Tag: ideas

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Change Discussions Education Exercise Public Speaking Voice Voice work

In my dream society….

In my dream society, all members have a voice. Everyone has a space to share their opinions, thoughts and feelings. Freedom of speech is the essence of the place I’d like to inhabit. In most ways, this is in place in the world I inhabit. However, the difference between my dream world and reality is that everyone has the ability to understand the power of their voice. Not just in the content, but in the vocal mechanism itself.

Through teaching for the last ten years, it has become apparent to me, that most people think that individuals are gifted with a beautiful speaking voice. A voice that eases into their listener’s ears and transports us with their stories, awakens us with their ideas and moves us with their view. Maybe some people are lucky to have been born with this skill. However I believe that everyone can unleash this marvellous power and use their voice to their full potential, if they are shown how.

In my dream society this is something we would teach to children as part of mainstream schooling, so as adults they contribute to society confidently and freely. In the world we inhabit, children may access this through extra curricular activities. Those who practice the creative and expressive arts are more likely to have confidence in their voice.

As adults in the society we live in, we can feel the divide between those who have accessed this and those who have not. However we perceive it as raw, unlearnable talent. This is it not the case, a clear, confident, authentic voice is available to us all, if we choose to engage with training that explores and deepens our understanding.

In learning these things, we free our voice. In freeing our voice, we share our ideas. In sharing our ideas, we evolve and grow our communities.

My dream society isn’t as unattainable as perhaps it first seems. Maybe yours isn’t either.

Categories
Creativity Education EYFS Playology Story Telling

Little Red Riding Hood – Wolf Mask

I have been working with Z-Arts and Crumpsall Lane Primary School in Manchester, creating story telling pieces for the schools reception class. Its been really wonderful and tomorrow we go into our third week of the project based on the collections of Brother’s Grimm, and this week we are looking at Little Red Riding Hood or as Bro

Little Red Riding Hood
Little Red by Felicity Goodman 

ther’s Grimm called Little Red Cap.

This story has been re told and re told and re told, and I have a strong suspicion that the children will be very familiar with it. I think that each week they have bought there own colour and magic to the stories we have looked at (Musicians of Bremen and Hansel and Gretel.) That is why working with these traditional stories is such a gift because they can be re told in so many different ways. As a story teller, I love the immediacy of the retelling. The audience being very active in shaping how the story looks and feels.  These stories are so beautifully simple but it is quite easy to overlook them.

I also provide lesson plans in arts crafts for further exploration of these stories in the class in the week that follows. I’d thought I’d pass on one of the craft exercises in this weeks lesson plan. You can never have too many resources available!

 

Wolf Mask

Wolf Mask Template
Template for Wolf Mask

First things first, copy the above template for each of the components in the mask and cut them out. I made the mistake of putting it all together before I coloured it in, which made it much harder to build, the above image is on an A4 piece of paper. You could print it directly onto card if you’d prefer. An extra task for the children , could be to draw around pre cut provided templates and see if they could get them to fit it onto a sheet of A4 card.

The decorating is worth spending time on as the masks look so much better as a result. I kept my decoration very simple and only used felt tip, but I think the mask would come alive even further with some fake fur or felt or if the teeth were very shiny….

Stick the front and the back thin pieces together. I used masking tape to stick the pieces together, that way I can adjust easily to the circumference of head that is resting on. I then
took the nose piece and folded along each of the dotted lines.

FullSizeRender

I attached part one, by folding over the top of the front piece of headband in the middle of the ears and secured with tape.

I then attached the mouth piece behind section 2 of the nose and then the tongue behind the mouth.

Nice and straight forward. Now you can howl at the moon and be big, bad and scary!

Be sure to Tweet or Instagram the results!

 

FullSizeRender_1
Other yoghurts are available, but this one is SUBLIME!
Categories
AtoZ: Voice Change Exercise Organs of speech Voice Voice work

AtoZ -Voice: A is for Articulation

This is the first of a series of short blogs that will introduce folk to new ideas/ exercises about their voice. places-of-articulation-2-638

Good articulation needs strength, flexibility and calm! The fluffing of words or tripping over our sentences when we nervous are a good sign to your articulation needing improvement.

The Soft palette is like the unseen articulator as it is right at the back of your mouth. The palette is the roof of your mouth. Its in divided into two areas. The hard palette which has almost no give and the soft palette which is a fleshy bit of tissue. Improving flexibility in the soft palette will not only improve articulations but it will also help with colour and cadence in the voice. Opera Singers have incredibly flexible soft palettes and Beat boxers can achieve amazing sounds through clicks and tongue placement using their soft palette

If you make a ‘k’ sound you can feel the back of your tongue raising to meet the roof of you mouth, but what you may not feel is that your soft palette is also coming down to form this closure the ‘k’ sound is made when this join comes apart like a tiny explosion. In fact ‘k’ is a sound belonging to a group on consonants called plosives.

So if you repeat a ‘k’ sound your are working the two articulators -your tongue and your soft palette.  ‘g’ is made in exactly the same way but this time in stead of the sound being carried out solely on air. The vocal folds come engaged and their is now sound with it.

Try this repeating the following:

k-k

k-k-k

k-k-k-k-k

velar
Velar: A sound produced with the back of the tongue near the soft palette

k-k-k-k-k-k

g-g-g-g-g-g

g-g-g-g-g

g-g-g

g-g

 

Play around with strength of closure

tempo, volume and rhythm.

k-k-g-g-k-k-g-g-k-k-g-g-k-k-g-g

k-g-k-g-k-g-k-g-k-g-k

k-g-g  g-k-k  k-g-g  g-k-k

g-k-k   g-k-k  g-k-k  g-k-k

So there you have it A is for Articulation!

 

Categories
Books Education Opinion Uncategorized

Book List for Big Kids – Non Fiction

I love books. They are unbelievably comforting and adorn my house in little piles. I find them incredibly hard to part with. The wisdom and escapism that books contain is a beautiful thing. I love reading lists of books too. Which ones have I read? Which ones have I yet to read? What should I read next?

I thought I’d share some books that I found really useful and enjoyable to read.

Presence by Patsy Rodenberg

This book is like three years of actor training whittled down into book form and made accessible for non performers. Its a brilliant insight in how to be in the moment more and is full of practical exercises to ‘perform’ at your best in an incredibly sincere and authentic way.

Finding your Element – Ken Robinson

Robinson is an educational guru ad talks about how we all have something where we are in are element. Using stories of how different people discovered their element, Robinson shows how we can have our eureka moment ourselves

Games for Actors and Non-Actors – Augustus Boal

This is like an arsenal of different warms ups and games to try out that liberate all, performer or not. In three sections, Boal outlines his method of Theatre of the Opressed, provides a wealth of different exercises and discusses problems that can arise in Forum theatre. This book should in every drama practitioners library. Anyone looking for group cohesion and release of expression could benefit from giving this book a read.

Finding your Voice – Barbara Houseman

This practical and easy to use book talks about the mechanics that go into speaking and the how you can galvanise your body to have a strong, rich and healthy voice. This book provides the foundation for a lot of the exercises that I now include in my Voice practice

Show your Work – Austin Kleon

Austin Kleon is an artist that works with words. His book Steal Like an Artist is also an excellent read. Show Your Work, talks about how to network effectively and efficiently in the 21st century. He describes it as networking for people who don’t really like networking. This book really made me think about how to develop a good web presence and how to share my process with an online community.

Wreck this Journal -Keri Smith

Smith should probably be proclaimed at Art wizard for the wonderful journalling books that she has created. They are a brilliant series but I love Wreck This Journal the most as it reminds us not to be to precious about what we create and that failure yields unexpected results.

Shakespeare Words: A glossary and language companion – Ben and David Crystal

This book will be tucked under my arm and is very well thumbed when I’m working on any of the bards works. Its a brilliant dictionary of language from when you can’t tell you greek god reference from your elbow.

 

The Playful Parent – Julia Deering

 This behemoth of of a book is a plethora of ideas in playing with you kids. From Shampooing solutions to ideas for indoor play. Its a very practical tool kit and I think if parenting was to come with a manual, then this is the one I’d pick.

 

What Non-Fiction books would you put on your list? What should I read next?

 

Felicity Goodman is a Voice Teacher, Playologist and Story Teller based in Manchester. To find out more about her work, please visit www.felicitygoodman.co.uk