Voice Portfolio: Personal Voice Assessment

Personal Vocal Assessment

Wednesday 17th September 2014

     To begin our assessment work on the development of the actors voice we set out to complete a simple, yet thought provoking, task of rating our own voices.  On a scale of one to five, one being "strongly disagree" and five being "strongly agree", we would have to rate our own voices through five simple questions. 

     Question number one asked; I think I have a good, clear voice production.  To which I rated my own voice at a four out of five.

     Question number two asked; I think I have good articulation.  To which I rated myself a four out of five.

     Question number three asked; I think I have good pace.  My answer was at a slightly lower score of three out of five.

     Question number four asked; I think I have good variety in tone and pitch.  Again my answer rated at three out of five.

     The final question, number five, asked; I think I have good breath control.  To which I gave another high score of four out of five.

 

     While these questions seemed to be pretty simple that all came to a moment of thought tracking where I really had to explore my own voice and how it is now compared to how it can be.  When it came to the first question, concerning a good clear voice in production, I gave myself a pretty high rating.  The reason being was because I feel this was an area I developed over time in taking part in productions, as I have developed my pronunciation to a standard in which I feel confident in delivering lines clear enough so that audience members understand what they are watching.

     This lead to a similar answer for when it came to question two, concerning my articulation.  In definition articulation defines the formation of clear and distinct sounds when delivering a speech.  This is something I feel I have developed over time, by taking part in plays, I strongly feel more confident in delivering speeches on stage and exploring ways in which it can become more clear and distinctive for the audience, so I, as an actor, can convey emotions with little use of movement.  It also assisted in the pronunciation as well, for example when I started at a lower grade of acting I struggled with the pronunciation of certain words such as "they, that and then".  I had to explore ways in which I could put more emphasis on the "th" making them more clear and understandable for the audience.  But not in a way in which made it seem more like I was pronouncing the words using a "v".  Furthermore making monologues and dialogues on stage more understandable for audience members.

     However this did lead onto the next question concerning the pacing of my own voice, to which I was slightly hesitant about how I pace my speeches.  When I answered this question it lead me to wondering how fast or slow I can be when delivering a speech or speaking in general.  Therefore I gave the answer a rating of three out of five.  The reason being is because I feel I can keep control of my pacing, but say for example it came to a scenario where I had to deliver a monologue I look at the state of emotion I personally am in, or what state of emotion the character is in, and I wonder what pace I should deliver the line.  Or if I slightly break out of character, vocally, and let my slower or faster pace of talking take over.  Either way I feel it is something I can control, but something I can work on in order to improve for future reference.

     I gave the same rated answer to the fourth question concerning the varieties of tone and pitch I can take on board.  Personally I understand how to change my own voice at will in order to get a high or low pitch and tone to express certain emotions on stage.  However I feel the need to work on and develop this strategy for future reference concerning productions.  The reason being is because when performing on stage it is easy to convey emotions with body language and little dialogue, but there are a few moments in certain performances where an actor has to verbally represent the current state of mood.  Therefore I feel it would come in handy with certain performances, in which an actor can use more dialogue and less movement to convey their emotions, and that is where pitch and tone come in handy.  Depending on whether the actor has to present the emotion of anger or sadness, it can really get the audiences attention and enthral them to understand what is going on and why it is going on all the more backing up to plays plot and the actors performance.  But in summary I do feel this is something I can work on and develop, so I can, at will, change my pitch and tone to convey emotions on stage and add a sense of realism, and possibly naturalism.

     The final question on the sheet concerned my breath control, now for this question I gave another high rating of four out of five.  The reason being is because I do strongly feel positive in my breath control when delivering a speech, all of which to take my time in making each and every word clear and understandable.  But I do feel this can link in with my pacing, as I do struggle when  it comes to speeding dialogue as I can come to certain points where I cannot take in any air and the words become blank and unrecognisable.  Therefore I do feel a slight need to work on it as then I can always keep a decent amount of control in my dialogue on stage to ensure that all the details are in the play to keep audience members intrigued.

 

     For these lessons I set my goal of achieving these tasks so then I can verbally accomplish a character on stage and increase my performing strategies for future reference, and who knows these verbal techniques may come in handy for when it comes to social life and speaking in general.  With my own vocal assessment complete, my next task is to analyse the voice of a member of my family as well as a famous actor, and see what their results prove to be.