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.