Voice Assignment Programme/ Portfolio.

My vocal development programme:

I would describe my voice as being quite clear and crisp. I articulate my words as much as I can and even make efforts to do so such as correcting myself if I miss a "T" or "H". This has had an effect on my voice as to where people comment saying that I'm well spoken. I don't have an unusual talking speed, it's a reasonable and comprehensible speed.

I have a variety of tones in my natural speaking voice and they can easily vary however when I'm performing on stage I can find it hard to change tones easily or quickly. Whenever I watch them back I almost seem monotone sometimes although you can hear that I'm trying or that there is a slight variant in the voice.

I don't stutter when I speak very often if at all since my voice is used to pronouncing words fairly clearly and I can form a sentence as I go instead of getting to a point and getting confused with what I'm about to say. Saying this though while I don't stutter, I may occasionally mix up my some of my words or switch the first letters of the words around by accident. For example I could say, "Lonomogue" instead of "Monologue" or something along theses lines. This really only happens if I'm trying to speak quickly which is rare for me and only in certain circumstances.

My voice has a medium volume level which is both good and bad since it isn't distractedly loud like some people can be but it also means that on stage I can't be heard sometimes unless I put a lot of effort into it. While I often do come across clear and understandable, the fact I must put effort into making my voice heard is a bit of a problem. This means I may have to try and learn to use my diaphragm more often or use exercises to help me warm it up and access it properly.

I can often run out of breath when doing long monologues since my timing and breath control isn't the best. This sometimes means that the pacing of my speech will be affected and made slower since I have to take deeper breaths but don't do them quickly otherwise they're very noticeable.

I do not think that my voice is particularly strong. I feel it isn't weak either but since my voice is very middle of the road in terms of strengths it means that any time I try to make it sound stronger, it comes across as more false than anything but I hope with practise of relaxation and breath control it will help.

The feedback for my class performances for "Teechers" and "The Wardrobe" say that my vocal development for the characters was well considered and payed off well. According to the feed back I deliver my lines well to the point of sounding natural most of the time. When I first started my last course, a big problem I had (Mainly with our first show) was projection but thankfully the consensus is that I have got much better with it.




Vocal exercise list to start with.

Since I've had a year doing performing arts and experimenting with my voice I have a decent idea as to what some of it's flaws are either as normal or as a performer. However I do intend to keep a critical eye on my voice for a while to notice it's strengths and weaknesses and how to possibly improve on them while also sticking to this list I have set up and adding new ones along the way.

Ones I feel benefit me me the most/permanent exercises:

-"What a to do" is a commonly used tongue twister that helps to improve articulation and with practice, any potential stutters that may happen, depending on the actor. You must say "What a to do to die today at a minute or two to two. A thing distinctly hard to say but harder still to do. We'll beat a tattoo at two to two. A ratatatatatatatoo and the dragon will come at the beat of a drum at a minute or two to two today at a minute or two to two." It can also help with a problem some actors have of making their T's and D's sound different so that the words in them are easily understandable. I find this to be quite useful when I use it before any show I do as it helps me to warm up my mouth and make it more loose in order to form specific sounds.

"Lines with finger in mouth" is something that we got taught to do to help with articulation. You pick a line or tongue twister or simply something to say and then say it but with either one or two fingers between your teeth. You must then say the line with as much articulation as possible. Since you have the fingers between your teeth it means you won't be able to form certain sounds if just talking normally so you must exaggerate and over pronounce these sounds in order to make them audible using this. so using this combined with what a to do is in my opinion a very useful and great exercise to use to warm up your mouth muscles to make them more loose and speech more fluid.

"Why fly so high?" is an exercise that helps to open up the resonators. There are four parts to it with a specific resonator in mind. You say "Why fly so high" in a high pitched voice to help with opening the skull        Then you say "Said naughty Nora" while massaging your upper nose to help open the nasal cavity. Then say "Whilst eating an apple" in a deep and projected voice in order to help open and open up the glottal     and finally say "With Zoe the zebra in the zoo" while beating your chest to help chest

"1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6" is an exercise where you repeat those six numbers over and over again for as long as you can on just one breathe. This is something to help you try and regulate breathe control since you have to increase the amount of times you can do it but keep the same amount of articulation, projection and pace.  It teaches you to keep these and helps you keep a sense of rhythm which makes you get to grips with how you breathe and teaches you the capacity you have and how to improve.

"Pumpkin/Raisin" is a brief exercise to warm and stretch your facial muscles. You must open your mouth and eyes as wide as they can go on their own and then close them as much as you can on their own. doing this slowly then quickly will help with warming up your mouth and making it more flexible for better clarity.

"In for 4, out for 4" is an exercise where you breathe in for a fixed amount of time, hold the breath for a longer time and then breathe out for the first amount. Inhaling through the nose, holding the breath for about 6 seconds and exhaling though the mouth. This is to warm up your lungs and open them up a bit to give make their capacity to hold aim higher than not doing this. It's also a way to relax and release some possible tension just before performing or doing anything physical so you could be more energetic and able to do the set task.






I must practise a monologue from a published play and then practise it for a class assessment in which I will be graded for my vocal skills. This is a record of my rehearsals of the monologue I have chosen. The piece is the closing speech from Atticus Finch in "To Kill a Mockingbird". My options for potential pieces included; Ray's rant at Mari from "The Rise and Fall of Little Voice", both "The devil, Toby" and "Rude names" speeches done by Rowan Atkinson and even a small speech done by Nigel Hawthorne in the Television series "Yes Prime Minister". I decided not to go with these for certain reasons. I didn't do the "Little Voice" one because I have done it before and wanted something a little more unfamiliar. I didn't do the Rowan Atkinson ones since I'm not sure if they're exactly suited to this even though they would have been fun to do. And I didn't do the "Yes Prime Minister" one because it's too short even though I have had it fully memorised for ages and is one I'm fond of. Also the last 3 were not from published plays so that meant they're not recommended to use. I decided to go with "To Kill a Mockingbird" because besides it being a very powerful and wonderfully written speech in a great play, I think it's one that will help me combat the issues with my voice the most. It requires having a strong and confident voice that needs a lot of sincerity to it. I think that doing this will hopefully give me a stronger voice or at least help me to perform one properly during a performance that sounds genuine.


Practice dates:


27/1/16: Today when performing my monologue to Pau and Mike for a rehearsal, Pau mentioned to me that when I am doing an American accent for it, I lose some of the truth in the speech. It was never clear if he meant the accent took away from the sincerity or if it made it more stilted. This is probably due to me focusing too much on the accent first rather than the tone of the delivery. After doing the speech with my accent they said it sounded better. More specifically it sounded stronger. I agree with it and the English accent seemed to work a little more. So for now I think I should try focusing on the tone or making my voice stronger in general so I can then get the accent right.


28/1/16: Trying again today and doing the exercise just before doing an almost blind read of sorts, I realised that my pacing is still a little off in terms of controlling when I breathe. I'm still having pauses that are a little too long and this is due to using too much to try and get a stronger voice. I need to do more breathing exercises to increase my breath capacity but at the same time learn how to know when to breathe and not just leaving it til the end of a sentence. Also today when looking up tips for stronger voices I found a video that suggested warm ups and areas for improvement specifically for stronger voices.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUraBXOJpj0    (It does not give any specific exercises but does tell which specific areas to improve for a stronger more confident voice)

29/1/16: An area suggested by the video I found was relaxation, it turned out he had a video for that and it's an exercise that I completely forgot about (Or at least it's relevance). The exercise is a spinal roll which is an exercise I've done in class. The reason I'm adding it in is because it relaxes the body, so airways are helped to be opened up, muscles are relaxed and have no unnecessary tension in them. Whenever I use this it usually does help so I'm adding it to the list (See list for description). After doing my exercise, I practised again and today I noticed a slight increase in quality with my tone of delivery. As of now I'm practising it without the accent and trying to get strength and confidence to come across, or at least a little sincerity or passion. I'll need to look for an exercise that help with a range of tones with a voice. My voice certainly isn't monotone but I feel I need to add a little more to get some more truth into it.


1/2/16: I had an idea for checking whether or not my tone of voice is right. To record myself and listen to them back. This may help with recognising flaws from a different perspective since people hear their voices differently to how everyone else hears themselves with a lower toned voice than they actually have so if I hear what I actually sound like it should give me a better view of my vocal tones. I also noticed that my voice doesn't seem to be improving with strength yet or at least not in any noticeable way. The video I linked does say that for some people it can work quite quickly but either I'm not doing it right or I'm an exception to the rule.

Video talking about why voices sound different on recordings:
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20130913-why-we-hate-hearing-our-own-voice


2/2/16: I realised today that even though I'm doing a few exercises that seem to be helping with my breath capacity slightly (Hopefully if I keep at it it'll gradually improve more), I'm still having moments where I run out of breath when I shouldn't. For example when ever I finish a long sentence like when I talk about Tom Robinson's right hand, I seem to leave a longer pause than necessary to breathe in a subtle way. I need to know if there's an exercise to help with this or whether I should go through my script and mark fixed points to breathe. As of now doing the latter may seem to be quite useful but I'll see if I can find anything first.

5/2/16: Today when looking at what emotions seemed to be shown in my voice, I noticed that I don't seem to be conveying things like passion and massively restrained anger which should be in the speech from the context of the characters beliefs. I don't know if this is coming across at all at the moment. I believe I'm starting to see more improvement but it's very minimal as of now. My focus is still to improve the strength of my voice and then focus on other elements. I notice that at a couple very infrequent moments, my articulation level drops a bit so I think I need to do more tongue twister or my finger in mouth exercise for longer to get more of a chance to warm up the muscles properly.


8/2/16: Doing the exercise and then the speech, I have not noticed any change at all. I have the same problems as the last entry. My vocal strength still has barely improved although I am getting better at remembering the actual monologue and I did not have the problems with articulation today. Although this may have been because my finger in mouth exercise was a little longer today but with more practise I'll see if that's true.

9/2/16: I did the exercise today and noticed that I'm starting to feel more relaxed yet quite energised after doing it, which is odd since it's not a particularly active exercise. My voice still is not seeming stronger by much but is becoming a little easier to speak with confidence somewhat. I record myself doing the speech although don't think it was wise since I've not fully memorised it yet. Although from what I can tell it seems OK and seems confident although still needs a bit of work on the tones that I mentioned before.

13/2/16: Today I have not noticed any change from when I last did the exercise, The strength is still not going up by much or at least not that I can tell. My articulation problem a had a while back is still gone for now so hopefully this means the extended exercise is working. I have still not reached my goal of having the correct tones and strength so the means I've kept the English accent for now but I really hope that I can move on to the American accident at some point to test whether or not it will work at all.

15/2/16: Today I tried focusing on the tones a bit more instead of just waiting for the voice to strengthen or at least stop focusing on that for a while. I'm trying to now figure out the points where I should, I'm going through areas in the script and trying to test out what sounds the best, as of now I can't really make up my mind on much but I am trying things out. Seeing which areas have the most passion or anger (Such as the ending) and trying them out to see if they fit and work I think is a good idea. As of now I haven't found any exercises that can help with  tone of voice that are for actors, they're mainly for singers. I guess I could try them just to see if they'll help so I'll see what ones there are.

18/2/16: Today I looked at whether humming exercises would help from I can find it seems they might. From what I can find it seemed like a good way to help with relieving tension subtly, it can help to relax your throat, mouth and the shoulder area if done enough. I tried it today and seemed to work when done with the rest of the exercise. I hear this will help a lot with resonance so it could help to make my voice stronger to so I'm going to add keep it in and see what happens.

(Sources on humming)      http://www.entnet.org/content/vocal-warmup-put-your-best-voice-forward

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBoOyCLlCcU

19/2/16: Trying the exercise today I think I'm actually starting to hear my voice again gradually gaining strength and my breath capacity is getting better. But despite that I still run out from time to time and I forgot to add cues to practise in my script properly. I need to go over that at some point. there has been no progress with the tonal variety with my voice yet but I will keep practising and maybe even do more hums in a wider variety of tones to see if that can help free it up a bit.

2/3/16: Today I had to perform the speech to Karen and get some feedback. I did my warm up exercises during the point where me and Chloe had to rehearse and they seemed to pay off although maybe I'm starting to think I have analysed a part of my voice incorrectly or at least made the wrong aim for it. I said I wanted my voice to get stronger for this however not too much due to that in my feedback my "Soft" voice is quite nice to listen to so I think I still need some more strength in my voice just so it's more sustainable but not too much in case the delivery changes. She said I was very clear despite words like "Pity" but that was just due to the American accent.

5/3/16: After doing my exercise today I tied my speech again but this time taking on the advice that Karen had suggested. I am putting a focus on looking around the room and have tried this a couple times now. I'm doing it so the speech has a sense of scope and also I'm not looking in one area and glancing to the other on occasion. I'm making it more balanced on where I go so that if I'm trying to talk out to more people my voice will naturally project that. It means my voice should appear more focused and that I'm actually speaking in a courtroom and from what I can tell is even making my voice a little louder. This is something I'll keep up to see if it improves because as of now it does seem to be helping.

9/3/16: I noticed today after doing the speech and exercises again that my voice is certainly seeming to be saying itself a little more. By that I mean that it is now sounding more like I'm in a courtroom and that I'm addressing people on different levels and in different areas of the room. Being aware of where I'm looking has helped a lot and is even making my tone and intentions a bit more clear just due to having a better sense of where I'm supposed to be. I'm also noticing that the strengths of my voice seems to be in a good place as of now since it's at the right amount for this speech so it can show some passion or sincerity in what I'm saying but also remain somewhat soft and easy to listen to. I'm not too sure whether my actual speaking voice is good enough in terms of strength or just my general performing voice but for this speech I'm happy with where it is.

10/3/16: Since the strength and coordination of my speech is where it needs to be right now in my opinion, I decided to focus on another point of criticism that was pointed out. It was that I could do with pauses every now and then to add emphasis or importance to certain sentences. An example is "She tempted a Negro". After that line or similar ones occasionally I should leave a pause and I think should look as though I'm subtly observing the jury or people in the court. The pause alone will give the impression that what I just said is important and that somewhat shocking the jury a bit by saying this. It has helped me to notice that an effective way of using my voice is to learn when to not use it.

14/3/16: A couple more run-throughs of my speech today and the only real negative I can pick up myself at the moment is mainly to do with it's volume, I feel it can be slightly louder so this is something I want to try out with the technique of being aware where I am. Karen did suggest using something like coloured paper on areas of the walls as focal points and I did use a similar technique to this but just using posters at home. At college I tried it once to Chloe and she has been honest about the accent. She also initially thought that the American accent (While very good) seemed less truthful than my own. However once she realised the context she seemed to think it fit much better and I agree with it, it seems out of place and distracting to me with mine which kind of takes me out of the role and I believe it's affecting my delivery. That's just my thought though everyone else thinks it's fine. So I'm going to keep the American accent, Going to try with being a little louder and keep practicing with the posters because that is helping me with balancing my focal points and improving my delivery in terms of projection in the right places.

19/3/16: After my exercise and run-throughs today I haven't noticed any significant changes in my delivery. I still think it's in a good place however. I'm still satisfied with the tone of voice I'm giving even though I think if I end up doing the latter part at all it should definitely be a little angrier considering he is a firm believer in justice and is honestly defending an innocent man. I want to make that come across so I'm going to have to make up my mind whether I'm doing that section or not since the speech as a whole is quite long. I honestly think that I am varying my tones a fair bit in the speech going from an almost demanding/pleading like tone to a more subtle accusing tone with some restraint. I'm going to consider trying the rest to see what I can potentially get out of it since the ending can be different from the beginning with more of a demanding and slightly imposing tone as if he's getting across that their racist opinions are wrong and that they must release him. I'll see what I can do with that if anything interesting.


21/3/16: Today despite trying my warm up for slightly longer I have nothing to really to comment on in terms of growth of the voice it's still in relatively the same place although I can say that it's still sounding very good. My diction and articulation sounded very good today although my volume could've done with a little improving but it was still very clear and audible. I didn't get much feedback from Chloe who I rehearsed with since she needed to practice her s and she said she also didn't notice much change from when she saw it with the exception that I could be louder. I'm still divided on cutting the ending of the speech since I do really like the last line but I still feel it's too long at around 3 - 4 minutes.

23/3/6: Today I ran through the speech while during my voice class and I think I've finally decided that I'm not going to do the whole speech since it's quite long and it's unnecessary. I instead will do two thirds of it and for the reason that I feel that there is a point in the speech where it can cut off and be emotionally/dramatically significant if delivered correctly. It's the line "It all came crashing down on her afterwards". I feel that that line potentially could be a great ending and I think that would be a point for a dramatic pause so I have to nail the last line in order for it to be effective. As of now I think it will have to be somewhat accusing towards the girl I am talking about and even when I tried it, it sounded good to me but needs some practice.

28/3/16: Trying out my speech today I think the issue I had last time to do with improving on the ending moment was slightly better today. Last time I just felt that I didn't have the amount of impact that I want it to. I felt as if I was going over the final line a little too fast and I feel my ending stance and facial expression wasn't good enough but it was OK. So I decided to slow down the last line and put emphasis and the word "Crashing" and I think I'm going to look up on the ending of the line and then just stare. That is what I tried today I liked it because it seemed like a more impactful ending. Also the fact my diction, projection and vocal strength were at a good standard today which helped a lot instead of just my emphasis and pacing.

30/3/16: Carrying on from the last session I still think that the ending is coming along well. The diction and other qualities I mentioned seemed the same today. The rest of the speech is still coming along nicely with good pacing and overall seeming to get the intentions across as far as I can tell. I'm glad that my breath capacity seems to be good at the moment. That has been an issue for me ever since my monologue show in my level 2 course where I did a duologue with James Welland called "The long wait". During that my director, Sarah Harris did criticise my volume and breath capacity more than anything. It was an aspect I have needed to improve on for a while and I feel that throughout the course I did improve by the time I got to my FMP of that year,  "The Rise and Fall of Little Voice" in which I was a lot more audible and had seemingly more confidence and capacity with my voice. I feel I have grown even more this year and that while I still feel I can be louder I have come a long way and I am proud of it.

6/4/16: Today I wanted to do a quick reflection on my voice throughout my performance of "The Oresteia". The vocal requirements for it mainly to sound menacing/plotting since it was a focus of Greek tragedy antagonists which I had to embody at points. I had to pretend to be a bug and a prisoner with the bug requiring the more gravely and weedy voice. A good comparison would be with "The Old Gits" from "Harry Enfield and Chums" except sound a bit more cunning rather than needlessly cruel. This was quite hard at first to do the voice at the appropriate volume and level of clarity. At first it came out with the right tones just not enough diction or a good level of being audible. The more I practiced this with doing the warm up the easier it became and thankfully it still created a sense of being sneaky and cunning while not being over the top to the point of funny. Also with my prisoner it was the same kind of journey in terms of strengths and weaknesses only the intended tones were slightly different and my voice was a little more realistic. Overall I thought my vocals were great during that performance and even quite fun once I got the hang of it. It was effective mixed with the physicality and according to the feedback after the show, the bug sequence with all the guys was actually quite creepy at points.

7/4/16: Today after doing my warm up I only had a brief chance to do my warm up and today I have not noticed any significant changes to my voice. I will admit though that I like my diction and other features of my voice for this speech. I genuinely think that when I reach my full potential it will be great because I think it does suit me. I just don't think I've reached that yet and I think at some point I will have to get more feedback for it since I see potential with strengths and weaknesses but need an outsiders perspective.

11/4/16: Today my vocal qualities were at a good standard and I feel that the clarity is my voice was quite good. The intentions of the character are really coming out in my opinion. I feel I am still creating a sense of restrained anger although that's just from my perspective so I feel that I may have to ask Chloe or someone to watch when I have the chance but for now by my judgement it seems subtle enough yet angry enough to be engaging and not over the top. I'll say that I am quite proud of my accent and I certainly still feel a lot more comfortable doing it in American. It's suits the character and it's an accent I've practiced throughout my life and I feel I have practically perfected it. Adding the accent adds truth and authenticity to the scene and character.

14/4/16: Today I actually tried recording my voice again and from what I was hearing it sounded OK. They do say that listening to a recording takes away about 30% of the quality but whether that is true or not I thought the recording was a little lacking. Now this could have been to with a few factors seeing as I was using my phone to do it which obviously isn't professional level in quality. Despite this my complaints today were that I feel from voice alone the anger might not be coming through too well and maybe my diction was a little lacking but even then I noticed that when performing it. I still really feel I should get someone to watch me but I haven't really got much of a chance to do so yet but I will. I still feel though I can make my feelings more apparent but still be subtle but I have a feeling that I'm being almost too subtle and I need someone to confirm this for me.

19/4/16: Today we had to join the second years for their production of "The Man of Mode". The second years led a group vocal warm up and they used different exercises to my warm up although similar and for the same reasons. Brandon lead it and the most interesting one was the "In for 4, hold for 6 and out 4" only every time we did it, it got longer and would double each time pushing our breath capacity to the limit. We got to in for 32, hold for 8 and out for 32. We also did tongue twisters and similar warm ups to usual. The warm up session was fairly lengthy and because of this my voice in general seemed to be more clear than usual and I noticed whenever I was back stage and had to whisper,l I was still very audible and clear. I did struggle a little with articulating my lines today but I think that was more down to not knowing the lines too well yet so I think if I'll practice I should be OK in that aspect.

20/4/16: Today when performing my scenes in the play I noticed something happen despite doing the same vocal warm up as yesterday. While I was waiting to go on for my scene I noticed that my throat became very dry. I attribute this to being nervous about actually getting the lines right but also I think I didn't drink enough water throughout the day and we had to be there from 9 am until 10 pm so I should've drank more than I did. This is a habit I sometimes do when required to do long days since I'm more focused on the work rather than drinking so I never feel thirsty. As a result of this my voice seemed quieter than usual although still quite articulate but it took more effort to project when performing. I found a page talking about hydration is important. The page mainly applies to singing but it does apply here also. It mentions how when not hydrated vocal folds swell up and make a clear strong voice harder to do due to a build up of acid and the muscles being tired out. I did manage to be quite clear with good diction and decent volume but it's proved to me I need to keep hydrated as much as possible since my throat will affect how I sound. The fact I needed to put more effort in than usual is what confirmed this.

Link to hydration information:
http://www.vocalbrilliance.com/vocal-hygiene-part-2-hydrate-hydrate-hydrate-why-hydration-is-important-to-singing/

21/4/16: Today we ran the same vocal warm up as usual and I made sure to drink more water than yesterday. I did notice an improvement while waiting again. My throat still dried a little but no way near as much as yesterday so I'm going to say that it's just nerves that are making this happen when I'm fully hydrated. This didn't have too much of an effect on y voice but I still noticed that today I didn't project to my full potential. It may have been due to me focusing on the lines instead since I'm still not really used to this style of speaking and haven't had too much time to learn them. However whatever the reason the point still remains that I wasn't really trying to speak from my diaphragm to be heard. This is something I'll focus on tomorrow as I really need to get my volume level up.

22/4/16: This was the last day of Doing "The Man of mode" and I tried my best in order to improve my voice for so it could be at it's best. I feel that today I did improve. Because of what what I said yesterday I felt that I needed to do an exercise to do with projection. So I looked up exercises to do with projection that might help and I found one that I think may help and I found one that I have done before with multiple teachers. It's an exercise where you hold you stomach or grasp your diaphragm and then take a deep breath in and go "HA!" or variations of that in order to help with your "H" sounds but also the volume of your voice sine you have to do it at your full capacity. I found this out in the break between the matinee and evening shows so I noticed the improvement in volume with an increase in ease for the evening performance.  So I shall add it to my list of exercises to continue.

Projection exercise link:
http://www.weheartdrama.com/381/vocal-projectionbreathing-exercises-considering-lung-capacity/

27/4/16:Today when doing my speech I noticed something about my posture, it's not confident enough and maybe a little too slumped or too far forward. Not much but I still noticed it and I want to try out trying a more confident stance or at least to stop leaning forward so much to the point where it seems as though I'm only addressing people in front of me. I feel that this may help bring the characteristics of the speech out even more although only subtly but that's still very good. So in the next session of practice I'll try it out to see what happens.

28/4/16: Today when doing the monologue I'm still in general not seeing much improve (even though it's all in a really good place). I still think my diction, articulation, accent work and volume is to a good standard. However I did try out that stance work today and trying to stand up straight more although still allowing in one or two of those leans I talked about about from the feedback I got from Chloe she said it definitely seemed to have slightly better clarity and that the more confident posture suited the character. So this is something I'll keep up and hopefully this increase in clarity and character confidence brings more to the characters intentions and grips people more.

2/5/16: Today I have noticed that my posture work is still effective so I thought of another point to focus on today and that was of my use of pauses throughout my speech. I did mention before that I have found some ideal moment to use them but I feel this can be improved by looking for more moments to use them, after all I am trying to convince a jury so getting there attention and giving them moments to think about something I say should be important instead of just moving on. Some of these moments are ones such as a brief pause right after my first sentence so that my intention is made clear immediately. I also think that putting them in after significant point of information such as when I say about Tom Robinson only being able to use his right hand or that he is a human being. These brief pauses and possible stares should convey that he is telling them to think about it and they should see him as a human being and not ignore any evidence due to a prejudice. I feel I generally have a good sense of timing when performing whether it be dramatic or humorous. People say that I'm quite funny and quick witted so I know that timing is very important to a performance working or it may be awkward or just not have the impact it should. I feel that I will do the pauses well and today I did so I'll keep them in and practice them as a key element from now on.

4/5/16: Today I practiced my monologue again since I might perform it to Karen tomorrow due the fact I haven't done that for a while now. As of now I think all my vocal characteristics are at least OK although I'll admit I think my articulation and volume for this speech and the room size is great. I will say that my I'm noticing the improved posture from the last session is helping my voice to come across stronger since my stance now implies more strength and seems less restrictive since my diaphragm and whole body (Especially my lungs) has more room/capacity for breath and blood flow. This overall seems to be helping so it's a definite keep even though it's only a subtle but effective thing. Also today I still felt that my sense of timing on my pauses was very good and I feel it is getting the messages across very well.

5/5/16:  Today I performed my monologue to Karen and a couple of students in the class. Overall it went extremely well. Karen even told me that it was at point where it is ready to be graded and I don't need to do the monologue again in class. The feedback from them to do with my voice was that my delivery had a lot of clarity and made my characters intentions very clear. My diction was very good apparently and my accent was a point of praise too which I'm glad about seeing as initially people were skeptical of it but I'm glad it worked. The feedback Karen gave last time about looking around the space more to show scope and that would affect the way I'm delivering. Thankfully that paid off and it made it more convincing that I was talking to a large room of people and the peaks and dips in my volume to go with who I was meant to be addressing. My use of pauses and general pacing were apparently very good as well. It was even called "Excellent storytelling" which I'm proud of. The only criticism I got wasn't for my voice it was for my hair being too long so overall I gave an excellent performance according to Karen. I'm glad that before my performance I asked Becky for help because if I just stuck with James (Who's only feedback was that my accent was good) then I'd have come off as more wooden since I couldn't get whether my intentions were coming across. Becky said they needed to be upped and her help paid off.

10/5/16: Today In the rehearsal of "Earthquakes in London" I noticed something about my voice. When I'm trying to sing as my character I find it quite difficult and my voice sounds different to when I rehearse. It's as if when I get on stage and have to go along with the music and vocals that are playing it sounds off. In my opinion it sounds quite flat and monotone. I asked people about this and they seem to say "But it's supposed to sound bad" which for the character is fine (Besides the fact I am too quiet and need to project it more. However the point still remains that I was actually trying to sound good and it didn't work so whether it works for the character or not it's a problem. this is an issue that I have noticed with this scene. When I'm rehearsing with no music or at least not having to project as much I sound fine but then when the music is introduced I sound not so good. I think that since I'm singing (Which I'm not the greatest at) I might have to extend my warm up slightly or possibly do an exercise to do with singing such as "Do-Re-Mi" this may help warm it up and make it easier to experiment with singing pitches or tones. Karen also gave me some feedback for the play today and her only real issue with me was that despite my subtlety being effective I will have to project more in the theatre and I don't if this will affect it but if I keep doing my warm up then I feel I should be fine.

17/5/16: Today we delivered a presentation to the class to do with out play "Earthquakes in London". I thought that over all it went quite well despite the fact I was very nervous as I am usually am with presentations. I feel that even though I was nervous it didn't come across this way in my delivery of my information with the exception of a couple of moments in which I stuttered or I forgot that I was saying. There was a point where I blanked although I think I kept a light hearted tone and generally good demeanour. I thought I delivered my information with a good sense of clarity and a sense of confidence. I feel my volume was at a good level for the room we were in although I feel that sometimes at the end of certain sentences I would run out of breath and the volume would dip slightly. That was my main fault today but despite that I'm actually quite happy with my delivery today. The only criticism I got was that I may have just had a little too much info or that it was too detailed for the time limit, not that I was too slow in terms of pacing.