James Smith

Monday October 3rd 2016

PART 319

Heather Davies

Voice and Text Journals: Weeks 1 -3

 Voice and Text Journals: Weeks 1-3

Journal Entry 1 Monday September 12th

So today was our first class of Voice and Text of second year. I discovered something new with IPA. I

know that sounds are made with your lips, moving of the jaw, and breathe to support the sound being

made. But I didn’t know the extent of how important these body parts are to create speech. Repeating

the vowel sounds from the IPA was really helpful. When we read through the words such as, kit, cloth,

trap, lot, and other words such as that. I discovered the vowel of sounds. It changed the movement of

my lips, my tongue, and even my jaw. It was so weird at first but I am defiantly going to try and do this

more to recognize the ways the words change in my mouth. This will also help with dialects. Knowing

which vowel sound is used in a certain dialect will help me and also my classmates. A problem I had said

during these words was the way the vowel sound should be pronounced. So this is something I defiantly

need to work on during this semester. An observation I have from the inside, is by the time I get to the

end of my sentence I feel out of breathe. I need to work on breathe support and also talking breathes

during my sentences. This was an awesome first class and I am excited to continue to improve and learn

this semester

Journal Entry 2 Wednesday September 14th

Today I recorded myself so I can listen to myself at the end of the semester. From my last entry I stated

that I had a problem with my breathing when I speak. This was something I have been trying to work on

since Monday. I really want to improve my breathe support that way I can have more resonance in my

speaking voice, and also it might help my singing. To help my breathing problem I did some things to

help me. I started with laying on my back and trying to fill up my stomach from bottom to top. I had my

hands on the side of my waist just so I can feel the breathe going into my stomach. I started by

breathing out for 5 seconds, then breathing in for 5 seconds. I repeated this 10 times. I then increased
the number to 6 and then 7. After I got up from this exercise, I felt really light headed. This meant that I

was breathing correctly. I guess I never was breathing right this whole time. Today I also picked my

mimic piece for our assignment 1. I decided to pick James Corden. He is from England and has a British

accent. I decided to do this because I want to learn a new dialect I haven’t ever tried before. My dad is

from Scotland so I didn’t want to do Scottish as I feel I am strong in that dialect.

Journal Entry 3 Saturday September 17th

I have been starting to get sick and I realized I was losing my voice. I decided to take a break from talking

and singing today. I didn’t want to ruin my voice, or cause any damage. So all day I had some green tea

with honey and lots of soup to sooth my larynx. I don’t know if I was losing my voice due to laryngitis or

just stress and strain on the voice from the week of school I just had. However, my throat felt very

scratchy and whenever I talked I felt like I had a frog in my throat.

Journal Entry 4 Monday September 19th

Today we were introduced to the Alexander Technique in class. I noticed I have improved from last year

with Roger. Even though the exercises were a little bit different from what we do with Heather, they

follow the same basis. My voice is still a bit scratchy and sore, but a lot better from the weekend. I

looked online today and I was researching on how to make your voice stronger, and how not to lose it. It

sounds weird but supposedly blowing in a straw helps your voice. It actually exercises your vocal folds

and strengthens your voice. So I did this last night, and it ended up making my voice feel free. I will

definitely be doing this a lot more.

Journal Entry 5 Thursday September 22nd

I picked out a monologue for my comedic Shakespeare monologue, and I am really excited to get started

on it for this past little while. Shakespeare is always so difficult (and I think for most of my classmates). I

discovered yesterday in acting, that my voice always starts off very loud for the first four words and by

the end of my sentence I end up going very soft. I know I speak with a glottal onset, but I never noticed I

speak with glottal myself until my roommate, Danielle mentioned it to me. This is something I will be

working on with this Shakespeare monologue and also with my other acting classes.

Something I have also been working on is my posture. I usually sit on my right hip, and

Journal Entry 6 Sunday September 25th

I was bored today, so I started doing some tongue twisters. And man oh man, are they ever hard! It

requires lots of concentration and use of your teeth, tongue, lips and jaw. My goal this semester is to say

at least one a day. It will be hard with our scheduling but this helps me so much. With diction and also

with breathe support till the end of my sentences. I really want to get better at them, so let’s see if I can

keep this goal up and improve.

Journal Entry 7 Monday September 26th

Today in class we handed in our mimic piece with IPA notes.

Journal Entry 8 Wednesday September 28th

Practiced my accent

Journal Entry 9 Sunday October 2nd

I am currently in a lot VIP scenes for John Karr’s class. The performance day is this Thursday and I have a

lot of different characters to perform as. During this last month, I have grown an appreciation for IPA. I
knew about it last year with Roger, and I also went to McMaster for one year, and I took Linguistics. So I

have a prior knowledge about IPA. But since we have learned this with you, I understand it so much

more! I applied it to all of my scenes since a couple of them had different dialects. This is more work for

me, but adds another layer to the character when it is done correctly.

I have also been doing some Alexander exercises and have noticed an improvement in my speech voice