Freeing the Natural Voice: Imagery and Art in the Practice of Voice and Language

381 Pages·2006·2.13 MB·english

by  Kristin Linklater

Copyright
© 2006 Kristin Linklater
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be
reproduced in any form or by any means without prior
permission of Drama Publishers.
eBook ISBN: 9780896762916
D P
RAMA UBLISHERS
an imprint of
Quite Specific Media Group Ltd.
Hollywood, CA
www.quitespecificmedia.com
Distributed by
Silman-James Press
Los Angeles, CA
www.silmanjamespress.com
This new edition of Freeing the Natural Voice is dedicated to the memory of
Iris Warren, who was the originator of the idea contained in the first edition,
published in 1976. Her work is maintained in this book and augmented with
additional exercises that I have developed over the past twenty-five years.
Uttering a word is like striking a note on the keyboard of the imagination.
—Ludwig Wittgenstein
Philosophical Investigations
Part I section 6
Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Table of Contents
Preface
Tribute to Iris Warren
An Introduction: The Approach to Vocal Freedom
How the Voice Works
Why the Voice Does Not Work
Preparation for the Work
PART ONE: THE TOUCH OF SOUND
The First Four Weeks of Work
1: Workday One
Physical Awareness: The spine
The support of natural breathing . . . a tree
2: Workday Two
Breathing Awareness: Freeing the breath, the source of sound . . . the air
3: Workday Three
The Touch of Sound: Initial vibrations . . . pool of water
4: Workday Four
Freeing Vibrations: Lips, head, body . . . rivers of sound
Intermission Warm-Up
The Second Four Weeks of Work
5: Workday Five
Freeing the Channel: Jaw awareness and relaxation
Getting rid of tension . . . prison gate or open door
6: Workday Six
Freeing the Channel: Tongue awareness
Stretching, loosening, releasing . . . story-teller
7: Workday Seven
Freeing the Channel: The soft palate
Opening and limbering . . . space
8: Workday Eight
The Spine and the Channel: Connection . . . source, journey, destination
9: Workday Nine
Throat Awareness: The open throat . . . chasm
PART TWO: THE RESONATING LADDER
The Next Six to Eight Weeks of Work
10: Workday Ten
Developing and Strengthening: Chest, mouth, teeth resonators
Finding resonance . . . purple, blue, yellow
11: Workday Eleven
Releasing the Voice from the Body: Calling, triads . . . the rainbow
Intermission Workout
12 / 13: Workdays Twelve and Thirteen
Breathing Power: Diaphragm, intercostals, pelvic floor . . . breathing gym
Sensitivity and Power: Enlivening and strengthening impulses . . . free
weights
14: Workday Fourteen
Sinus Resonators: Middle of the face, middle range . . . the road out
15: Workday Fifteen
Nasal Resonators: Carrying power . . . mountain peak
16: Workday Sixteen
Range: Three to four octaves . . . from basement to attic
17: Workday Seventeen
Skull Resonator: High intensity . . . playing the dome
18: Workday Eighteen
Exercising Your Range: Strength, flexibility, freedom . . . swinging
19: Workdays Nineteen, Twenty, Twenty-one, and Thereafter
Articulating the voice into Words: Consonants and vowels—voice joints
PART THREE: THE LINK TO TEXT AND ACTING
Words . . . imagery
About Texts . . . art
Tuning in to the Text . . . imagination
Appendix
Acknowledgments
Preface
I
the United States when I did. I came in response to the
WAS LUCKY TO COME TO
urgent encouragement of many American actors who came to the London
Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA) for a year of training during the
years I taught there. They were usually on a graduate level or had been working
professionally and came for further training. They told me that the kind of voice
work that Iris Warren and I were teaching was unknown in the States at that time
and could be immensely valuable to American actor training. When I arrived in
New York in 1963 it seemed that I was bringing a method of work at exactly the
right time to exactly the right place.
The search for an equilibrium between technique and emotional freedom
occupied actor training from the 1920s on. Indeed, the search continues to this
day; but in the history of actor development, both American and British, the
search was consistently out of step throughout the 1930s, ’40s, and ’50s.
Stanislavsky’s books, the Group Theatre, and Lee Strasberg’s Actors Studio
moved American actors forward in psychological and emotional exploration to
the point that they virtually abandoned the study of external skills. In Britain
those skills reigned supreme. By the 1950s the influence of an emotionally vital
American theatre had begun to inspire the British to fill out their technique with
more gut content. By the 1960s, America, mushrooming with regional repertory
companies, found its actors and directors crying out for technique to cope with a
wide range of theatrical productions from classical to avant-garde.
When American actors tried to find teachers to help them meet their demands,
they often found that technical skills were still being taught as they had been in
the twenties through elocution, ballet, singing, gymnastics, and phonetics,
making the gap between creation and communication unbridgeable. There was
the creative, imaginative inner life and the skillful outer communicative one,
with no connective tissue.
Meanwhile in London, methods—originated by Jacques Copeau, developed
by Michel St. Denis and Litz Pisk, and nurtured at the Old Vic Theatre School—