2 Relaxation and Breathing

What you require is as open and full a tone as possible, yet which is completely your own. You want to increase range and power, and to be able to call on it as you need.

The voice is incredibly sensitive to any feelings of unease. In everyday life, if you are slightly nervous or not quite on top of the situation, this condition reacts on the voice. The basic feeling of fear puts all the defence mechanisms into action, and the result is tension, particularly in the upper part of the body, the neck and shoulders.

The actor knows just how dependent he is on his voice, and what demands he wants to make on it, and this knowledge in itself makes for tension. The great problem is the ever-varying one of space. If he has to fill a large space it must be without seeming effort, without coarsening his voice or cutting down on the intimacy of tone; in a film or TV studio, however, he has to use his voice with a high degree of naturalism, yet keep its particular edge, meaning and colour (which is not at all like talking naturally).

Size is therefore the first thing I shall deal with, as it is possibly the biggest cause of tension. At the moment I do not mean the size of a character — emotional size — as we shall talk about that later. Here I mean simply the size needed to fill a theatre. It is only partly to do with volume; it is also partly an attitude - a reaching out of oneself to an audience which involves taking your time - and partly the firmness of sound, its solidity which will carry. The important thing is that an audience is only interested in actors talking to each other. As soon as an actor starts talking at another actor or at the audience, the thought ceases to be specific and he loses contact with the audience. They do not want to know. They hear but do not understand.

If you start to push, because of tension, these things are likely to happen:

1   The voice goes up slightly in pitch and takes on a curious, unfocused quality. This irons out the flexibility of the voice, the natural talking inflections, so that we get a rhetorical tone and not a talking or conversational one. The meaning then stops being specific.

2  The sound comes out at the same pressure, which alienates the listener because his ear is being assaulted and not drawn in to listen.

3   The tension in the neck restricts the throat and cuts out the lower tones of the voice, the chest notes. This tension puts, as it were,

a skin on the tone, making it sound the same however much range

you may be using. It negates the inflections, so that what you are

saying becomes general and not particular. 4 The most important point is that, because the sound is being

pushed, the listener is more aware of the sound than of the word.

All this adds up to the same thing; if there is tension in the neck and you try to make your voice big you will push from the throat and so cut out all the interesting undertones of your voice. Your energy is in the wrong place. The throat is the one place that you should feel no effort.

When working in studios the fact that so little volume is needed is inhibiting and misleading. The naturalism you need often makes you use what I call a half-voice, instead of your complete voice at reduced volume, which cuts out a lot of the colour of the voice. Because of the restricted area in which you are working the amount of movement is limited, and any tension you may have is consequently more difficult to break. You Cannot get the sense of vocal freedom that is possible on the stage, and the voice is more difficult to manipulate.

The limitations I have mentioned so far may happen in varying degrees; they may happen on some acting parts and not on others, and in some conditions and not in others. The important thing is that tension of any sort cuts down the effectiveness of the actor, and whether or not he is aware of the reason he is aware of being limited. This immediately reacts on his confidence, and he becomes more tense. It can be almost a vicious circle. The old adage about singing best in the bath is quite true. The acoustics of a bathroom are such that they reinforce the resonance of the voice particularly well, so that it sounds good — the result is you actually sing better. This is something one cannot say too much; you have to trust your voice, because it is only then that you will get the best out of it. It blossoms with success, though we must not strive for success too much.

It is obvious that extra force is needed to fill a theatre, and that very particular control is needed in a studio. You have to find where the energy is and how to release it. 'Teach us to care and not to care', as Eliot says. The 'caring' is the work done to prepare, and the 'not caring' is letting it go.

Think again of the analogy of the voice and the violin. The quality of the sound emitted by the violin depends on how the bow is used, the quality of the strings and their tautness, and how well the resonating box is made. With the voice, you depend on the breath to start the sound — not too much for that would make the sound breathy, not too little for that would make the attack glottal and the tone hard, but right and clean and using all the breath to make sound. The vocal cords, which are the strings of the violin, are not under your direct control, so you can do little about them. In fact,

you are only aware of them when you misuse them by tension in the larynx, by forcing the sound out before the breath is ready, by being out of time, as it were, constantly using a pitch which is outside your range. You then get nodes or small corns on them, which results in your having no proper control over the sound; this can be a serious condition, best dealt with by a laryngologist.

You depend on the resonating spaces for the quality of sound you produce. Look at the illustration on page 10 to see the possible areas which can vibrate and contribute to the sound.

You can see that there is enormous potential for resonance, or amplification of your primary note. The bones themselves can be part of this amplification, and you can even feel vibration down to the base of the spine and in the stomach. Whether you use this resonance or not depends on the breath and complete freedom, or relaxation - good posture, in fact.

For example, if your back is not as straight as possible the ribs cannot open properly, there is little possibility of movement at the bottom of the rib cage. The curve in the base of the spine results in a hollow back. One curve in the spine automatically makes for another one to compensate and maintain the balance of the body, so the upper part of the chest is pulled back. If you consciously put yourself in this position you will see how impossible it is to open the ribs up round the back, something which is absolutely vital to the solidity of tone and to your own confidence.

Similarly, the base of the back can be in a good position, but if the shoulders are dropped forward the head has to be pulled back, both to compensate for balance and to keep the head in a normal position.

You will find that the resonating space in the neck is completely squashed, so there will be little reinforcement of the tone from there. It is useful to consciously put yourself in these positions in a fairly exaggerated way so that you can feel the results of such tensions. You will also find that one tension leads to another: tension in the small of the back makes you feel tension in the shoulders, for example, while tension in the back of the neck leads to tension in the front of the neck where the larynx or voice-box is, an area where it is particularly bad to have tension because then you can so easily strain the voice. Tensions here lead to tensions in the jaw, and jaw tension has repercussions on the back of the tongue and palate.

Obviously I am overstating these tensions, because it is then easier to understand their effect. Few people have them in such an exaggerated form, yet almost everyone has them to some degree. Tension is likely to come when faced with the necessity of projecting to an audience, and when it does it limits the voice and deprives it of some of its richness and reverberations. The actor's rapport with his

audience is then not so happy, for they are aware of his tension and therefore cannot be free to enjoy the illusion which is the aim of every performance.

Just as tension limits the use of the resonating spaces, so it limits the breathing capacity. As I have said, a good note on the violin depends on how the player applies the bow. You depend on breath, and how you apply it.

If you look at the illustration below it is obvious that there is considerable room for movement in the lower part of the chest, where the ribs are attached to the spine at the back, but to each other, by muscle, in the front. In fact, the bottom two pairs are floating — that is, not attached at all in the front. The top six pairs of ribs are firmly attached to the spine at the back and to the sternum, or breastbone, in front. If you breathe from the upper part of the chest, therefore, the whole rib cage has to move and you use a great deal of effort to get a relatively small amount of breath. Unfortunately, a great deal of athletic training concentrates on this area for breath supply as it enables you to take quick, short breaths, and if you have trained in this way it is difficult to break the habit. This type of breathing produces an enormous amount of tension in the upper part of the chest and shoulders which, as we have seen, is totally wrong for the voice.

You obviously need as much breath as possible without effort, and that breath you need to make into sound. If you find the breath at the base of the ribs, especially at the back and in the stomach as the diaphragm descends, then the whole frame of the body becomes part of the sound as it contributes to it with its resonance. You can feel

the whole of your spine, right down to its base, being part of the breathing cycle and therefore part of the sound. The result is that the physical presence is in the voice. If your breathing is limited to the upper part of the body your voice will reflect only part of you. You can, in fact, get by with very little breath, manufacturing the vocal energy in the throat, but the result will be what I call 'cerebral' sound - it will reveal nothing beyond what is in your mind and will have no physical or emotional resonances. As I said earlier, physical resonance opens up areas of understanding, of feeling, of emotional resonance, and sometimes just the act of making that sound increases your understanding.

What you are doing is reaching down to your centre for the sound. The breath goes in, and the sound comes out — you are touching down to your centre, you are finding the T of your voice. When you find this it is as though you belong, you are present in what you are saying. You will then find the breath touching off the sound like a drum. You will find that you will not have to use a great deal of breath, because the breath will be made into sound. It is economy of effort. When you find this absolutely right use of breath the voice will be effortless, it will impel itself. This is where your true energy is. This is what I mean by rooting the voice.

You can find this energy quite practically by exercise, but the exercise is useless without the right thought behind it, and vice versa.

It is also clear that relaxation depends on breathing, and breathing on relaxation, which is why you have to do the two types of exercises together.

There are two more things I should like to say before we get down to the exercises. First, about breathing. The process of rooting down takes time, so do not do the exercises quicker than you can feel the whole process working. As soon as you feel the breath touching down you can speed up, as speed comes with efficiency.

The second thing I want to mention is relaxation. It is always difficult to give precise directions about this, because it varies so much with the individual, and you can never be completely sure how the directions will be interpreted. To begin with, I prefer the word 'free' to the word 'relaxed', as the latter gives the impression of being floppy and heavy, and therefore perhaps dull, whereas 'free' implies being relaxed but ready for action, alert but not tense. You constantly have to differentiate between the tension you need and the tension you do not need. To make any movement certain muscles have to have tension - just to stand upright involves tension in certain muscles, for example. What you do not want, however, is unnecessary tension, because all unnecessary tension is wasted energy - it is energy being kept in and not made available for communication. This means that you have to be aware of the separate-

ness of muscles and what they do, and this is particularly difficult when you come to work on the neck. Later, when you come to work on exercises for muscularity in the lips and tongue, you will find how difficult it is to keep the neck relaxed when increasing the firmness in those muscles, as so much happens in so small a space. This awareness of the separate use of muscles is something to bear very much in mind.

EXERCISES

1 Lie on the floor on your back with your buttocks flat. Feel the back as spread as possible.

Crook your knees up a little apart, aware of them pointing to the ceiling. This should help to get your back flat. Do not push it down by tensing, however, just get it as flat as you can.

Try to be aware of your back spreading over the floor, and not sinking down into it. Let it spread.

Let the shoulders spread, try to feel the shoulder joints easing out, and not cramped in. It helps if you allow the elbows to fall away from the body, with the wrists inwards as in the diagram below.

Now think of your back lengthening along the floor — become aware of your spine and try to feel each vertebra slightly easing away from the other.

Feel this right to the base of the spine — to the tail in fact.

Allow the head to lengthen out of the back.

Shake your wrists, very gently, and let them drop.

Move your elbows, feel them free, and let them drop.

Turn the head easily from side to side, feeling the muscles free, then back to a central position.

Press the head back slightly into the floor, then free it, and feel the difference between the tension and relaxation in the neck muscles.

Tense the chin slightly down and then free it, again being aware of the difference.

The head should be neither pressed back nor forward - but free.

Take time to feel these sensations of lengthening and widening and freedom in the different sets of muscles. Actually say to yourself:

Back spread

Shoulders spread and free

Lengthen down to the bottom of the spine, and feel the wholeness

of the back Wrists free Elbows free Neck free, and lengthening out of the back

It is surprising how the muscles will react to these orders, and I shall give you an example to make this clear. Suppose that I asked you to span an octave on the piano with your fingers. If you prepared to do it but shopped before you actually did it you would feel the muscles in your fingers react; they would be tingling in the act of preparation and their position would be slightly different as a result. You would feel the sensation of the fingers widening without it actually happening. Obviously the fingers are much more aware than the back, and more sensitive, but the same thing happens with the back.

The important thing is not to do anything, because that will make tension. Just allow the muscles to react to the orders.

In this position, without the responsibility of keeping upright, you can be acutely aware of muscular tension and of muscular freedom.

Maintain this awareness of freedom through the following breathing exercises. Never mind stopping the breathing exercises to reaffirm this freedom.

2 Put the backs of your hands on the bottom of the rib cage, where the ribs bulge most, in fact, because that is where you will find most movement.

a Breathe in through the nose, feeling the ribs opening out along the

floor at the back. Sigh out through an open mouth and throat, pushing all the air out of the lungs, down to the last bit. Wait until you feel the muscles between the ribs having to move, then fill slowly in again, aware of the ribs widening round the back and sides and feeling the air filling the lungs deep down. Use the floor to help the feeling of widening. Sigh out.

Do this only two or three times, but breathing in through the nose and out through an open mouth and throat. Concentrate on the capacity of breath; to this end breathing in through the nose helps to stimulate the intake.

Try not to let the upper part of the chest move, but do not worry unduly if it does, as the movement will gradually cut out the more you concentrate on the lower part of the ribs, and the freer they get. On the other hand, do not fill to such an extent that you get a feeling of tightness in the upper chest.

b Breathe in slowly and easily, hold a moment, make sure the shoulders and neck are free, and then breathe out slowly to ten counts (by that I mean counting in your head, not aloud). It is vital to feel the muscles between the ribs controlling the outgoing air — this is the main point of the exercise. Breathing out should be quite noiseless as the throat should be open. If there is noise in the throat, however, it means that you are controlling the breath there by a certain constriction, which means there is a concentration of energy there, and when you come to vocalize there will be tension. Always wait before you breathe in again so that you feel the muscles between the ribs needing to move.

To begin with, this exercise should be done for five minutes at the least, increasing the outgoing count to fifteen. It is a lengthy exercise, but almost the most important, because, by breathing out slowly and waiting before you breathe in, the muscles spring out of their own accord. They feel the need to move, so you do not have to push them — the energy is in them.

So far you have opened up the ribs. Now you want to extend the area into the deepest part of the lungs, into the stomach. This you can do by exercising the diaphragm, which is the sheet of muscle separating the chest from the abdomen.

When the diaphragm contracts and descends breath is drawn into the lowest part of the lungs. As it relaxes and comes up so the air is expelled. You cannot feel the diaphragm directly, but you can feel the muscles at the top of the stomach which it displaces when it moves down.

c Breathe in all the way round so you feel the ribs open - check that the neck and shoulders are free. Put one hand on the abdominal muscles just above the waist and give a very small sigh from there (like a pant, but not sudden or jerky), and then fill in again. Do this several times so you feel the breath going in and out quite specifically to the base of the lungs.

d As with the last exercise, breathe in all the way round, put your hand on the front, and give a small sigh. Breathe in again and sigh out on 'ER' with a slight 'H' in front of the vowel, vocalizing it. Touch the sound off with the breath like a drum. Repeat several times to make quite sure where the sound is starting. Then progress on to a more sustained vowel, 'AH', holding on to it a little longer. Then even more sustained on 'AY' and 'I', first with a talking inflection and then singing them on a comfortable note. Then go back to touching them off quite shortly again — 'AH', 'AY' and 'I' —joining the breath to the sound. They should be one.

e Now put this into practice on words. A few lines of poetry are best, something that you know, but use the same principle on a piece of text. The following verse of Shakespeare is a good example of what I mean:

Fear no more the heat o' the sun,

Nor the furious winter's rages; Thou thy worldly task hast done,

Home art gone, and ta'en thy wages; Golden lads and girls all must,

As chimney-sweepers, come to dust.

Breathe after every second line, taking time to feel the breath go right down and the sound come out. You reach down for the sound, the chest contributes to its vibrations, and physically it is a whole sound. To begin with the sound may not root down completely — there is often a time-lag between getting the breathing working and the sound actually springing from there. You can help this by alternating a short sigh out, then breathe in, then speak two lines of the text. The important thing is to become familiar with the feeling of the sound springing from the diaphragm.

Here you have separated the diaphragm breath from the rib breath, but only for the purpose of being aware of each set of muscles. In fact they both work together, and freedom of the lower ribs helps the movement of the diaphragm. I should like to make it quite clear that I do not believe that you should work keeping the two movements separate - that is, holding the ribs out firmly and only using the breath from the diaphragm, what has been known as rib-reserve

breathing. To me this is unreal and makes for a great deal of tension. To make good sound it is essential that both sets of muscles are working at their best, but interrelated and free. The ribs give the solidity, the feeling that you can sit back on your voice, and the diaphragm breath makes you aware of its particular rooting.

f Lie still for a moment, affirming the sense of length and width in the back. When you feel ready roll over on to your side and stand up, but do it quite slowly and keeping the sense of openness in the back. Stand still a moment, to notice the feeling of your back.

3 Get a stool or chair without arms on which you can sit straight but comfortably. Sit with your buttocks well down to cut out any hollowing in the back. Try to recall the sensation you had on the floor of the back long and wide. Give yourself the same orders:

Back wide

Back lengthen right through from the bottom of the spine

Head lengthening out of the back — feel it as all one unit.

Head

Drop your head forward, without letting your shoulders go, and pull up slowly, feeling the muscles in the back of the neck pulling it up.

Drop back and then lift, feeling your head lifting as you do so.

Drop to one side, stretch gently, and lift.

Drop to the other side, stretch, and lift.

Drop your head forward, roll round to the side, right back, to the other side, and then drop forward.

Repeat this movement, but rolling round the other way. Be careful not to turn the head as you roll - this is cheating.

Hold the head in a normal position again. Tense it very slightly back, feeling the tension in the muscles at the back of the neck, then free it and feel the difference.

Tense your chin slightly down, again feeling where the tension comes. release it and notice the difference.

From this upright position nod very gently, noticing the freedom in the muscles of the neck and feeling the head poised but not tense. Free in fact. This exercise really is the most useful thing you can do to get the sense of freedom.

Give a very small head roll, hardly moving, but as if the head were on ball-bearings on top of the spine. Then hold it still and notice how it feels, but do not fix it. Still but not fixed.

Shoulders

Lift your shoulders gently, about half an inch, then drop them. When you have dropped them let them go even more — they usually can. Repeat this two or three times. Then just let them sit there — and remember that feeling of ease.

The above exercises should be done quietly, so that you can take time to notice the feeling of freedom, so that you can remember it easily and thus recapture it. I think violent muscular exercises are not particularly useful, in that they only make you conscious of the extreme conditions of tension and passive relaxation, which is a negative condition. What you want to become familiar with is the feeling of freedom which is always alert, familiar enough to be able to recall it when you want it, without the anxiety and desperation of thinking 'I must relax'. For instance, if I told you to clench your fist you would not have to think how to do it, you would be able to do it automatically, and it is this same kind of familiarity we need in relation to relaxation. There is no spectacular difference in the feelings; it should just be that the shoulders and neck feel comfortable and easy. It should feel easier and more pleasant, and therefore normal, and this should be the feeling you refer to while doing all the voice exercises.

I think it is as well to do these relaxation exercises sitting down, but the following breathing exercises can be done either sitting or standing, whichever you feel inclined to do. However, when you stand, take time to recall the feeling of your back long and wide.

4 a Put your hands up behind your head, and let your elbows be wide; to prevent tension as much as possible put the tips of your fingers on your ears to avoid pushing your head forward. This is a slightly tense position, so you have to keep as relaxed as possible — its advantage is that it opens out the rib cage. Breathe in fairly slowly through your nose, trying not to lift your shoulders. Open your mouth and sigh out — right out — and wait. Feel the need to breathe in, and in again slowly and out in the same way. Do this two or three times only, because it is tiring and tension comes quickly, but you will find it helps enormously to get the ribs moving.

b Put the backs of your hands on your ribs, with elbows and ribs as loose as possible; you should be able to feel the ribs quite firmly, and it is useful to put one hand round the back sometimes so you can feel the back ribs opening. This is the same as the breathing exercise on the floor, though of course it is more difficult to keep relaxed, and also more difficult to feel the back widening, which is so vital.

Breathe in for three counts, hold a moment and check shoulders and

neck. Open your mouth and breathe out for ten counts. Wait until you feel the ribs needing to move and breathe in again, and so on. Remain conscious of the muscles between the ribs controlling the outgoing air, because it is those muscles you want to stimulate, and always wait for the feeling of those muscles wanting to spring out before you take in air again. When you are ready increase the count to fifteen. In the change-over between breathing in and breathing out there should be no holding in the throat, as this means you are controlling the breath there instead of by the rib muscles — it should be those which are holding the breath. Similarly, there should be no noise in the throat when you are breathing out for the same reason. Be conscious of the air being drawn deep into the lungs.

This is the basic exercise for strengthening and freeing the ribs, so that we may eventually use all that space to contribute to the sound and give it solidity. As I have said, you can do it sitting or standing; it is also good to do it walking about, as this helps to break the tension.

c Again, this is the same as the exercise on the floor. Put one hand on your abdominal muscles above the waist, so that you feel the result of the movement of the diaphragm. Breathe in all the way round, trying particularly to get it open at the back. Give a little sigh out from the diaphragm — like a pant but not violent or sudden — repeat several times until you are sure of that feeling. It does not matter if the ribs move, so long as you get a general feeling of them being open Then vocalize on that diaphragm breath with a little 'ER', just touching the sound off like a drum. This should be unforced yet firm, and quite specific as to the place where the sound is being made. The throat should be quite open, as that is the one place you should never feel effort. Now sustain the sound a little more by vocalizing on 'AH', and then hold it a little longer on 'AY' and 'I', getting the vowels open.

Now sing out on those two vowels, sustaining them for three counts on a comfortable note. Then go back to saying them quite shortly.

Keep that feeling of joining breath to sound.

Now put it into practice on a piece of text that you know, or the following Shakespeare song. At this point do not take too long a phrase on one breath. The aims now are to become familiar with the feeling of air going into the deepest part of the lungs and to get a very specific sound coming out, to root the sound with a clear, economical breath. Take time to let the whole cycle work.

Fear no more the heat o' the sun,

Nor the furious winter's rages; Thou thy worldly task hast done,

Home art gone, and ta'en thy wages; Golden lads and girls all must, As chimney-sweepers, come to dust.

Fear no more the frown o' the great, Thou art past the tyrant's stroke;

Care no more to clothe and eat; To thee the reed is as the oak:

The sceptre, learning, physic, must

All follow this, and come to dust.

Fear no more the lightning-flash, Nor the all-dreaded thunder-stone;

Fear not slander, censure rash; Thou hast finish'd joy and moan:

All lovers young, all lovers must

Consign to thee, and come to dust.

No exorciser harm thee! Nor no witchcraft charm thee! Ghost unlaid forbear thee! Nothing ill come near thee! Quiet consummation have; And renowned be thy grave!

To begin with breathe after every second line, and when that is easy breathe at every fourth line.

d This exercise needs space because you are going to swing your arms from one side to the other. Standing up, put your arms as high as you can to one side and swing right down, letting your head and neck go completely, and swing up to the other side. The important thing is to feel as much weight as possible when you swing down, which impels the movement up to the other side, and to let your head and neck go completely - do not try to hold on to them at all. Do this once to get the idea of the movement. Next time, breathe in as you take your hands up, and as you swing down let the breath out and vocalize the vowel 'AY' quite loudly. Then up to the other side, breathing in, and swing down vocalizing the vowel 'I', so that the energy as you swing down impels the sound out. Do this at an easy pace about six times, the important thing being to feel the weight. Then do it several times singing out on those vowels on a comfortable note.

Rest a moment and then repeat the exercise, speaking the first stanza

of the Shakespeare song and taking a line a swing and breathing when you get up to one side. Then immediately, without taking time to collect yourself, speak it in a normal standing position. You will find that the resulting sound is enormously free. You can increase the length of phrase as you become more familiar with the exercise.

This is a marvellous exercise for freeing sound very quickly, and you can use it on any piece of text that is useful to you. What it does is this: because you are moving quite forcefully you are actually having to take in more breath, because you are moving from the waist the breath is going down there, and because you are dropping over so completely that there can be no strain in the neck or shoulders the sound is quite free of tension.

With this exercise you experience freedom and resonance, and a feeling of the whole mechanism coming together. The more familiar you become with that experience, the more readily you will be able to call on it.

You will find that it is always valuable to speak text while doing quite strenuous, yet disciplined, movement. Any movement exercise you know will do, as well as skipping, star jumps, swinging something heavy round above your head (providing you have room), bouncing a ball, and so on — in fact, whatever you can think of in the space you have available. The movement itself makes you breathe more freely and releases you physically; it also has the advantage of taking the concentration away from the voice — the over-concentration — and so allows the voice to take on textures that are not consciously produced, very often releasing quite rich sound and different rhythms in the process. It is rather like learning to ride a bicycle: to begin with you hold on too tight and you are unable to balance properly, and it is only when you relax that balance becomes natural. However, this releasing must not be done without good, solid exercises first.

It is always a good thing to do the exercises and speak any text you are using while you are walking about, sitting down, bending over, stretching, and so on, so that the exercises do not become synonymous with standing still. Sometimes beat your chest while speaking to feel the vibrations there.

As this is a breathing exercise for which you happen to be using words it does not matter whether the phrasing is quite right or the meaning complete. You are using it as a bridge between just doing exercises and applying the breathing to words. What does matter is that you take time to experience the whole breathing process so that it becomes familiar and easy, and so will become the norm and therefore feel right when you are actually doing something in which you are totally involved. To begin with you will be over-conscious of the muscular action and may force too much breath out, but this

will ease off as you become sure of what you are doing, and eventually your breathing will become quite normal.

To recap, then. You have opened the rib cage by stimulating particularly the muscles between the ribs, by waiting for them to need to move, so that they spring out of their own volition and not by you pushing them out. You have also felt the back widening as you do so. You have drawn the air into the deepest part of the lungs, conscious of the spine lengthening down to its root as you do so. You have also been conscious of air being drawn in through the nose, down through the bronchial tubes and the bronchioles to fill the space in the lungs. You have felt the air going deep into the stomach as the diaphragm goes down, and felt some movement of the stomach muscles to allow for this. And you have used all this resource to make sound, using the Shakespeare song or something that you like particularly which can serve the same purpose and sounds good. You have done it standing still and moving about.

The firmness produced by these exercises does not make the tone heavy, as some people think; on the contrary, it makes it more buoyant and opens up the range. It should make the upper notes just as free as the lower notes, and just as accessible. When you first start doing the exercises you will probably unconsciously keep the voice to the lower part of your range, because one tends to associate a lower pitch with a richer tone, but you will soon progress beyond this and find that the notes over the whole range become equally rich and free.

It can be extremely useful to work on these exercises with other people, particularly for breathing. If you can get someone to put their hands on your ribs at the back — the two thumbs on the spine and the whole hand spreading out to press firmly on the muscles at the back and sides of the ribs — you can then feel the movement of the ribs much more specifically, and without the confusing tensions of having to keep your own hands on your ribs, which does have a tendency to make the shoulders lift a bit. Another person can also check the tensions you may get in the shoulders and neck while breathing. The reciprocal action is very valuable indeed, as an awareness of another person's breathing mechanism and muscular tensions helps you to pinpoint your own movements.

The next step is to apply this breathing to quite demanding pieces of text, something in which you are not particularly emotionally involved but which goes further to bridge the gap between exercise and interpretation. Narrative and descriptive material is best, as this demands plenty of range but keeps a conversational use of the range, thus stopping you becoming at all rhetorical. As you progress so you can use more complicated and more emotionally loaded

material. The following two passages make very good starting-points. The Shakespeare is liquid and is not difficult to speak. It is very relaxed, your voice doing the work of a film camera setting the scene. The description is very particular, and so asks for a lot of different vocal texture. It sounds good, and so it helps you to make good sound. If you do something very ordinary it would be false to make it sound good, and at this point you are after the experience of good sound. The phrasing of the Milton is not easy, the sentences are inverted and long, it has a big sound, and it requires good, sustained breathing. I have marked where to breathe, as it is helpful to do so at this initial stage so that you can concentrate on the mechanics of the breathing, but as it gets easier you make your own choice of phrase.

Take them both purely at a story level. I do not think it matters taking good material for exercises, provided that you are aware of the level at which you are using them. It is always so much more interesting to use good material, and you are likely to learn so much more from it. Keep them narrative and the range flexible and colloquial. You are using them as an extension of the breathing exercises, so: i. Check that your position is good. ii. Check the freedom in your neck and shoulders. iii. Take plenty of time to breathe. Let the ribs be open and flexible to start with, get the diaphragm working, and test the sound springing off it by sighing out and vocalizing on a vowel. iv. Feel the throat quite open — this is the one place where you

should feel no effort. v. Root the sound.

Chorus:

Now entertain conjecture of a time/

When creeping murmur and the poring dark

Fills the wide vessel of the universe./

From camp to camp, through the foul womb of night,

The hum of either army stilly sounds,/

That the fixed sentinels almost receive

The secret whispers of each other's watch./

Fire answers fire, and through their paly flames

Each battle sees the other's umber'd face./

Steed threatens steed, in high and boastful neighs,

Piercing the night's dull ear;/ and from the tents

The armourers, accomplishing the knights,

With busy hammers closing rivets up,

Give dreadful note of preparation./

The country cocks do crow, the clocks do toll,

And the third hour of drowsy morning name./

Proud of their numbers, and secure in soul,

The confident and over-lusty French

Do the low-rated English play at dice,/

And chide the cripple tardy-gaited night

Who, like a foul and ugly witch, doth limp

So tediously away./ The poor condemned English,

Like sacrifices, by their watchful fires

Sit patiently, and inly ruminate

The morning's danger;/ and their gesture sad

Investing lank-lean cheeks and war-worn coats

Presenteth them unto the gazing moon

So many horrid ghosts./ O now, who will behold

The royal Captain of this ruined band

Walking from watch to watch, from tent to tent,/

Let him cry, 'Praise and glory on his head!'/

For forth he goes and visits all his host,/

Bids them good morrow with a modest smile,

And calls them brothers, friends, and countrymen./

Upon his royal face there is no note

How dread an army hath enrounded him,/

Nor doth he dedicate one jot of colour

Unto the weary and all-watched night,/

But freshly looks, and overbears attaint

With cheerful semblance and sweet majesty;/

That every wretch, pining and pale before,

Beholding him, plucks comfort from his looks:/

A largess universal like the sun,

His liberal eye doth give to every one,

Thawing cold fear, that mean and gentle all

Behold,/ as may unworthiness define,

A little touch of Harry in the night./

And so our scene must to the battle fly;/

Where — O for pity! — we shall much disgrace,

With four or five most vile and ragged foils,

Right ill-disposed in brawl ridiculous,

The name of Agincourt./ Yet sit and see,

Minding true things by what their mockeries be.

Henry V, Act iv. Prologue. 1.

Messenger: Occasions drew me early to this City,/

And as the gates I entered with Sun-rise,

The Morning Trumpets Festival proclaimed

Through each high street:/ little I had dispatch't

When all abroad was rumour'd that this day

Samson should be brought forth to show the people

Proof of his mighty strength in feats and games;/

I sorrow'd at his captive state, but minded

Not to be absent at that spectacle. /

The building was a spacious Theatre

Half round on two main Pillars vaulted high,/

With seats where all the Lords and each degree

Of sort, might sit in order to behold,/

The other side was op'n, where the throng

On banks and scaffolds under Skie might stand;/

I among these aloof obscurely stood./

The Feast and noon grew high, and Sacrifice

Had fill'd their hearts with mirth, high cheer, and wine,

When to their sports they turn'd./ Immediately

Was Samson as a public servant brought,

In their state Livery clad;/before him Pipes

And Timbrels, on each side went armed guards,

Both horse and foot before him and behind,

Archers, and Slingers, Cataphracts and Spears./

At sight of him the people with a shout

Rifted the Air clamouring their god with praise,

Who had made their dreadful enemy their thrall./

He patient but undaunted where they led him,

Came to the place,/and what was set before him

Which without help of eye might be assay'd,

To heave, pull, draw, or break,/he still perform'd

All with incredible, stupendious force,

None daring to appear Antagonist./

At length for intermission sake they led him

Between the pillars;/ he his guide requested

(For so from such as nearer stood we heard) /

As over-tir'd to let him lean a while

With both his arms on those two massie Pillars

That to the arched roof gave main support./

He unsuspicious led him; which when Samson

Felt in his arms, with head awhile inclin'd,

And eyes fast fix'd he stood,/as one who pray'd,

Or some great matter in his mind revolv'd./

At last with head erect thus cried aloud, /

'Hitherto, Lords, what your commands impos'd

I have perform'd, as reason was, obeying,

Not without wonder or delight beheld./

Now of my own accord such other trial

I mean to show you of my strength, yet greater;/

As with amaze shall strike all who behold.' /

This utter'd, straining all his nerves, he bow'd;/

As with the force of winds and waters pent,

When Mountains tremble, those two massie Pillars,

With horrible convulsion to and fro,

He tugg'd, he shook, till down they came/and drew

The whole roof after them, with burst of thunder

Upon the heads of all who sat beneath/

Lords, Ladies, Captains, Councillors, or Priests,/

Their choice nobility and flower, not only

Of this but each Philistian City round

Met from all parts to solemnize this Feast. /

Samson with these immixt, inevitably

Pull'd down the same destruction on himself./

The vulgar only scaped who stood without.

John Milton

Start by being very particular about your state of freedom and the applicatiqn of the breath. As you begin to feel at ease with the breathing and relaxation stop for a little while. Talk part of the text very quietly, not being conscious of the breath, but now beginning to explore the progression of the narrative through the particular words and images that are used. Take a phrase at a time, but not speaking any word until you are sure of its meaning and image to you. Just tell it. When you have talked a part of it through very quietly, receiving the images, go back to thinking about the breathing and try to find the thought and the breath together, so that the thought is also coming from your centre and you are rooting your thought as well as your breath.

Each person's needs will be different, of course, and you have to rely on your own judgment, but in fact you have to work from both ends, as it were. The voice cannot open out and be responsive unless the muscles are ready. At the same time it is no good the muscles being ready unless your thought and sensibility are alive. You are therefore working for the two to be together, and so you use all the means you can to get them rooted together.

To open the sound, use the same means as I gave for the Shakespeare song, particularly the exercise of swinging down and

letting the head and neck go. This exercise is the most valuable, but all the suggestions I made should be used to obtain the freedom you are after.

If you get a lot of tension, and if you are particularly inclined to push with the head or make small physical movements in the effort of getting the sound out (physically beating it out, as it were), practise a good deal lying on the floor. In that position you can isolate much more easily the right kind of tension from the wrong kind, and you are freer to concentrate on using the breath. Try quite long pieces of text in that position, and notice when you want to move and where, and consciously relax. These involuntary tense movements are difficult to overcome, and the process requires patience. Take plenty of time, and do not become cross with yourself. It helps to think in terms of making all that energy into sound.

All tension comes from anxiety to please, and eventually you have to come round to the view quite simply that what you have to offer is good enough.

I have purposely varied the length of phrase in these two pieces of text, firstly because you want to be able to take in small breaths easily and quickly, and secondly because you also want to be able to sustain solid sound over a fair length of phrase without any feeling that you are going to run out. This, of course, has to do with your thought; if you are aware of the weight of your thought you will find you have enough breath to reach, at least it's fifty-fifty each way!

You now have a general basis for work which gives a good progression, the benefit of which is cumulative. Once you begin to get a sense of vocal freedom and you begin to hear new notes in your voice, then the work becomes more interesting and you want to go on. Once you begin to trust the voice and have confidence in it, so the possibilities open up and a lot of the faults disappear because they are no longer necessary. You can now adapt and extend the exercises as given to meet bigger demands, or to cope with specific limitations. In particular, you want to be able to increase the volume without losing timbre, to make a low volume carry, and to increase the textural richness and range.

Let us see how you can use the basic exercises to do these things.

1 First of all you must find out how to increase the musical texture of the sound, and perhaps find more weight. When people complain that a voice is too high it seldom has much to do with pitch — it is nearly always that the resonators in the chest are not reinforcing the sound, with the result that it sounds like playing the melody on a piano without any bass notes. This sounds high, but as soon as you put the bass chords in the whole thing sounds an octave lower. It is

the same with the voice: you have the note, but the more completely the resonators back it the richer and more surprising it will be.

The solidity, the undertones and the richness will come with the opening up of the ribs together with the relaxation of the neck, for if the neck is tense to any degree it will cut out the chest notes. The greatest source of confidence you have is the strength of the lower ribs at the back. The strength and openness there gives you a sense of being able to 'sit' on the tone, and gives you a feeling that the sound belongs to your weight — and the more whole the sound the more complete will be the belief in it. It has nothing to do with what might be called 'actorish' tone because it is unforced and uncontrived.

a Do plenty of work in the floor position, speaking text, using the floor to feel the ribs open and to feel the voice vibrating on the floor.

b Lie on the floor on your front, feeling very spread over the floor, with your head turned to one side. Speak some text in that position, again being conscious of the vibration through the chest on to the floor. Hum in that position.

c Speak a part of your text while standing with your hands behind your head, so that the ribs are open.

d Sing out on 'AY' and 'I' on a comfortable note, with your hands gently beating your chest to feel the vibrations.

e Sing part of your text on one note (that is, intone it), such as the first fifteen lines of the Milton, slowly and firmly. Then speak it. The sustained breathing you need when singing helps to open out the sound. However, always end up by speaking it with quite ordinary talking inflections. Do this on different pitches, always keeping the throat open.

f Do the same as in the last exercise, only sing it as a piece of recitative, so that it is very large and rhythmically well marked. This is very helpful if you have a long speech, because singing it in this way makes the rhythms more marked so that when you come to talk it, you will find the rhythm more interesting even though it is a lot more subtle.

g Jog very heavily, either round the room or in one spot, feeling a great weight as you jog, and speak while you are doing this. Do it for several minutes, then stop and speak it ordinarily; the weight and relaxation will hold into the speaking.

2 Secondly, you must discover how to increase volume without tension. One of the most common traps for the actor is that he confuses volume with size. Size of feeling and size of character have more to do

with time and weight than volume. The exercises which you have already done will have made you find tone which, of itself, has weight and size. Nor is volume itself a way of being heard. A quiet voice can carry well, and I have sat through loud performances without actually hearing anything. Volume itself is not important for anyone can shout. Nevertheless, there are times when you need to call on something really big and, certainly, you need to know that the volume is there if you want it. But it should always be used with discretion as if you cannot suppress it any longer - like steam being held back. When you let out that volume you must never lose the clarity of speech because then the specific reason for the size will not be present. With increased volume you always need increased pressure of consonants as there is much more sound to cut up into words. This process is quite logical.

Basically what is required is a voice which is big enough to share in whatever area you have to share it. This has to do with your own reaching out as a person, in particular with allowing time, for the sound has to travel further. You need to know that you can call on great volume when there is a real reason for it. Volume for its own sake is tiring for the listener. There is always that hang-over from being told to 'speak up' which is somehow inseparable from the idea of speaking higher and the misconception that a higher pitch carries further. If you use more volume there is a great danger that you send the pitch up; the neck then becomes tight, the normal talking inflection disappears and the result is a pressure of sound which does not convey meaning and which has all the undertones ironed out. Never forget that the text itself contains the size, the breadth of what you are saying coming largely from the energy contained in your text.

In practice you can work on increasing volume by starting comfortably and gradually getting louder, very consciously keeping relaxed and retaining normal talking pitch.

a Lie on the floor and loosen up, with the ribs and diaphragm working freely. In particular, concentrate on keeping the neck and shoulders free. Speak lines of text quietly to begin with, gradually increasing the volume but making sure you keep the key of the pitch the same. Stay quite conversational but resolve the inflections down to the same bass note — that is, use plenty of inflection but do not pitch the text up as a whole.

b Repeat this standing up and moving. Speak text conversationally, steadily increasing the volume and keeping the range free with plenty of upper notes, and the words sharp and specific. Keep the neck absolutely free and open and find the energy from your centre. You

have, therefore, to centre the thought and find its weight. When you start to get tense, stop, get free and then continue.

c Try the same exercise, singing and stretching your arms while you do so.

3 The next problem to deal with is breathiness, both general breathy tone and breathy attack where you use all the breath at the beginning of a phrase and cannot sustain the tone to the end of the phrase. In these cases you are not making all your breath into sound. This comes from basic anxiety to give to an audience; but you are not being specific in the sound you are giving and are, therefore, wasting a good deal of energy. Physically it is caused by a lack of muscular firmness in the ribs and diaphragm — the ribs usually collapse very quickly. All the singing exercises are useful and the following exercises also help.

a Exercise quite a lot with your hands behind your head. Be as relaxed as possible and take care not to push the head forward. Start speaking text with your hands in that position, gradually bringing them down as you speak.

b It is valuable sometimes to reverse the timing of the rib exercises so that you breathe in over a long count of 10 or 15, and out for a short count of 3 or 6.

c Keeping the ribs as open as possible, though not at all rigid, reach for your deep diaphragm breath and sing out smoothly on 'M' for 6, 8 and 10 counts, increasing the count out as it becomes easy and smooth. Focus the 'M' on an object quite a distance away and imagine your note to be a thread going out of your mouth and attaching itself to that object. This helps to keep the sound very smooth. Do this exercise with the vowels 'OO', 'OH', 'AH', 'AY' and 'I' as well as with 'M'.

d With the ribs open and reaching down for the breath sing out on 'M' and on the vowels, focusing the sound at different distances; start on something very close to you and gradually increase the distance. As the sound goes further do not let it get louder; let it travel further by the increase in its density and firmness,not by volume. Be careful that the pitch does not get higher. Be quite precise about the object on which you are focusing and make the sound fill the distance. You should notice a difference in the quality of the sound.

When the attack is breathy so that you burst out at the beginning of phrases and run out of breath before the end the same exercises apply. This is a limiting fault because it dictates a rhythm. It means that you can choose how to inflect and time words at the beginning

of a phrase but you do not have the same freedom for the end. The possibilities of meaning cannot, therefore, be truly investigated. The result is also rhythmically repetitive. You can add to these exercises:

e Go through a text making the phrases you tackle on one breath unnaturally long, afterwards cutting the length down to normal speech phrasing.

f Experiment by intentionally stressing and elongating the last word in a phrase: you can even sing it. Though this stress will not necessarily be right, it opens up possible ways of stressing and inflecting that you cannot be aware of when you are breath-bound. It is very interesting to do this and it breaks your rhythm pattern. As soon as the exercises become interesting you will find that you automatically have enough breath.

g Another valuable exercise for finding firm, unforced tone is to literally throw vowels. Imagine you have a ball in your hand which you are going to throw at a particular place — be quite clear about the aim. As you release the ball you will release sound by singing a vowel. 'AY' and 'I' are good vowels to take as they are so open. Imagine a ball in your hand, lift your arm and as you do so breathe in. Throw the ball to the place chosen; as you throw release the sound and throw the vowel, letting it follow the imaginary ball so sustaining the sound until you have reached your object. You will hear that the resultant sound is firm and clear. This helps both breathy and glottal attack for it assists coordination of breath and sound.

4 Overbalance of head resonance is a complicated problem because, as I said earlier, it often conflicts with your own judgment and ear and you sometimes have to rely on someone else's opinion. It happens when there is strong head resonance (that is, sinus tone and resonance in the bones of the head and face) which is not balanced sufficiently by the lower resonances from the chest and neck. Head resonance has its own edge, brilliance and carrying power, and makes the voice seem easy to manoeuvre. However, it will always sound curiously disembodied and a little contrived unless it is balanced by true and warm chest notes. In fact, it means that the voice will not have the reality because you are not really reaching down for it, rooting it or centring it. If it is not based it has a metallic quality and lacks dimension. It is therefore a limited voice. The difficulty here is that the voice feels so sure that when you release it and get the lower chest notes it does not sound so firm to yourself. As I have said, this can be the result of training the voice for singing where the emphasis is put on all the possible resonating spaces

without relating the sound specifically to the actor's need to express himself. To get the balance right is a matter of adjusting where the sound should spring from and also of releasing the soft palate so that the undertones are allowed to play their part.

To release the soft palate, exercise the back of the tongue and back of the palate by saying 'ge, ge, ge' so that you become aware of the muscles involved. Then press the tongue up to the palate quite hard and say 'ge', lingering on the consonant. Then consciously drop the back of the tongue and palate, with the jaw open, noticing how they are very relaxed and heavy. Do this again, consciously tensing the tongue so that the sound is hard and tight; then drop the palate and tongue and say 'ge' with them both quite relaxed; then open and say 'AH' keeping the tongue and palate absolutely free. Feel this freedom in the back of the throat for a moment. Then breathe in and gently vocalize 'AH', 'AY' and 'I' on a deep diaphragm breath. Now breathe in and speak a few lines of text, keeping the feeling of openness in the throat and making sure the breath starts the sound. You will then feel all the area in the back of the throat open and contributing to the sound. Take time over this exercise for it makes a great deal of difference to your sound.

5  Inflection and use of range must always come from the specific attitude to your text. However, you can increase the flexibility of range by experimenting with pieces of text that require different pitches, and by consciously making yourself key them at different places in your range. Always keep the throat free and the breath well rooted, reinforcing the sound at all levels. You will find that when you use the lower notes you will need to be more conscious of the diction and that when you use the higher notes you have to consciously sustain the chest resonance.

6  Glottal attack is usually ironed out by the exercises already given. However, if it is very persistent take different vowels, singing and then speaking them. First precede them with 'H', then just think the 'H' but do not actually say it. Try to find a firm, open attack.

Thus, you reach down for the sound; it is touched off like a drum; it releases itself without conscious mental effort and reaches as far as you wish. It is given resonance by the whole body. The sound is there to back the word. If you practise the breathing exercises sufficiently you will find the effortlessness you require. The audience should never feel you are using all your strength because this puts you in a position of weakness.