Week 1 and 2

Week 1’s lesson commenced with an introduction to the course – on what we will do for the upcoming weeks. We started off with an icebreaker game – the “woosh” game – to get to know each other. I thought the game was to warm up our voices – by making short utterances accompanied by actions. It turned out that the true purpose of the activity was to just get the group dynamics tuned – I guess this is part of structuring the environment – by creating a light hearted atmosphere so that we really do voice work effectively.

A lesson on posture was given while we were standing in a circle – Claire told us that standing upright with a good posture, feet shoulder with apart would make the best conduits for voice production. This is true, I feel, as a collapsed and unbalanced posture will only hinder confidence and speech.

We started some breathing exercises thereafter, where each of us lied down on our backs facing the ceiling. It reminded me of the breathing exercises that I used to do a few years back – when I started formal training on the flute. My tutor would tell me to lie in that position, and then place some books on my stomach. She mentioned that if breathing is done right and with correct placement, the books should be seen rising up and down slowly. In this instance though, the lying down was to align posture, as well as to relax us.  Breathing was done with 8 in 8 out, 8 in,10 out, 5 in 8 out to practise and nurture breathing capacity. In my own experience as a wind instrument player – the rapid capture of breath is crucial (and habitual), as we need to take in air swiftly before the next section of rapid measures come in. As such, I’m used to capturing air quickly. However, this breathing exercise is a little different in the sense that it expanded the volume of air intake. I felt that there was more air with each slow intake – and it was definitely more comfortable then rapid intakes of shallow breaths – If only we had the luxury of time in playing music to do so – performances would be such a breeze.

There were also two effects achieved by moderating breathing – to relax and to energise. To relax, breathe in short and breathe out long, vice versa in order to energise. Prior to this I always thought intentional deep breathing only relaxes the body – the more you know.

Because of a slight curvature in my spine, I felt that the right side of my waist did not expand as much as the left – and this was confirmed by Claire during the 2^nd week of the breathing exercises – when we bent over in pairs and checked the breathing of our respective partners. Perhaps this limitation is one to consider in the future – when I feel as if my breathing capacity could be improved for flute playing/singing or speaking.

For week 1 we also did an activity whereby we got into pairs and spoke over each other – trying to understand what the other party had said. Naturally, in order for one party to be heard – they have to speak in a louder volume. It was absolutely unnatural for me to speak when someone else is speaking and therefore there were many awkward moments where we (Brandon and I) both stopped and looked at each other. I guess the rule “only one speaker at a time” really does apply. There is definitely power at play when it comes to speech – but we’ll leave that to the linguists in their conversational analysis.

Before the end of lesson 1 we were told to “sell our partner”, whereby we were supposed to introduce and talk about their interests, achievements etc. I tried to remember as many facts Brandon conveyed and did my best (in as natural a way as possible) to “promote” him to the audience. I even injected some points at points of ad lib which were not very true… (sorry Brandon!) At the end, I was voted one of the better speakers – which came across as a surprise to me because I thought I was actually quite jittery and over-animated in my speech. However, my speech, as addressed, came across and friendly, warm and relatable to the speech. So I guess I need to bridge what I think I’m doing with what I’m actually doing – and this comes about through the development of self awareness in my speech.

In week 2, we started off with the tree/squirrel/hunter and natural disasters game. The purpose of this was to warm us up and to get our breathing/heart rates up. After which, we were told to stand in a circle and breathe deeply – which soon got our heart rates and breathing back to normal. I guess this process was to let us realise that breathing has the ability get the body back into balance when we are flustered or panicky.

As an add on to the breathing exercises, Isolation exercises were also done this week to create awareness of any tension points in our bodies and to teach us to relax these points. Personally, I felt that when any of the upper parts of the body was tensed up – there was a tendency to breathe very shallowly or not at all! For example, when the chest or head was pushed towards the ground, I felt as if the respiratory tract was very tense – and intake of breath could not be done properly. We then proceeded to switch to a position where our bodies were arched over while kneeling on the ground – and we were told to breathe in this position. Initially, I thought that this position was going to be the hardest to breathe in – since the body is arched over and somehow collapsed. However, the purpose of this exercise was to let us figure that we should not only be breathing and channeling the air towards the front of our abdomens but also towards the entire lower torso. When done correctly, we should feel our buttocks lift a little. When I tried it out, I did feel a slight lift due to the expansion of the lower torso.

We also explored resonance this week – through humming – and there was a search for the best “vibrator”. In the end, once again, I ended as one of the top few – perhaps it was my training as a wind player that has shaped this strong support and humming – or maybe I was just anatomically cut out for this. Humming through my chest created the strongest vibrations, and the most uncomfortable were through the nasal passages and throat. That could explain why I never speak/sing with a nasal or throaty tone – as that just puts additional pressure on my body.

This week, we also explored the different voice types through reading of an unseen passage and were grouped together according. I was grouped under the “surround-sound” voice but the lesson here was that we should learn to adapt our voices according to different contexts. The two keywords here were suitability and adaptability.

A mapping of the voices in class: