Why Voice?
So you’re an actor, embarking on a journey to refine your craft. Your training schedule probably includes a course called Voice & Speech.
Hmm.
You probably already know how to talk. You voice has navigated you through various stages of life and social landscapes and has emerged uniquely yours. Even if there have been challenges—perhaps a bout of laryngitis or some time spent with a speech-language pathologist—your voice has reliably conveyed your thoughts, needs, and feelings for quite a long time.
Furthermore, your voice is your auditory signature: distinctive, personal, and profoundly tied to your identity, as familiar to you as your own reflection. To those who know you, it’s instantly recognizable. Your voice might seem as immutable to you as your height or the contours of your nose.
So what is there to learn? What does “Voice & Speech” offer?
Voice as Action
Since we’ve already established that your voice is an extension of you, it’s important to state up front that the aim of voice training is not to “fix” or otherwise erase any of the distinctive things that make your voice yours. Contemporary, inclusive voice training is not about the diagnosis and correction of vocal “faults”. Rather than erasing what makes you unique, voice training is intended to empower you to wield your individual voice with new kinds of precision and purpose, making the most of your words and hopefully even taking pleasure in the act of speaking up for what matters.
That sounds a lot like the job of an actor. On stage, you’re tasked with pursuing objectives, navigating obstacles, deploying varied tactics, and approaching your job with a sense of play—and all of these things can be done through the medium of sound. Your voice is not a static echo of static identities. It’s a dynamic tool for engaging and affecting the people around you–including audiences and fellow performers.
Sight and sound are the fundamental senses bridging the gap between actors and audiences. You may have a rich interior experience of your character, but to an audience member, if they don’t see it or hear it, it isn’t happening. While visual storytelling is important, especially in our visually oriented culture, the importance of the voice as an acting tool is just as crucial. Your characters’ voices are produced from your body and breath. It is you who turns their thoughts and intentions into tangible sound waves that transcend physical space and physically–bodily–touch your listener.
Voice, then, is nothing less than the audible aspect of acting. Your vibrations are physically tangible to others, and your voice is the medium through which the subtleties of your character’s thoughts, feelings, and desires become palpable to those listening to–and feeling–your performance. Words are action.
Sensation and Expression
To captivate an audience, the actor’s voice must be supple enough to respond to the boundless impulses of imagination. Voice training is not just about making sounds, but also about expanding the spectrum of what can be experienced and expressed by your physical instrument—embracing the dramatic, the poetic, and the extraordinarily human aspects of life and art.
As you explore voice work, you will delve into two interwoven realms: the expansion of sensation and the expansion of expression. As you practice the skills of perception and reaction, you will learn to convert authentic experience and moment-to-moment impulse into specific vocal action. Whether your character is coaxing, confronting, or canoodling —a well-trained voice is both flexible and focused, equipped to carry out these actions with intention and specificity. Your voice must be as three-dimensional as your character, reflecting their history, environment, and psychic landscape. The training you undertake equips you to lift words off the page and breathe the essence of lived experience into them. This is the alchemy of the actor’s voice: transforming what’s on the inside into audible gold.
Some Possible Goals
In the Voice & Speech studio, you can expect to:
- Celebrate and explore the unique qualities of your voice, enriching your identity and your art.
- Cultivate vocal flexibility to embody diverse characters and express experiences beyond the confines of your daily life.
- Broaden your vocal expression beyond habitual patterns, unlocking the full range of vocal choices at your disposal.
- Understand the mechanics of your voice and how to use it sustainably.
- Cultivate a voice that resonates truthfully, both personally and theatrically.
Voice training may also cover technical skills like accent work, text analysis, singing, or context-appropriate style. Still, its core lies in the cultivation of an available, responsive, and unique actor’s instrument with an expansive expressive potential.