I was not overly aware of my vocal habits before I started working on this unit, however I was aware of the fact that I have a very sibilant 's' sound when speaking and that I have a habit of language switching between English and French as well as slipping into a Welsh accent when tired. In the past I have focused on using vocal techniques such as: pitch, tone and pace, when working with scripts in GCSE Drama, for example when I was blocking My Mother Said I Never Should, Act 1 Scene 1, I found that my character, Rosie, is very inquisitive and asks a lot of questions. Therefore, the majority of my lines are spoken at a slow, questioning pace with a slight rise in pitch in my voice at the end of the question to show an interest in wanting to know an answer. For this piece I looked at each scene individually to decide which characters and scenes I needed to apply various vocal techniques to:
Act, Scene and character
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Vocal approach
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Act 1, Scene 1 – All Parents
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Emphasis- on words such as "you" and "imagine" to engage the audience/provoke empathy.
Tone- desperate, as if at the end of my tether and couldn't cope with the behaviour of my child anymore.
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Act 1, Scene 3- Pupil 6
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Volume- significant increase in volume when saying "I want to torch it!" in order to suitably accompany my passionate, impulsive outburst.
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Act 1, Scene 4- Island voices
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Pace- medium pace as this is necessary to make the dialogue flow, and a fast pace would cause the clarity of the narrative to be lost.
Volume- "With each approaching step the tension rises", crescendo in volume in order to build tension to effectively contrast the neutrality of the rest of the narration in this scene.
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Act 1, Scene 7- Parent 5
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Pitch- lower pitch in order to convey that this is an older character in comparison to the others.
Tone- condescending towards Parent 6 to show that I believe that I know what's best for our daughter.
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Act 1, Scene 8- Pupil 6
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Pauses- a pause in "We all got the same...welcome" to effectively convey my feeling of insecurity at that moment
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Act 1, Scene 9- Pupil 6
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Tone- angry, to effectively show the effect of the months/years of torment the staff had put the pupils through.
Emphasis- on "months" to clearly convey the level of resentment and anger the pupils had built up.
Volume- increase at moments of anger e.g. "Months of it!" As if I had truly built up months' worth of anger and hatred.
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Act 2, Scene 2- Pupil 6
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Volume- significant increase on "it just needed a spark" to emphasise my arsonist impulses.
Pauses- between "this place has been waiting to go up for ages" and "it just needed a spark" to show how one thought developed into an example of Pupil 6's impulsive urges.
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Act 2, Scene 3- Staff 1
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Pitch- lower in comparison to the rest of my characters in order to show that the staff are older.
Pace- slower to again reinforce that I am a lot older and show that my staff member character is of greater emotional stability and authority than the pupils.
Tone- snappier, for example when saying lines such as "There's every point.", "Watch it." and "Attitude!", in order to further reinforce my position of authority in this scene.
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Act 2, Scene 5- Island voices
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Clarity- my main focus for this scene is clarity as I only have ensemble lines that can easily become unclear if mumbled or out of time. Emphasis on clarity also ensures that the audience understand that we have switched from the pupils to the Island voices/narrators.
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Act 2, Scene 6- Island voices
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Clarity- again the ensemble lines need to be clear as this is one of the most pivotal and narrative based moments in the play, and the Island voices provide a large amount of detail that cannot be seen.
Pauses- pauses between 'looked', 'pink' and 'raw', specifically emphasise detail that we cannot physically see, which is crucial to this scene, as the intention of it is to show the state in which we find the principal and the task she has been forced into undertaking.
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Act 2, Scene 7- Island voices
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Clarity- again needs to be very clear as we are explaining the outcome of all of the islands happenings and bringing the storyline to a close and tying up loose ends.
Tone- solemn, to convey the tiring effects of the pupils' treatment on the island and also to show the overarching feeling of remorse for everyone's actions.
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At the beginning of the year, I spoke with fairly decent articulation and diction, but sometimes sounded unclear as I had quite a sibilant 's' sound when speaking, which sometimes obscured words or phrases. However, I now feel that I have overcome this due to developing confidence and believe that I speak very articulately. This was a particularly important vocal characteristic I wanted to improve upon in order to create vocal differences between myself and the characters I am portraying in Hope Springs. For example, for Parent 5, I needed my lines to sound punchy and confrontational and clarity of voice was instrumental in making this happen. The pitch of my voice has always been naturally quite high; this is not something I wanted to change. However, I wanted to improve my vocal range in regards to using a different pitch for various characters, for example for Parent 5, I aimed to use a lower pitch in order to convey that this is an older character in comparison to the pupils and Island voices. I feel that I have made a small amount of progress towards this goal as I have aimed to implement this vocal technique every time we have rehearsed Act 1, Scene 7. When I became confident with my lines, I was able to maintain the pitch I wanted to play this character at. Therefore, I was able to execute a difference in pitch between Pupil 6, Island voices and Parent 5- this is one of my main targets for improvement in this project. At the beginning of the year, another of my targets for vocal improvement was to take more pauses to avoid rambling, I often did this as a result of nervousness or merely just to try to get what I want to say heard. This is the one vocal technique I wanted to develop the most, as it affects the clarity, pace and tone of what I'm saying. I feel that I've successfully focused on taking more pauses specifically in larger paragraphs such as the Island voices in Act 2, Scene 6 "Those wrists were bound with that tough nylon rope. pause The other end tied right up high. pause Those wrists looked...pause pink pause raw". These pauses are effectively and specifically emphasising detail that we cannot physically see, which is crucial to this scene, as the intention of it is to show the state in which we find the principal and the task she has been forced into undertaking. During the course of this project, I struggled with maintaining the pitch I wanted to use for my Parent 5 character, due to the pace of Act 1, Scene 7. In order to keep up with the movement material, I had to up the pace of my dialogue which resulted in me falling back into my natural vocal habits to allow me to successfully execute the dialogue with good projection and articulation, meaning that I was unable to create a vocal difference between my characters in regards to pitch. However as I became more confident in my knowledge of the dialogue and movement, this technique became easier to execute and in my final performance I think that the pitch I used effectively conveyed that I was of an older age than Olivia (Pupil 10). By using this vocal approach and focusing on improving my use of pitch I think I was able to effectively differentiate between my characters vocally in order to clearly convey the intentions of each scene in the play, for example the flashback Act 1, Scene 7, I showed the controlling nature of a parent through a lower pitch and punchy/to-the-point tone and in all of the Island voice scenes, my use of projection and articulation made sure that all of the lines were very clear and therefore were more narrative than the rest of my character.
I feel that this piece was a challenge which allowed me to explore how to approach different characters in regards to vocal techniques. I particularly liked using various techniques to create differences between my characters as I believe that this has greatly improved my ability to multi-role. However, I found trying to change my pitch to be lower while performing dialogue at a fast pace, really frustrating as when I sped up the pace of the dialogue, I lost the clarity of it. Personally, I had very high standards for myself, in how I developed and used my ability to effectively multi-role in this piece. I think that I met my standards as I was able to effectively create different vocal profiles for each of my characters which wasn't something I used to think about a lot in the past when creating characters and I believe that this has greatly improved my ability to multi-role. This piece has revealed that, as a learner, I learn lines very quickly and successfully by repeatedly writing them out, and that in order to make progress towards towards my goals, I needed to apply them every time I rehearsed the scene that a specific goal related to, because nothing changes if you don't challenge your vocal habits. I think that I used to think that multi-roling was a simple task that could be easily achieved by changing costume and maybe using my body in a different way, e.g. a different walk or a unique mannerism to a particular character. This piece made me realise that by using different vocal techniques, I can create clearer differences between each character as well as making them all more individual.
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