THE COMPELLING VOICE Centering Through Emotional Resonance INTRODUCTION As actors, your primary job is to move an audience emotionally, whether through the media of television, film, or theater. That’s what people pay you for. To become excited made to laugh, cry, and all things between to resonate in empathy with whatever your emotional experience is. All of you have an active emotional life, but are you consistently connected to it, and when you are, is it expressed? In all acting vehicles, voice and speech are your primary currency. These are the essential avenues through which you express text. In film and television especially, you’re most often called upon to remain still in your close-ups. If your voice is tight, thin, or strident, held in and emotionally inexpressive, you may not be asked to work as often as you deserve to. The compelling voice compels your fellow actors and your audiences, whether in the theater or before the lens, to pay attention to the words you speak. It is the opening of the voice, a truly beautiful expression of the integration of body, mind, senses, and emotional content through the catalyst of focused breathing that is the key to making an audience sit up and listen. How does this actually take place? You possess an emotional center, a wheel of physical sensations centered in your solar plexus. If this center is active if there is an upwelling from this place through breath, coloring your voice at every moment then you will be perceived at a deeper level, and yes, move your fellow actors and your audience. If this center is not penetrated, you will become opaque and unable to evoke an emotional response in others. Can you perform a concerto on the piano by sitting down at the instrument and making believe you can play? Can you dance the title role in Swan Lake without years of hard work in a ballet studio? Can you compete at a USTA tournament without consistent tennis instruction and practice? A relaxed, flexible, responsive body and voice are your instruments. They need the same attention that musicians, dancers, and athletes give to their professions. Yet thousands of new actors believe they can walk their way into successful careers without fully rounded training. This is understandable given the mass appeal of shows like American Idol. There are people out there with God-given talent, who come out of small-town America and perform like champs. It is so easy to be seduced into the illusion that you’re one of them. It’s unlikely the case. So, actors arrive in Los Angeles, and their first thought is that by getting their headshots taken, they’ll automatically get a manager and an agent, and get work. What a critical error! I’ve observed, taken part in, and taught scene study classes for three decades. There are literally hundreds of opportunities for this kind of training in Los Angeles, New York, and points between. All heirs of the Group Theater: teachers descended from Uta Hagen, Sanford Meisner, Stella Adler, Lee Strasberg, and others. Their legacy is imperative in the process of becoming an actor, but it is not enough. I can’t tell you how often I’ve watched actors in classes wanting to, but unable to fully communicate, not knowing how to instill real emotional power into a scene. Without training your voice, you may desire to act with all the passion and brilliance you can muster, but still remain ineffective. I am surprised by the reluctance I see in so many actors to work on their voices, especially in Los Angeles. They think that in film and television, this is wholly unnecessary. Watch TV and go to movies. Per capita, in American productions, actors from Britain, Australia, and Canada are often garnering more starring roles than Americans. It’s difficult enough to find success in this industry. Without question, if actors address their voices, they’ll gain a tremendous advantage. Voice in the theater is about the extension of intimate experience through physical space. Voice in film and television is about a more subtle expressiveness, yet in both media, equally important. If your body is deeply relaxed, your natural voice will come through, transparent to emotional impulse. Very young children speak with this unrestrained ease. What they feel is wonderfully apparent, because they’ve not yet masked themselves with the matrix of ego. This transparency, which we’ll call “uncensored sound,” is an important element in training, but not the end of the learning process. Uncensored sound is subtext not only what you’re thinking behind the words, but your entire psychological/physical/emotional state what I call the “underbelly” the core energy underlying what you say and do. The question stands. Is uncensored sound sufficient, or even appropriate for your work? As you will see, it makes for an important starting point. Ultimately, this source of emotional energy is only intended to color the mask of character. Another common belief that so many actors cherish is that moving and speaking as they do in their everyday lives is the ideal. It’s true that trained actors appear to be doing just that, but there is considerable craft behind it. The worlds of stage, film, and television make for a heightened reality. The words we speak must be charged with the engine of emotional content, however masked with the inevitable and appropriate tensions of character. You remain relaxed. This is essential. The circumstances inherent in the story are, of course, instilled with dramatic conflict. But what is and what isn’t emotional content? How and where does it move in the body? What simple techniques can we use to our best advantage? Remember that the subtitle of this book is Centering Through Emotional Resonance. The beauty of learning voice at a deeper level will lower your center of gravity; give you weight, substance, and presence, enabling you to act from a place of personal experience and truth. Over the last thirty years, I’ve discovered a chronology of information and created exercises that give you a taste of The Compelling Voice. Some of the exercises offered herein are original, some inspired by others, some as ancient as time. This approach is inherently simple; a re-instilling of what is your birthright. Once embodied, it will become second nature. My students have expressed time and time again: “Sometimes I’m connected emotionally and sometimes I’m not.” I’m here to give you techniques whereby you will gain the ability to access your emotional life, consistently. Moreover, you will develop much greater presence and power. You’ll achieve this through the integration of: The body, The mind, The senses, and Emotional content. Voice training is a hands-on process, best taught privately or in small groups. What follows will help you as you practice on your own. We begin with the body.
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