and none of the audience had much to say about it. However, I personally felt that I could have done better if I was able to inject my words with more emotions and say them out loud. It was not a problem while we were practising but I was not able to overcome my nervous energy with my emotions. Ryan, Corliss and Ian presented brilliantly, though Ian almost did not shake off the fervent energy from when he read that poem about anxiety. There was the part about Corliss’ hair and Ian’s hat covering their faces being an issue, so I looked that up. I was surprised to learn that it is also linked to turning the lights off as an article states that turning off lights or potentially blocking the view of our faces will prevent the audience from focusing on us. If they cannot focus on us, they will not be able to connect with us as well and will lead to lesser audience engagement (Rister, 2012). Nevertheless, I am glad to have learnt more about presentations than I ever did before!

AAU28D: Voice Study and Production Lesson Eight

Having the imagination and creativity to taste the words allows us to realise the full potential of words. It leads to making our speech more interesting and being able to let go will free up our voice and let us gain the confidence to speak. The game Moving Day really helped a lot in the class as shrieking and screaming were heard all around the room. It’s a pity though, as I am not used to playing around since I had childhood asthma when I was little. Despite making full recovery, I missed out on the opportunity to be bold and mix around with everyone else. I admired people who are running around playing to their heart’s content and spent more time analysing how are they having fun.

My reactions are slow, but I figure that I can probably get involved in a group activity more so as to become more active as a person and warm up quicker. This is a goal to achieve if I want to make my warming up exercise work as it should. We went through the game This Is My next, and I struggled to keep up. It also indicates how I should try to memorise and associate items with certain memory. Hence, I went to look up more memory technique and stumbled upon the memory palace technique.

Fadul (2017, March). Mind palace picture

It’s a technique created by Simonides of Ceos more than 2000 years ago because back then, information is not usually recorded, and people were mostly uneducated. Information was more commonly passed down by word of mouth and got more and more inaccurate when parts of the information get forgotten and replaced (Metivier, 2018).

What happens is that a palace within the mind is constructed. As we move along the walkway, there are rooms on each side of the wall. When the door opens, the room is filled with nothing and this is where we start to fill the room up with objects that remind us of the line that we want to memorise. Each room is filled up with different objects relating to what we want to memorise so when we revisit the mind palace, we should be able to recall our lines. I would hope to try this technique to memorise my script for the presentation.

The highlight of the day came when it’s time to start the group presentation on Donald Trump. The group this time round got even better than the previous group when it came to memorizing their scripts. This time around since the presentation did not have as much information given as before, I was able to pick up on the important learning points from the presentation. Each section of the presentation was properly structured in a logical manner and really suited to how I take in information.

The few things that were a pity in the presentation was that Wei Suen could have emphasized on some of the gestures that Donald Trump uses because the mini-video ran through all the gestures really fast. Also, the presentation tips at the end that was summed up by Meryl was pretty good although it was delivered in a way that her part seems unconnected to the rest of the presentation.

Some of the interesting things that I learned here was that the presentation should start with a person that has a higher energy because the energy level will carry over to the next person. Having the energy level go down will make it hard for the next person to pick it up again so the arrangement of who goes first and who goes last is actually something very important as well.

AAU28D: Voice Study and Production Lesson Seven

We began on a more serious note as the group presentations are starting. Generally, we were instructed regarding the tasks that we have to do, namely the reflection journal and the webinars which are actually known as Web seminar. It would probably be hard to do it like how the school is doing since we do not have access to the tools that the profs do but it would be interesting to think about how we can present effectively without an actual audience as the audience reactions do matter.

EBSCO Library Resources (2018, March). Webinar picture.

Since we are presenting to a huge spectrum of audience, the presentation should be able to cater to the general public. Putting a webinar into an internet presentation format however, does not require too much technology but it has its pros and cons as well.  Typical webinar presenters keep their title interesting and their content simply because they are interacting with the audiences online but with an internet presence, such interaction is simply not possible.

Bonelli (2018, May). Q&A picture.

As such, the focus can be placed on having interesting slides and creating an informative Q&A slide to address concepts that are commonly misunderstood. One interesting thing I have learnt over the years, will be to purposely create obvious loopholes within the content. By creating such loopholes, the audience will get curious, puzzled and start asking questions that you have prepared for. Sadly, such an unorthodox method can only work if the content is planned really well and you would require a really good understanding of the audience to successfully guide them to ask the right questions.

As I looked for resources on how to interact with audience through an internet presentation, there was an article about authenticity. More accurately, it describes how authentic, open-ended question will reach out more to the audience because of how the asking and answering such questions can relay sincerity (Morgan, 2015). It keeps the audience active throughout the presentation, thus bringing more life to the presentation.

We then got started with the activities to get us ready, and I found that lifting the ribs made some difference to breathing. It would be interesting to explore what difference it would make to speaking and projecting of the voice. A discussion on keeping the rib cage expanded talked about how the breath energy will be preserved and managed by the diaphragm, allowing a better control over the breath pressure. The balance of breath energy and laryngeal muscle activity will allow a resonating sound in the mouth called a chest voice.  It is a technique taught in classical singing but should not be used all the time because it is a complicated set of motion to maintain and would thus cause more distraction (Fraser, 2009).

Finally, we moved on to Rachael’s group presentation about Adolf Hitler. It was the first ever group live presentation we had, and the atmosphere was pretty tense because what they do today will set the bar for the next group.

The presentation started off strong and was really unique because of the ‘Heil Hitler’ salutes going on each time Hitler’s name is mentioned. They have done lots of research into to mindset of Hitler and presented how Hitler planned every action with a purpose. It’s something to think about because such dedication and careful preparation for presentation apply to us as well. There was quite an amount of content though and became more like presenting the life of Hitler than how his presentation preparation enthralled Germany. It could probably be better if more time was spent on explaining how and why Hitler’s actions worked so that we can take in all the information.

The energy of nervousness by the presenters only affected the speed of the presentation and I found it brilliant as they maintained control of the presentation from the start to the end. This is a problem that I am personally concerned with because I experienced stage fright before and had to make lots of effort to suppress the nervous energy each time. With Prof Matt’s comments on the presentation, I realised that every slide, every prop, and even down to our attire, the way we speak and how we speak is a part of the presentation. No stones are to be left unturned for the group presentation and I guess that is how my group should be prepared.

AAU28D: Voice Study and Production Lesson Six

The lesson started with learning about 4 different personalities, how they work and how they cannot work. By knowing how each type of personality tends to work, we will be able to predict their responses and what can get their attention and corporation. The idea of categorising people into their typical personality stereotype was always taught to us at some points of our life with the goal of helping us understand us and understand the others. I guess that it’s precisely how we were grouped from the last lesson. In any case, the general idea was that we should customise our presentation to cater to everyone so that we may achieve the goal of our presentation.

Kelly (2016, October). Football huddle picture.

Looking back at past lessons so far, I could not help but think that our role is in fact very similar to that of a politician seeking to convince the audience. This is because having the skills to articulate confidently, fluently and yet full of emotions sounds like what an actor needs to pull off a play perfectly. Throw in some psychological knowledge in the crafting of a speech or a presentation, and you will have a skilled politician-in-training who can charm the audience into faithful believers (even more so apparent as we take a look at Martin Luther King addressing the public) It would appear that the ability to speak properly and speak well have been high underrated by me so far!

There are so many techniques involved with speaking and I guess that is what the poetry reading is for. We moved on to poem reading after the warm-up activities where we activated our vocal apparatus and relaxed our stiff posture. Everyone had already picked up a poem of their liking and it seems that I’m quite attracted to the how William Blake writes. His words are so visual that I can play out the scene like a movie in my head, and it helped me to get a gist of he would have wanted to read his poem. However, to my dismay, I have not done enough research about what William Blake was doing while writing his poems as it turns out that him taking drugs would lend a feverous energy to whatever emotions that he is infusing into the poems.

Holden (2017, January). Visual poetry picture.

Of all the people coming up to do their poem reading, Ian stood out the most as he was acting and pouring a wild burst of energy into his anxiety poem. I was uncomfortable yet fascinated because the burst of energy he had kind of went way off from anxiety to maniacal, but he wasn’t bothered at all about putting on such a performance in class. It was something that I could never have done or dared to do because what he is doing is to amplify the emotions in the words and infecting everyone with one huge emotional outburst. The brief moment where he got the anxiety part right though, made a really big impression on me on how much emotions can affect the audience.

I was not able to do that with ‘Tyger Tyger’ but I am aiming to be able to have the ability to put my feelings across to the audience with future practices.

AAU28D: Voice Study and Production Lesson Five

We started the day with some heavy theory and as we got to the part about accent, I could not help but think about the differences between a dialect and an accent. Turns out, an accent shares the vocabulary with the main language itself and some different pronunciation. A dialect, on the other hand, is a variety of language differing in vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation. Being an Asian, I am exposed to a multitude of spoken dialects that are so different that they may almost be a whole new language (Bolotnikov, 2015). Each dialect came from a different part of China, influenced by all the factors unique to the region and it helped me with understanding how there can be so many variations of accents in the United Kingdoms. The need for the creation of a standard English was thus highlighted to me as well, and here the IPA played a huge part. At the same time, I wondered if there are PA created specifically for each different accent as well since there are people who are fascinated with accents and it is vital for actors to learn how to portray themselves as any character needed in the play.

IPA Chart

Consonant Chart

We moved on into learning how the IPA chart is constructed, which was also very interesting because we can see that much thought was placed into its creation. By learning how each sound is articulated properly made it easier to move our vocal apparatus correctly. By combining the proper action and pronunciation, we are learning how to use our voice in the right manner as well. I found that making each sound separately was easier and does not strain the voice, and in combining the sounds to form words and forge sentences created the accurate unaccented standard English.

Guides to practising each sound accurately can be found online, but I found a video by linguist Evan Ashworth, PhD to be particularly useful. He showed how the articulators in the vocal tract work together to produce each speech sound by using a video to demonstrate voicing, place of articulation and manner of articulation (Ashworth, 2015). I was having trouble with producing the ‘th’ sound properly in words like ‘think’ and ‘thought’ but sounded more like ‘sink’ and ‘sought’ but a visual representation of how the tongue should move helped.

Ashworth (2015, January). Affricate pronunciation picture.

We were then placed into groups to transcribe 5 sentences into the IPA form and it was quite fun because each time we were stuck with the transcribing, there is always a different member in the group who had the right idea. We were like different gears of a whole system and we worked in harmony to churn out the right result.

Personally, I felt that we were placed together on purpose to create a spectrum of different characters because everyone notices different things at the same time. It gave a good range of ideas from which we were then able to complete our task successfully. It can be something to look out for when creating a group for a group project because it will maximise the result with lesser effort!

AAU28D: Voice Study and Production Lesson Four

We started with the Zip Zap Boin game to get us moving. It’s a tough game for me since I do not have the greatest reaction time and I needed time to cope with the actions and reactions. It sure got me warmed up though as we carried on with the game, which helped to increase my ability to take in information from my surroundings at a faster rate. I thought that this would be great for studying too as being able to take in information quickly would greatly increase the efficiency of studying within a shorter span of time. We followed up with other warming-up activities and I felt my enthusiasm level increase because of the excitement in the air after some fun. The excitement level allowed me to put in more effort into the consonance training exercise in which I find myself being able to use my voice at a higher consonance more easily.

After the activities, we dived into some theory into how poems are written and how they should be read. Most poems that I have read before usually come with a rhythm but in fact, there are many more styles. Understanding the styles, the history and the mindset of the author changes the way we read poems entirely, which was rather new to me. I have once learnt how placing emphasis on a different word of the same sentence each time could change the meaning entirely but with poems, it is much more than that. Slowing down to read the words deliberately, infusing the right emotions into each word with the understanding of the intent behind the words allowed me to visualise clearly each scenario that was described by the poem and I really enjoyed the experience.

Sanders (2015, July). Donald Trump speech photograph.

We investigated how speeches are made by politicians like Donald Trump and saw how he was able to create a personal connection with the audience with brilliantly placed filler words and pauses. To me, it was the physical representation of how the pen is mightier than the sword because great ideas are penned down and planned properly before execution. By making use of well-placed words, we can inspire the emotion that we want in our audience such that they will start to personally believe in what we are saying. People tend to try and find reasons to accommodate what they have accepted, and in doing so will turn away any negative ideas that are associated with the belief. I realised that this was also how an actor can sway the audience, thus making a story come alive. This will be a very important tool for the future if we are able to polish our skills properly, which is something I hope to grasp in the module.

AAU28D: Voice Study and Production Lesson Three

We started the day with theory lessons on how the muscles essential to our voice moves, which in other words are the muscles we will want to be protected such that our voice will not be affected. Having such information will probably allow us to prioritize which muscles to carefully stretch in our warm-up exercises and also how we can try to train those muscles to produce a better voice. I thought the reason why we might stumble over our words or find difficulty in pronouncing our words accurately was that the muscles essential for helping us articulate were stiff from not using them or from misusing them. My mind could not help thinking back to when my dad was describing how much he ached from riding a horse as muscles ached badly in places he never knew had muscles. I guess that must be what will happen should we misuse our voice on a frequent level. When we got to discussing what puberty does to our voice, I realized that it was what happened to my friend back then because he sounded like he’s got a sore throat the whole time.

Chuck (2016, November). Vocal folds photograph.

Manzoor, T. (2014, January) Laryngeal muscles photograph.

All muscles relax during the period of time in which we sleep, so our voice gets noticeably deeper. Hence if the voice muscles are properly relaxed, the indication will be that we will sound deeper than we usually do. An effective method to do so would be to find the lowest hum we can do without breaking up by placing a hand on our chest to feel the vibration. The voice muscles will thus be identified by the brain and we will be able to manipulate our voice muscles. Following that, we will be able to stretch our mouth and voice muscles together by saying ‘queue e, queue ahh’. Pronouncing the word ‘queue’ will allow our mouth to stretch widely before closing, saying the letter ‘e’ will stretch out our mouth again and pronouncing ‘ahh’ as deeply as we can open out our voice muscles (Baker, 2015). Having tried the method personally, I find it to be really easy and I could hear a difference after spending about 5 minutes stretching.

The posture we hold is very important as well as I tried doing the stretching while lying on the bed, but I suddenly could not make the low hum. Coincidentally, this ties in with what Prof Matt mentioned regarding the inter-connecting muscles throughout our body! Having a pillow on my back pushed my spine towards my chest and restricted the volume of air that I could hold. Arching my neck caused the neck muscles to pull back and applied pressure on my throat, which further restricted me from making more sounds.

Perry (2013, October). Cognitive Behavioural Therapies picture.

During the dissociation exercise, I realised that I’m holding on to my worries and anxiety quite strongly because they felt like a kite flying above my head, but the strings will never snap away, only mildly tugging on to the back of my shoulders wherever I go. It was a moment of clarity where I had the feeling that I need to address my concerns directly to weaken the strings before I can try to temporarily let them go. As for the mild hypnosis exercise, being able to lie on the ground while trying to relax did help a lot more because an unrestrained shiver went through my body when a gust of cold air hit me. I was not able to imagine the sun and heat because of the air conditioning and ended up with a pitch-black sky where invisible waves turned me into dust slowly until all that is left is my consciousness. The attempt to remain relaxed on the floor left me feeling slightly sleepy but the brief moment of rest made me feel much energized.

AAU28D: Voice Study and Production Lesson Two

Dente, C. (2017, May) Voice instrument picture.

We started the day with theory lessons about voice production. I could liken our voice to an engine, which is something I can relate to as an engineering student. It made me realize that in fact, our bodies work more like a machine than what I ever imagined because the ways devices work was never really that simple and it is the same for our voice. Even the production of sound requires certain knowledge in where we could utilize so that we may produce the optimal output while using lesser effort and causing lesser damage.

Since we learnt that having good breathing and good posture will help with our voice, having a different posture will result in being able to make an alteration to the voice we produce. This was when I realized that this is how emotions are injected into words, or rather how our emotion can influence our body to produce a sound that everyone will instinctively relate to our common emotions. It shed more light as to how a voice is trained, rather than to just try and mimic certain voices.

I decided to investigate common bad postures so that I can find out what to avoid in order to improve my voice. In this age, almost everyone owns a smart device and thus spend quite a significant amount of time looking down at the screen. It results in creating a lot of force on the neck as it tries to support our head, which is about 8 kg and will, therefore, move our posture out of alignment. Over time, the neck muscles that are constantly in tension will start to lose strength and our scalene muscles will be pulling back on the throat in an attempt to hold our head up. Also, people tend to carry heavy items in their bag daily and at times carry the bag with one shoulder, they tend to end up slouching and having uneven shoulders. Similarly, slouching causes our head to bend forward and again the posture will be misaligned due to a tight chest and weak back muscles.

Emily (2017, December). Bad posture photograph.

The bad postures can be easily seen if we were to look into the mirror and can be easily rectified as well with some stretching exercises. To strengthen the neck muscles, one can gently lift the chin up towards the sky, then tilting the head to the left and right without the shoulders being lifted up for half a minute each. To stop slouching, an easy stretch would be to simply hang from a pull-up bar while keeping the head in a proper alignment for up to 3 minutes (Altman, 2017).

The lesson progressed into how voice nodules can affect our vocal folds, which is something we should always take note of as overstraining our voice produces the same effect as well. As for the stretching activity, it was a rather general way of stretching our bodies and activating our muscles to prepare our articulators. My personal opinion was that since everyone abuses their body differently, a set of personal warm-up exercise will benefit us the most. The optimal result to obtain will be to be entirely comfortable and ready to speak, which will put us in a good mood where we will be raring to give our best efforts. Being able to reach such a state will probably apply for everything else as well, from making presentations to getting ready to study or work.

 

AAU28D: Voice Study and Production Lesson One

On the first day of the lesson, I felt some excitement while searching for the location of the class as I have never explored NIE before. It was not easy to find the place despite searching for the location the day before as the room number could not be seen from the outermost doors of Nanyang Playhouse. The door seems locked too until I met Prof Jasper who opened the door with a heavy push. I was surprised to see that the room was, in fact, a rehearsal room and felt momentarily lost as there was no neatly assembled tables and chairs that I am used to using daily.

Students begin streaming in one by one after finally locating the room and we were given the instruction to get barefoot and sit in a circle. I was surprised that it could be such a casual lesson and it’s an interesting experience. Prof Jasper introduced himself and ask that we should all introduce ourselves. As I usually keep to myself, I take a long time to warm up and speak to people. Hence, I was worried that there would be some embarrassing penalty games that usually follows ice-breaking activities. To my relief, there was no such thing. Instead, we played some rather unique games like trust fall, Captain on the Deck and so on.

Prof Jasper then proceeds to inform us that the games are for building trust among us so that the class can be a safe environment. I assume that it will also mean that he wants us to feel comfortable in class and at the same time make it easier for us to build up the confidence to talk with one another. After some games, we were told to get our writing materials and Prof Jasper begins to teach us about protecting our voice.

Ciccarelli. S (2015, January). Protect voice picture.

The tips about protecting the voice were something fresh and interesting, as I always thought that the core preparation for a presentation resides only with the content of the presentation. While listening to the tips, I remembered the different sensation in my throat whenever I had spicy food, or took dairy products, or drank chocolate. It’s actually quite amazing when all the little pieces of stuff that always bothered me to a certain degree linked up together in my mind and finally made sense as to why I felt bothered.

I thought the information given was good and instantly applicable, up from eating and drinking properly and down to breathing properly. In fact, even with the breathing exercise alone already I felt much better! The breathing techniques could become a basis to calm my mind down whenever I find myself facing situations that induce anxiety and nervousness, and further amplifying my ability to present myself to others which is a great boost to my confidence.

Chakraborty, D. (2017, October). Pineapple juice photo.

Besides the tips that are given, I managed to find out that pineapple juice and the act of swallowing can be used as a replacement to clear the throat without hurting the throat. Pineapple juice is more commonly found and contains multiple benefits like moisturizing the mouth and oesophagus and boosting the immunity system with vitamin C (Eng, Rawshaw, Clacla, & Dougie, 2013, July) Seems to me that it’s a good replacement for starfruit juice which I could not find anywhere at Northspine!

Since I like to consume chocolate products, I also looked more into diuretics and found having coffee will not affect us much! Our body can adapt to a constant but limited intake of coffee each day, thus producing more mucus on a regular basis to counter the effects of drying out the throat (Scearce, 2016, p. 73). Additionally, I finally found out why I’m having heartburn and sore throat sensations in the morning and what I can do to prevent facing such situations, which is to eat fruits that are high in water content like cantaloupe and watermelons in the night when I’m feeling thirsty.

Finally, I looked for YouTube videos of John Gielguld in Hamlet, Richard Burton in Under Milk Wood, Dame Maggie Smith in an interview and Dame Judi Dench in Shakespeare, Twelfth Night (Styrian, 2015; Metrisch, 2010; BFI, 2017; Pao, 2013) Common to all of them was the fact that they will not risk mispronouncing each word even if they speak fast, which convinced me that only through proper pronunciation can each word be infused with emotions. The speakers wield their voice like a weapon, rising and falling in an almost melodious manner and listeners will thus be held spellbound as they follow each word. It’s such a difference from the Singlish which favour speed and efficiency over accuracy, and probably why Singaporeans sounds harsh to foreigners.