Pedagogical Rationale & Philosophy
TEACHING THE HUMAN VOICE
The human voice is as unique and particular to our self as our handprint, and like our handprint carries the traces of our history, environment and experience. It is not an isolated part of us; our voices and our bodies are intimately and inseparably connected. When we are present and connected to our Selves, both our mental and emotional life arise from our physical experiences and sensations. Our vocal expression is therefore a culmination of how all these components of our selves flow freely, or do not. Through this lens, a great responsibility is placed upon those of us who work with people’s voices to be aware of what we say and how we say it, and always seek to create a space which focuses on the needs of the student, their community, and not the teacher (and their ego).
Trauma Informed
Safety and respect take primacy in my teaching spaces, always. Gentleness in exploring the limits and capabilities of our strength, and the perilousness of our vulnerability is always an aspiration. But as we are training performers, artists, and communicators who are often tasked with telling stories from outside the boundaries of safety and respect, we must allow for and prepare ourselves for Roughness. Hence resilience is also a primary goal and aspiration in my teaching. I’ve found the best way to lay a foundation for resilience is the inclusion of integrity as a core value from the very beginning.
Integrity
I encourage my students to approach their work with me with full integrity. By this I mean that they are honest with themselves and me (where relevant) about their experiences, even if the honest answer is not pleasant, nice, or easy. Integrity also means showing up as fully as one is able for the experience and committing to the task at hand fully. It is only by showing up with full integrity in this way (whole and undivided) that one can adequately assess the value or otherwise of a task. This requires both I and my students to accept and welcome mistakes, mess, even so-called failure. It also necessitates a core value of full accountability. I routinely work with each individual student and group I work with to ascertain methods of accountability that best serve our work together.
To be honest and accountable, we must first substitute judgement with curiosity. This helps students to quieten their inner critic and awaken and exalt their inner teacher; to facilitate the student’s own learning of them 'selves.' Furthermore, we integrate learning most fully through action, through doing, and it is my current focus to continue to develop practices and experiences whereby the student has the space to do first, then reflect.
To be honest and accountable, we must first substitute judgement with curiosity. This helps students to quieten their inner critic and awaken and exalt their inner teacher; to facilitate the student’s own learning of them 'selves.' Furthermore, we integrate learning most fully through action, through doing, and it is my current focus to continue to develop practices and experiences whereby the student has the space to do first, then reflect.
Functional Training
My teaching is grounded in the principle of functional training – that is, training which is geared towards the specific tasks of speech and performance. Performers need to be safely heard and safely understood, such that the use of the voice within that task is...
Safe, Efficient, Effective, and Skilful
Performers need to be able to SAFELY carry and sustain the vocal load required by their role,
be it a large or small role, a 1000 or 50 seat venue, indoors or outdoors, microphone-enhanced, or on camera –
for a moment of intensity, an hour, one week or 6 months.
When SAFETY is successfully married with the need to be heard
in any space and context sustainably and without strain, one has an EFFICIENT voice.
When an EFFICIENT voice is successfully married with the audience’s
need to understand and connect to what the actor is communicating
and the story they are telling, one has an EFFECTIVE voice.
An EFFECTIVE voice which enables the actor to expressively and compellingly communicate
not just intellectual but emotional, sensory, imagistic and visceral information to an audience is SKILLFUL.
In order to achieve these goals, I ground my teaching in an understanding of anatomy and physiology, investigation of physical and vocal tensions and limiting habits, exploring ways to release or redirect those limiting habits, and rigorous application of those discoveries through progressive overload and ultimately integration with the demands of the performance environment.
Safe, Efficient, Effective, and Skilful
Performers need to be able to SAFELY carry and sustain the vocal load required by their role,
be it a large or small role, a 1000 or 50 seat venue, indoors or outdoors, microphone-enhanced, or on camera –
for a moment of intensity, an hour, one week or 6 months.
When SAFETY is successfully married with the need to be heard
in any space and context sustainably and without strain, one has an EFFICIENT voice.
When an EFFICIENT voice is successfully married with the audience’s
need to understand and connect to what the actor is communicating
and the story they are telling, one has an EFFECTIVE voice.
An EFFECTIVE voice which enables the actor to expressively and compellingly communicate
not just intellectual but emotional, sensory, imagistic and visceral information to an audience is SKILLFUL.
In order to achieve these goals, I ground my teaching in an understanding of anatomy and physiology, investigation of physical and vocal tensions and limiting habits, exploring ways to release or redirect those limiting habits, and rigorous application of those discoveries through progressive overload and ultimately integration with the demands of the performance environment.
Pedagogical Influences
As a Certified Teacher of Miller Voice Method (mVm), I draw heavily from this philosophy, which aligns closely with my own in regards to presence and functional training, I work with mVm's foundational tool of Active Breath to foster moment-to-moment experience and to break those habits and patterns of memorisation and expression which give rise to habits of physical tension and constriction, leading to poor vocal use, less human-like behaviour on stage or screen, and an overall lack of compelling storytelling.
As personal awareness and self-teaching form principal parts of my philosophy, I also draw upon Lessac’s principle of organic instruction as it is key to “identifying sensations, acquiring perception, responding to awareness” and ultimately a safer, more efficient foundation for the voice in it's true natural state.
My approaches to textual analysis and investigation are informed by my foundational actor and teacher training in the work of Turner, Berry, Rodenberg, and Linklater. Shakespeare, verse, and so-called heightened text are passions of mine. All my formative teachers and mentors such as Betty Williams, Bill Pepper, Jennifer West, Tony Knight and Kevin Jackson, but also my teacher-librarian mother, literary agent father, and award-winning poet grandfather, instilled in me a respect for and fascination with all components of language. All too often young people are taught Shakespeare in high school and the like from a place of obligation and necessity. I take particular joy in 'popping the hood' of verse and pulling out and examining every component part with curiosity, so that when the student does get behind the wheel to take their journey, they can do so as fast or slow, taking as many or as few scenic routes or shortcuts as they please, trusting that they are the master of
the vehicle of language.
As personal awareness and self-teaching form principal parts of my philosophy, I also draw upon Lessac’s principle of organic instruction as it is key to “identifying sensations, acquiring perception, responding to awareness” and ultimately a safer, more efficient foundation for the voice in it's true natural state.
My approaches to textual analysis and investigation are informed by my foundational actor and teacher training in the work of Turner, Berry, Rodenberg, and Linklater. Shakespeare, verse, and so-called heightened text are passions of mine. All my formative teachers and mentors such as Betty Williams, Bill Pepper, Jennifer West, Tony Knight and Kevin Jackson, but also my teacher-librarian mother, literary agent father, and award-winning poet grandfather, instilled in me a respect for and fascination with all components of language. All too often young people are taught Shakespeare in high school and the like from a place of obligation and necessity. I take particular joy in 'popping the hood' of verse and pulling out and examining every component part with curiosity, so that when the student does get behind the wheel to take their journey, they can do so as fast or slow, taking as many or as few scenic routes or shortcuts as they please, trusting that they are the master of
the vehicle of language.
Accent & Dialect
My teaching of accent and dialect is greatly influenced by my study of Cognitive Linguistics and in particular Cognitive Phonology. From this perspective we learn what something is (acquire a concept) by understanding what it is not, in other words by direct contrast. I am passionate about engaging in research into the links between the Linguistic study of how we learn and perceive sounds and speech as human beings, and how we as voice teachers guide our students to learn safe, efficient and effective speech that an audience hears, understands, and is interested in, but also how the crucial layer of accent and dialect is best served in the telling of story. I employ tools with proven effectiveness drawn from the teaching of pronunciation in foreign language learning contexts, in particular critical listening which involves students comparing their own voice to itself in real time. (my research paper "Travelling to the Rhotic Universe: Socially Constructed Metalanguage & Critical Listening in the Teaching & Learning of Accent & Dialect for Performers, A Pilot Study" (2018), presented at VASTA 2020, is available on request)
Knight-Thompson Speechwork (KTS) is one of the only current practices with this same interest and as such my approach to the sounds of speech aligns closely with their approach of “speaking with skill.” In terms of teaching dialect, my approach also aligns with the idea that the more you learn to feel and/or hear, the more things you learn to feel and/or hear. I am looking forward to pursuing formal certification in KTS when my circumstances allow.
Knight-Thompson Speechwork (KTS) is one of the only current practices with this same interest and as such my approach to the sounds of speech aligns closely with their approach of “speaking with skill.” In terms of teaching dialect, my approach also aligns with the idea that the more you learn to feel and/or hear, the more things you learn to feel and/or hear. I am looking forward to pursuing formal certification in KTS when my circumstances allow.
Summary
My goal for students of voice is for them to learn to know themselves. By this I mean to know not only the anatomy and structure of their vocal mechanism and how it operates to create voice, but for them to break down the barriers between their conscious artistic expression, and their unconscious habits so that they can become aware of the full range of expression available to them. In this regard I believe that acting is voice and voice is acting. The actor’s voice is the culmination of their art, and the coalescence and expression of rehearsal, preparation and most importantly training.
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