Actor Focus – Vocal Exercises 
                                                                                       
                     Below are a selection of the exercises we see Marcia completing in the video. These exercises 
                     can be completed with your class online or be set for students to complete on their own. In 
                     the video, you can see how Marcia describes and leads the exercises. As such, students could 
                     either follow along with Marcia, or you could learn how to lead them from the video. 
                     All the exercises below can be found on the video, so do check if there is anything you are 
                     unsure of! 
                     For a thorough warm up, you should take at least one exercise from each area. These are 
                     great to do before a performance or assessment as well as for students to write about for 
                     their ‘actors’ in an exam. I find it helps to give basic reasoning for the activities to the 
                     students, so that they understand why the are doing what they are doing. 
                      
                     RELAXATION: For the voice to warm up and work effectively, we need to be relaxed, allowing 
                     our voice to be free to work. 
                     Feet – try walking on outside edges, inside edges, heels, with toes curled up and then toes 
                     curled under. 
                     -         This helps us find relaxation whilst considering posture. 
                     Arm cross – with arms straight out and palms facing towards each other, cross them and 
                     interlace fingers. Move hands forwards through the shoulders; look over the right shoulder 
                     then left.  
                     Pull the arms through to the sternum, crossing one elbow over the other (loosening the 
                     sternum), look over the right shoulder, starting the movement from the yes, then the left 
                     shoulder. Move back through the places visited to finally undo the fingers 
                      -    This helps to free the shoulders and the jaw through the eyes and soften the sternum 
                      
                      
                      
                      
                      
                      
                      
                      
                      
                      
                      
                      
                      
                      
                      
       BREATH: our general breath is just taken on to our upper chest (clavicular breathing) whereas 
       to support the voice for performance we need to breathe into our diaphragm 
       (diaphragmatically)  
       Rib Tapping – hold arm straight up with fingers pointing towards the ceiling. Feel along the 
       ribs and therefore the intercostal muscles, swap onto the other side. 
       Release and abdominal pressure - Place the heels of the hands together and place the hands 
       in front of the diaphragm. Take the breath in and think low. Now that we have felt the where 
       the air should enter the diaphragm and when you are ready, exhale. Be careful not to push 
       down but rather place pressure through the heel of the top hand into the other hand and you 
       should feel the abdominals kick in. 
       Slowly release the breath to an unvoiced “ha”. Repeat, this time with the “ha” voiced into a 
       sigh. Repeat for Step 3: a voiced “s” Step 4: a voiced “z”.  
       Keep the breath regular and be consistent throughout. 
       TIP - It may help to imagine you are making sound through a straw and allow the abdominals 
       to control the breath - you do not need to do anything; trust the muscle.  
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
       RESONANCE: Primary resonant places: nasal, oral, pharyngeal. Secondary: Head and chest. 
       When being resonant Marcia advises, we should not feel anything in the throat, but rather 
       think about placing sound forward, like trying to steam a piece of glass. The hum we use, is 
       not with a ‘m’ sound.  
       Tapping to awaken the resonators - imagine you are typing your name and do this over the 
       chest, then up to the throat and then the jaw and around the lips, move to the nose and 
       around the cheek bones and then up to the forehead and finally up and around the head.  
       These are the resonant places.  
       As you are tapping, can you hum into the fingertips as they meet the place you are tapping. 
       For the chest do a low hum and the head, a high hum.  
       Move through from low to high sounds to locate the ‘buzz’ in each resonant place. 
        
       Buzzy bees - the sound you need to make is ‘fz’. Imagine you have a bee on the end of your 
       finger. As it moves higher, your sound moves up in register as it moves lower your voice takes 
       on a lower register. If the bee gets closer the volume gets quieter and when the bee moves 
       further away the sound increases and gets louder.  
       Then the bee moves from the end of the finger to move around the room and around you. 
       Try figures of 8 in terms of movement, try moving with circular movements...explore sound 
       and resonators. 
        
        
                       ARTICULATION: Remember that the places of articulation are in the mouth; we need to use 
                       the tip of the teeth, the tongue and the lips. 
                       Chopping Consonants - choose a consonant and chop with this rhythm. So I suggest “t”: 
                        
                       T.        T.         T.       T            (Single beat) 
                       TT.      TT.      TT.     TT.         (Double the beat) 
                       TTT.    TTT.    TTT.   TTT.      (Triple the beat) 
                       TTTT.  TTTT.  TTTT. TTTT.   (Quadruple the beat) 
                        
                       Keep choosing different consonant sounds. You can also ask people to look around the room 
                       and find an item and use the letters of that item to explore sounds. 
                        -    Of course, tongue twisters are another great way of developing articulation. Please see 
                             the Tongue Twister resource if you would like some ideas. 
                        
                       PLAY: Once you are warm, then you can start to play! 
                       The hand press - Using the technique explored in breath. Take the breath, press the heels of 
                       the hands together and then count from 1 - 10 slowly and with control so that each word is 
                       equal and in the same tone quality. Now place 1 - 10 on different walls or items in your room. 
                       Play with range, is the item high up in the room, take the vocal range higher. Is the item 
                       further away, play with volume. Say the numbers staccato and then smoothly, enjoying 
                       moving between the vowels as your eyes cross through the items you are aiming the numbers 
                       to in your room. 
                        
                       Choose a line, any line at all. It can be the opening line of a monologue, a line of a song, 
                       anything you feel you can say over and over again. 
                        
                       Say the line out loud a few times....how does it feel? 
                        
                       Now explore the line, say each word to an item in the room. Just like previous exercises, 
                       match the height and distance with how you say the word. Give each word equal weight and 
                       breath support. Now take a breath and see if you can move from the first item around to the 
                       final item in your room. 
                        -    There are plenty more examples of how you can play and explore your vocal range, on 
                             the video. 
                              
                       TO CLOSE: A few moments focus on warming the voice will support all performance work. We 
                       should not have a performance voice; we should have our voice being used correctly in every 
                       moment where we need to be heard. 
                      
                                                                                               
                                                                                               
                                                                                               
                                                Photography credit : National Youth Theatre Senior Course by Ali Wright