12 episodes
Voice National Theatre
-
- Arts
-
-
4.1 • 30 Ratings
-
There are references in some Shakespeare's plays to the vocal exercising of an actor before performance and the importance of enunciation and volume. In ancient Greek times, it was the greatest orators, those with the physical gift of a beautiful voice and a strong diaphragm, that were the actors and public speakers. Vocal exercises are part of an actor’s working life. There are many types of vocal exercises, and each addresses a different part of the vocal mechanism. You can look at each component as a cog in a machine that, when put together, will aid understandable and natural sounding speech that can easily be heard at the back of an auditorium. This collection takes you through a warm up and a series of exercises typical for actors in rehearsal at the National Theatre.
-
- video
National Theatre: Vocal Warm-Up
This short vocal warm-up led by Jeannette Nelson offers actors techniques to prepare their voice ahead of rehearsals and performances, featuring exercises on breathing, resonance, projection and articulation.
-
- video
Text work on vowels in ‘O what a noble mind…’
Head of Voice at the National Theatre, Jeannette Nelson works on Ophelia's speech ‘O, what a noble mind...' with actor Ellie Turner. They look at vowel sound in the speech as the conduit of emotion.
-
- video
Text work on consonants in ‘To be, or not to be…’
Head of Voice at the National Theatre, Jeannette Nelson works on Hamlet's speech ‘To be, or not to be...' with actor Ferdinand Kingsley. They look at consonants in the speech for structure and indicating Hamlet's thought process.
-
- video
Vocal exploration of the Olivier
The Olivier theatre is an epic space and real vocal challenge to an actor. Jeannette takes three actors through a vocal exploration of the theatre.
-
- video
Text work on prose from Saint Joan
In a scene from Bernard Shaw's Saint Joan, where Saint Joan is accused by the bishops, Sioned Jones moves between three chairs representing herself, France and God. This helps her open up the space and give a sense of breadth and surety to the speech, which is then assisted by reading the speech in unison with Chris Saul.
-
- video
Text work on blank verse from Much Ado About Nothing
Chris Saul works with Jeannette Nelson, the National's Head of Voice, on a speech delivered by the Friar in Much Ado About Nothing. It's a speech Chris didn't know, and had to work on hard to understand. By reading through the verse by doing an exercise involving patting his knee on possible beats, which might be accentuated, Chris is able to help convey this meaning to the audience.
Customer Reviews
Great
Great tool and very helpful.
Awesome!
I tried the warm ups because I do a lot of reading aloud and that kind of thing and it helped a lot. I was rather surprised!
cool
i heard u hav to pay alot fr voice soo this is pretty cool:)