As an artist and a voice teacher, I have many ‘legs’
all which move through all my work. I believe the voice
is 3 times more powerful than any other sense.
and is capable of sizzling with brilliance and bringing
the world to you.
By holding ourselves with our voice, we can hold our power,
our beauty and our intent. Feel how large you are; awaken
your spirit with the action of your voice.
Recently, I have found the nyc subway has been a particularly important teaching device. I have been wondering if we sounded as muffled oras strident as these children sound when we were young? Were our communication skills this impaired? I do know now that our words and our thoughts go out to the end of the universe. Sound is always out there. Many scientists and philosophers are instructing us that our thoughts create our reality.
What we think about, and what we talk about, grows. How conscious are we about our voice and what we are putting into the world? How we speak affects how we think. If our speech is muddy and unclear, garbled, certainly our thoughts cannot be very different. And if our thoughts are unclear, our speech follows.
This is not speaking to the logic of our thinking but to the language we chose.
Recently, I have found the subway has been a particularly important teaching device. I have been wondering if we sounded as muffled or as strident as these children sound when we were young? Were our communication skills this impaired? I do know now that our words and our thoughts go out to the end of the universe. Sound is always out there. Many scientists and philosophers are instructing us that our thoughts create our reality.
What we think about, and what we talk about, grows. How conscious are we about our voice and what we are putting into the world? How we speak affects how we think. If our speech is muddy and unclear, garbled, certainly our thoughts cannot be very different. And if our thoughts are unclear, our speech follows.
This is not speaking to the logic of our thinking but to the language we chose. The sounds in the words, our vowels and our consonants — the music and the articulation — affect our listener. The quality of our voice has an impact on our audience. We can learn to have clarity and feeling in our voice. Exercising the voice is like exercising the rest of the body. The muscles respond and we create power and beauty. Yet, moving through resistance to change is sometimes the biggest obstacle.
Beccause we don’t hear ourselves in the same way others hear us, many people do not recognize or even want to recognize the impact of their voice. And with young people, of corse, the peer pressure to fit in is particularly strong. However the bigger goals of college interviews and auditions or job interviews help to motivate and jump over the fear of sounding so ‘weird’.
I have taught voice, diction and acting since college, that is for 35 years. I have taught at Yale, NYU, major acting studios in NYC and Fortune 500 Financial Institutions. I have taught in groups and individually. Now, finishing a book on ‘Creativity and Transformation’,
called “The Luminous Dream, Create the life You Long For”, I am excited to open my work to a wider audience, particularly the young people.
addendum: I have been given Richard Burton’s ‘secrets of language’. These techniques are so powerful and they helped make him, along with the timbre of his voice, the highest paid actor of his time. I was sworn to secrecy!
What is your response to accents? Do you like them? Do you tend to listen to the accent and not the information? Accents are interesting and very telling. They give so much information and not just verbally. I think accents also have their physical characteristics. Some accents use their hands more or their shoulders or their whole body. Some accents are shrouded in secrecy, others in impending danger. What has been your experience?
General American Speech does give more clarity and more simplicity. It can expand your sense of self. One colleague put it this way: “I felt like I belonged to a bigger pool, that I could go anywhere and everywhere. I can still always imitate my Irish grandmother. And I also can have a wider world.
When G. came in today she was jittery, While using the ‘rolley’ a bioenergetic tool that promotes breathing by rolling, she told me she had been crying ‘for no reason’ for the past few days. Then, off of the rolley, walking around my studio, G. started shaking her arms and legs and was getting angrier and angrier. Finally, she screamed a scream that was so heartfelt and so full of sorrow and heartbreak, she began crying. I witnessed. I didnt say a word.
Though Italian is not G’s first language, it is the language that fills her up and fills her voice with warmth and music. As G.was settling down, blowing her nose and breathing, I began to ask her questions and asking for her answers in Italian. The openness created by crying was enhanced by Italian. A new fluidity was present. And she looked so clear.
She is unusual. She will go the distance to own her emotional life. She wants to change the places in her that are stuck and that are keeping her voice and writing and acting less than she knows she is capable of. Less than the fantasy of complete acceptance. Yes, she is having a remarkable journey full of courage and will and accomplishment.
posted with permission
Spend time with me and learn about my approach to the process of acting and voice. The word 'transformation' is vastly overused today, however it is the bottom line and this is what happens in the room when we work.
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