Try our Vocal Excercises for actors
Actors vocal excersises and tips for improving your voice.
As an actor and performer it is important to know how to warm up your voice and by following a few of our Vocal Tips and Advice you can do just this.
As a professional actor or drama student it is absolutely essential that you do a vocal warm up before you start work.
At drama school you will learn vocal technique OR, if you are attending a drama class at your local part time drama school you will, I am sure also get to do a gentle basic vocal warm up at the beginning of your drama class in your drama school.
Below is a vocal warm up you can do on your own. This page also gives you some links to useful sites that offer more vocal information, either courses or exercises. Maybe dialects are something you are keen to tackle or need to, if you are working on a piece which requires an accent. You can buy great dialect tapes too and if you don't want to buy then please visit your local library and they will be able to source and order the tapes/dvds you need. There are many drama resources available for drama school students, so enjoy all the other pages on our drama school site.
VOCAL WARM UP.
- Stand with your feet slightly apart.
- start by stretching your arms right above your head and then slowly try to stretch each arm slightly higher than the other. Do this for eight counts.
- Slowly relax the arms down and slowly relax the top half of your body and bend at the waist. Make sure you relax totally.
- Come back up to standing.
- Taking your right arm stretch up and gently bend over to the left from the waist.
- Come back to an upright position and repeat to the other side.
- Shake your right leg then your left leg.
- Shake your right arm then your left arm.
- Finish by shrugging your shoulders up and down gently.
The most important thing whilst warming up your body is that you do everything gently. Now we will wake up our facial muscles.
- Start by opening your mouth as wide as you can then relax, repeat four times
- Smile as big as you can then relax, repeat four times.
- Raise your eyebrows up and down four times.
- Wrinkle your nose four times relaxing in between.
- Scrunch your whole face up and then stretch it all out. Repeat Four times.
VOCAL EXCERCISES
- Breath in through your nose, feel your lungs fill up and your rib cage expand.
- Hold for four counts then exhale through your mouth.
- Repeat the above to music if you prefer.
- Breathe in and hold and pant like a dog, then top up your breath through your nose and repeat. Relax.
- Now take a big breath in through your nose, keeping your shoulders down, and hum on a comfortable note. Feel the sound resonating through the resonating chambers.
- Repeat but this time open your mouth and relax the jaw to the sound of MAHH, then gently close the mouth and return to the humming sound.
Now repeat each exercise three times:
- Me May Mah.
- Me May Mah
- Me May Mah
- Roo Rah Ray
- Roo Rah Ray
- Roo Rah Ray
- bbbbbbbbb - ball
- ccccccccc - cat
- ddddddddd ...etc continue through the alphabet
Recite a nursery rhyme starting quietly then getting louder try to do in one breath.
Now do it again using different inflections.
Finish by reciting the nursery rhyme with different intentions.
As a teacher telling a pupil off.
As the new president.
As a little child.
As an MP.
As part of an argument.
Now choose a piece from a play or a monologue book and learn it.
Try to learn a new piece every couple of weeks to keep your memory skills up to speed.
Here a few videos of actors warming up at the National Theatre
http://www.bl.uk/learning/langlit/sounds/index.html
http://www.vocalprocess.co.uk/resources/articles_index.htm