VOICE EXERCISE FOR ACTORS 3

hello thank you for watching I'm John Windsor Cunningham sometimes we don't like the sound of our voices we just sound as though we're all the voic is stuck in our throat and and I don't want to coach actors to do voice exercises because I'm only interested in helping actors work out what's behind their lines what their lines really mean but we just have to look after our voices and we want them to sound calm and clear and open we want our voices to sound open so here's an exercise that at least I can just do on a video and it only takes 30 seconds you do it standing up sitting down lying down and you put your hand in front of your mouth and your hand will sided up to your ear so that any words coming out of your mouth any sound coming out of your mouth will be easier for you to hear do that now please so even your breathing will be very clear and now for 30 seconds or more please I want us both to just breathe and calmly breathe allowing the breath to go in and out but not forcing the air in so there's any kind of sound So eventually there's no sound at all when you're just breathing in and out try getting to that point please now I want us to just put onto that breath when we breathe out the sound of the vowel ooh with an H behind it so it is like the word who so just go who who now the game is to try and get this as perfect as possible now to so there's only that sound going on only the oo sound so I'll do it for 20 seconds now my voice is a bit tired anyway I'm just going to try and get the ooh as good as I can get it in 20 seconds so here's what it will be like who who who who who who who yes that's all right and now the next vowel is O as in the word show O just the word with an H behind it ho so try that for 30 seconds please ho ho I'm trying get your your throat and mouth open like you do if you behave properly when you go to a dentist and you want your mouth wide open so the dentist can really get out the back of your throat you want it all open oh oh oh ho ho ho ho ho okay quite like the ho and in the sentence you show your heart the next vowel is or no it isn't yes it is it's all h a w h here we go there's no r at the end of this word wh H and the last sound is ha ha this really is being at the dentist ha h h h h h yes that is all right and there are what um five other vowels in the sentence you show your heart sir as able in speech so the other five vowes are uh a a i e or with an H behind them H ha he so the whole thing is H ho H he h ha hey he he h he he it should sound beautiful to a baby so that's the exercise but the trouble is we need to enjoy doing it and we won't voice exercises are boring unless you go to a really fantastically good drama school where you're doing it for an hour almost every day for 2 or 3 years and then probably ending up with rather a boring sounding voice it's going to be very difficult to make yourself do this very often and you need to be able to associate it with something that's fun you can do it lying down with a book or a cushion under your head so you don't crunch your throat up you can do it walking along do it quietly but you need to associate it with something that you like to find some short poem some short speech from some play or some film four or five lines that you'd really like to do that you always do perfectly with these particular vowels so that you like it so that you associate it with something you like doing this exercise has a history for me I was Tau it at r Where The Voice coach Clifford Turner was coaching me for two or three years and he was also coaching the actor lence Olivier who at that time was in London playing the part of a fellow and Lawrence Olivier for some reason best known to himself and all power to him had decided that he needed his voice to be stronger and and heavier and deeper in the all the way he was talking all the time I can't really do it at the moment but he needed his voice right down there and he was giving himself a terribly bad throat a terribly bad throat not many people know about this a doctor was actually going to pour liquid mercury onto the fos of his voice cords it was just a terribly bad State his voice was in and uh Clifford Turner this voice coach was also coaching Lawrence livier and he was making him do these exercises and I've had a few contacts with Lawrence over the years and I just associate slightly the sounds of the exercise with something that's worthwhile I mean in those years Lawrence Olivier was considered to be the best actor in the world and I think of the exercise as being important and I quite like doing it so thank you for watching [Music] in