Day 9: Muscularity and the Word
The ninth day was spent working on the other set of exercises Cicely Berry focused on, muscularity and word. She argues that once you find your vocal energy through breath, you must turn it into words. This involves work with the jaw, lips, tongue, and the soft palate. Whatever the text, there are four thing you have to deal with: basic clarity of speech, adapting clarity to space, placing and balancing vowels and consonants, and fulfilling the intention of the word. She argues that there is no completely right way of speaking, because it is can be different for any individual.
Exercises: Muscularity and the Word
Overview of the exercises: The first step is to do work with jaw. Open and close it a few times creating no tension. If the jaw is stiff, exercise it frequently by doing chewing exercises frequently to get it as free as possible without tension. The next step is to work with the tip of tongue. Put a finger on each lip corner to keep the jaw open. It then works you through different syllables including "la", "lah" "tah", tetete", "dah", "nah" and "deeded". You then move into back the tongue which is a key in terms of diction. First, press the back of the tongue to the soft palate. Say, "kah" and "Gah" then try it with "E" instead of "A". She then has you experiment with these sounds in both a tense (tongue pressed firmly against the palate) and free (tongue placed against palate, but without tension) to experience the different sensation. The next step is the lips. Press the lips together and say "pah" and "pepepe" and then "bah" and "bebebe". Next she dives into a lot of vowel work followed by some work with consonants.
Reflection:I did not go into as much detail about this exercise because it was a lot more sounds (i.e. "la") and would have been a pain to read. However, I did find this work a tad much for me. I liked the chewing exercise for the jaw because it related it to something I know (and to be honest love) to do-eating. It's easy to think about chewing a piece of gum or food and not be focused on the idea of relaxing your jaw for a vocal exercise. The work with the tongue and soft palate was helpful as well because I had yet to do a lot of work with tension and release in this sense. Most of my tense and relaxation work was with Linklater and was related to physical awareness. I found doing tension/relaxation work with the jaw/tongue/soft palate was nice because as I mentioned previously I hold a lot of tension in my jaw. I thought the vowel/consonant work was a bit excessive. I can see how it may be helpful breaking down vowels and consonants for actors, but I had a hard time seeing how this extensive work would help me as a stage manager specifically.
I also read the article "How To Command a Room Like Stephen Colbert" which reminded me of a director I worked with. The article discusses gravitas, or a speaker's tone, appearance, and demeanor. One might use swagger or the "it" factor as synonyms for gravitas. It goes into six reasons to demonstrate this elusive word:
1. Communicate with a singular focus.
2. Orchestrate rhythm.
3. Make effective use of image gestures.
4. Use movement strategically.
5.Make appropriate use of eye contact.
6. Be relevant to your audience.
Gravitas is not about being louder or more enthusiastic. It's about concentration.
If you want to read this article check it out on my ten inspirational pieces page!
