A few years ago I attended the Edinburgh Fringe for the first time, as one of our children was playing the flute in an orchestra. It was a hot, sunny day and the streets were lined with performance supporters handing out promotional leaflets to passers-by. Being a novice Fringe-goer, we took everything offered, then retired to a cafe to plan our day.
Improvisation, comedy, tragedy, drama lay on the table before us and the plan for our Edinburgh Fringe began to evolve. But as we set off for our first venue, we bumped into a colleague, Matthew Bulgo, from Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama. Matthew is a hugely talented actor/writer whose fabulous stage play, Christmas, was being performed. We were delighted to find Matthew and even more delighted to discover his work. This was to be our first event. An enthralling hour ensued; a solo actor telling a compelling story, using the wealth of his vocal pitch and range, grabbed our imagination and whisked us away on the adventure of his life.
The vocal variety of some of the artists performing at the Edinburgh Fridge is incredible. There is a wealth of regional accents from home and abroad spoken by performers who construct new persona through embodying a new voice and body language. Throughout the multitude of productions, there are vocally challenging roles for the actors.
This year, Bristol University’s Dixie Fried Theatre company got in touch and asked for my help with accent training for their cast. The talented cast are performing Elise at the Edinburgh Fringe until 27 August 2018. Elise is a new play set in 1950s Brooklyn, New York, inspired by the life (and death) of Beat Poet Elise Cowen.
The accent they needed was for upwardly mobile college students, from 1950s Brooklyn, New York. A long-gone era with no easily-available reference at short notice. So, where do you begin with no vocal references to an accent? First ingredient, a strong bedrock of General American, taking into account the heavy emphasis on verbs and stress, or highlighting of words audible in volume rather than pitch. Next, find good jaw resonance, sprinkle ‘dark Ls’ everywhere, take out the ‘rhotic R’ then add in a strong helping of presence. Today, New York Brooklyn is spoken by Woody Allen, Barbra Streisand and super hero actor Larry King. Their voices provide good references for today, but in Elise, these 1950s Brooklyn kids were in college, from comfortable, white collar families and so needed special thought to imagine their connection to their roots.
We worked on the General American accent (or as known in the US, ‘dialect’) and added in the rhythm and energy of the Brooklyn New York speakers. Fiesty and energetic, introspective and questioning, some loud and bragging – a range of compelling voices emerged.
When an actor uses a different accent from their own, many times they report how different they feel as a person. Indeed, when I provide accent coaching to clients who speak English as a foreign language, they also report that speaking with an English voice has a profound effect on their personality.
The change in direction of the voice, the pitch, rhythm and tune of the accent (or dialect) can all contribute to changing the speaker’s personality and this is one of the positive outcomes of accessing a different character through changes to speech patterns. It can be very freeing.
A new client said to me a few days ago that of the five languages he speaks, it is when he speaks English that he feels most cheerful and lively and he says it creates for him a happy and positive personality.
It isn’t always necessary to speak with a different accent, or indeed, in a different language to feel differently. Making the most of the energy of your articulators, remembering to breathe before you speak and being in the moment can all invigorate your speech, particularly if you are speaking in front of an audience, or to someone you wish to impress.
You may have an important role in a play or film, or need help with livening up your voice. If you’d like more information on accent training or any aspect of speech, get in touch.