Kristin Linklater

 Kristin Linklater’s technique approach to the voice is an eight-part progression. The first part of the progression is physical awareness and breath. Linklater focuses this part of the progression on the spine. She believes a strong spine will help free breathing which will in term, help free the voice. If the spine is out of alignment, your body support is weakened which forces the abdominal muscles to provide support. If the abdominal muscles are being used for support they no longer can be used for breathing, which closes off the voice. In terms of breath awareness, Linklater argues there is no one correct way to breathe, but one must first relax their muscles, become aware of their breath, and focus on their center to truly speak “on voice”.

            The next part of the progression is touch of sound, which is the feeling of vibrations in the body.

            The next portion of the progression is collecting and freeing vibration, bouncing vibrations, and soft palate work because there is a lot of overlap. Collecting and freeing vibrations deals with amplifying the vibrations one started with in the last step of the progression. Linklater argues that vibrations are often victim to tension and vibrations do best when one is relaxed. This part of the progression deals first with isolating the tension in order to eliminate it. You are then able to free these vibrations through the different areas of the soft palate which includes lips, head, and body. 

            The next step in the progression is jaw and the tongue. We unknowingly hold a lot of emotion in our jaw and Linklater focuses on getting our upper and lower jaw to move independently from one another. She also does a lot of work with yawning to help relax the jaw. 

            The resonators are the next up in the progression. The different resonators are chest, mouth, teeth, sinus, nasal and skull. By exploring each of these resonators, one can have full vocal power.

            The final part of the progression is range and articulation. Range allows you to explore all of the octaves of your voice including arpeggios. Linklater deals with articulation only in terms of its connectedness to the mind. She works through consonants and vowels in terms of isolating them out of words before speaking them all together.