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2023.04.05 – 0825 – Side Slides The side slides ·        Stand with your feet slightly further apart than your hips, for added stability ·        Take a deep breath – properly and from your diaphragm, then as you slowly exhale… do some side bends ·        … tilting your body...

2023.04.04 – 0824 – Yes and No Yes and No ·        Move your head from side to side in a wide but slow ‘no’ gesture ·        Move your head up and down in a high, low and slow ‘yes’ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

2023.04.03 – 0823 – Hands Down Hands down ·        Slowly lift your hands over your head… ·        And as you do so breathe in. ·        Then exhale as you move your hands down again. ·        This will help you concentrate on your breath c...

2023.04.02 – 0822 – Hula Hoops Hula hoops ·        Stand with your feet hip-width apart and with your knees slightly bent ·         Put your hands on your hips and do a ‘hula hoop’, big circle movement with your hips. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

2023.04.01 – 0821 – Shoulder Shrugs and Rolls Shoulder shrugs and rolls ·        Raise and lower your shoulders in a slow exaggerated shrug. Up to your ears and then hold for two seconds and then feel the muscles relax as you drop them ·        Put your hands on your shoulders and do some big forward shoulder rolls thr...

2023.03.31 – 0820 – Windmill Arms Windmill arms ·        Stretch your arms out from the side (not the front or back) of your body ·        Now draw a ‘figure of eight’ in the air alongside you, gradually increasing the size of the digit ·        This helps work out any shoulder a...

2023.03.30 – 0819 – Be A Crawler Be a crawler ·        Do some big ‘front crawl’ swimming movements with your arms, slowly and gently for 20 seconds in a full circle. This will loosen your back, chest and ribcage muscles to help better breathing ·        Now repeat the exercise with the arms rotating backwards · &...

2023.03.29 – 0818 – Hum and Drum Hum and drum ·        Stand and breath in deeply – remember from your diaphragm! ·        Breathe out slowly and as you do so hummmmmmm a constant note ·        And as you hum, wake up your chest, sides and back by firmly patting them with a gentl...

2023.03.28 – 0817– Make A Stand! First, make a stand! Many presenters and voice-over artists prefer to stand at the mic anyway. It enables alertness and better breath control: ·        Feet firmly on the ground shoulder-width apart and with three points of contact with the floor: underneath the big and little toe and the centre of your heel ·  &nbs...

2023.03.27 – 0816 – Whole Body Warm Up Exercises Whole Body Warm Up Exercises [1] (Some of these exercises incorporate ‘sound’ as well as ‘structure’, that is you may use your voice while you are physically moving, and in that way, there is naturally some cross over with the previous chapter. This again shows how all elements of the body are interlinked.)   We have seen already how nerves and...

2023.03.26 – 0815 – Relaxation From Tension The flip side of tension is relaxation. Hopefully you will have seen by now how so many parts of the body are involved in creating the sound we call voice: your spine, various ligaments and muscles – some as small as the vocal folds in your throat, some large and powerful such as your diaphragm.   And ‘relaxation of the mechanism’ is the key to have...

2023.03.25 – 0814 – Ten Tell-Tale Signs of Tension Some physical tension creeps up on us. We don’t notice small changes to the body until it’s ‘too late’. So here are Ten Tell-Tale Signs of Tension : 1.      Your voice sounds crackly and raspy 2.      It sounds thin or strained 3.      Your voice sounds weak...

2023.03.24 – 0813 – Your Studio Desk Set Up Your Studio Desk Set Up Are the screens in your studio laid out so you can see them without twisting and turning, actions which will causes spinal stresses and strains? If you talk with a twisted neck, you are pulling the larynx out of alignment causing other muscles to compensate, which will affect your vocal sound, health and stamina. If you can, move...

2023.03.23 – 0812 – Nine Lines On the Spine (7-9) 7.  Similarly wearing high heels can also throw your body out of alignment, you may have to stick your bum out to counterbalance your weight, causing other stresses on the ‘wrong’ part of the skeleton and muscle groups, and the resulting tension causing a less effective and free voice. 8. The ribs are joined to the spine and they need to be fr...

2023.03.22 – 0811 – Nine Lines On the Spine (4-6)   4. The larynx is at the top of the trachea which runs along the same line as your spine. What you do with your head and neck alignment has a knock-on effect on your larynx, and therefore your voice.   5. The average human head weighs around 5kg or 11lbs, that's more than most new-born babies, and is balanced on just seven vertebrae...

2023.03.21 – 0810 – Nine Lines On the Spine (1-3)   Nine Lines On the Spine 1. Why is this important? Well, your voice is affected by your postural alignment, and you will have better breathing and resonance if your ‘spine is fine’. That means using minimal effort for maximum effect: an efficient, effective and effortlessly good voice without the work of holding and tensing muscles to create...

2023.03.20 – 0809 – Vocal Tension From Sitting and Standing   Physical tension can come from sitting down and standing up It is very easy to stay still in a studio and only at the end of a programme realise that you have been in the same seat for three or four hours.   Sitting still has your body relaxed into a sedentary position, your breathing slows into shallow breaths as the lun...

2023.03.19 – 0808 – The Causes of Vocal Tension  What Causes Tension Nerves. Overwhelm. Anxiety. Excitement. The unknown. Panic. Being underprepared. Being worried about how you sound. Concerns about your message and the audience’s reception to it. Any physical niggle can affect your voice. That’s anything from a paper cut to menstrual cramps, discomfort anywhere will cause ‘compensatory musc...

2023.03.18 – 0807 – Tension and Relaxation  We looked at releasing tension in the mouth, jaw, tongue and lips in the previous chapter, but as the Voice Box above shows, physical tension that can affect your voice can be in many other places. “ Tension murders vibration (and) vibrations thrive in relaxation ” Kristin Linklater, “Freeing the Natural Voice: Imagery and Art in the Practice of Lan...

2023.03.17 – 0806 – Stretching and Strengthening Your Laryngeal Muscle  There are around 27 muscles in and around the larynx, 15 of these are outside the larynx and hold it in position in the neck, 12 are essential, with a direct action on the vocal folds in their lengthening and shortening, tension and relaxation, thinning and thickening.   These laryngeal muscles are intimately connect...

2023.03.16 – 0805 – Your Physical Health In the previous chapter we looked at your vocal zones and how looking after them affects the way you sound. Earlier in the course we discussed the ‘art of breathing’ and how sitting and standing ‘properly’, affects how you sound. Now, we’ll take a look at the wider body and its effect on your voice, including the physical tensions you need – and the ones yo...

2023.03.15 – 0804 – The Cool-Down Low-Down   % The cool down low-down There is a need to ease yourself back to normality after extensive vocalising, resetting to ‘neutral’ rather than just stopping suddenly. You have used your voice lots, perhaps been a bit stressed and had adrenaline, you might have projected a bit more, put on a character voice (perhaps been speaking to other delegates in a...

2023.03.14 – 0803 – Green Kings Singing     Green Kings Singing ·        Slowly and carefully say the phrase “ green kings sing-ging ” . Note how I’ve written the last word, split in two, that’s because I want you to say it that way, “ sing ” and then “ ging ” stressing the ‘ ng ’ and hard ‘ g ’ sounds, so you can be conscious of where the sounds a...

2023.03.13 – 0802 – The ‘siNG soNG’ Vocal Warm Up   Nasal It’s important to be comfortable in diverting sounded air from your nasal cavity to the mouth and vice-versa.   The Nasal Siren ·        Say the word “ song ” and take that ‘ ng ’ sound that is sent through your nasal cavity and keep it going. Then carefully glide up the register (sometimes...

2023.03.12 – 0801 – The ‘This & That’ Vocal Warm Up   This & That Say the word “ this ” and “ that ” and you’ll notice that to make the “ th ” you put the tip of your tongue between your teeth. ·        Say ‘ th ’ again and make it a long, buzzing sound ‘ ththththththth ’, feel your larynx vibrate by resting a couple of fingers on it · &nbs...