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Connect to Your Thought: Mindfulness Exercise for Sight-Reading and Speaking With Notes

On October 4, 2016October 4, 2016 By bespokecommunicationIn Managing Nerves, Mindfulness, Voice and Text, Voice work for Beginners

Hello Friends!

Happy October, it’s pumpkin time! This is the second part of our series on working with text and notes. We’ve put together a mindfulness exercise that aims to help you connect your breath to thought with the context of an important event or to simply get you in the headspace for practicing.

Everything starts to ramp up this time of year so please let us know in the comments if there’s anything you feel would be beneficial! And please give us any feedback you have on this exercise!

Take Good Care,

Lindsay and Christine

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Land the Thought!: Tips for Sight-Reading and Speaking with Notes

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Are you a kid or a kid at heart? Are you a voice teacher who works with kids? ⁠ ⁠ In the 5th episode of season 2 of our podcast, "BeSpoke Speaks", our dear friend Lindsay Carretero, a Voice Coach from Jupiter, Florida, offers an amazing voice and body warm up for kids or for those of us who are kids at heart. It's structured so that voice teachers and coaches working with kids can literally plug in a device in the classroom and play the sequence, or kids can practice the sequence at home in their own time. There is some partner work involved, so feel free to do this sequence with a friend, but don't worry if you're on your own. Enjoy, share with all the kids you know, and let us know how it went in the comments below! ⁠ ⁠ You can find this episode on our website in mp3 form or in podcast form by searching for "BeSpoke Speaks" on iTunes or on BuzzSprout at this link: ⁠ ⁠ http://www.buzzsprout.com/271932⁠ ⁠ 'Tis the season of giving! If you are enjoying our podcast, please consider leaving us a positive rating and review on iTunes. ⁠ ⁠ #voice, #voiceforkids, #kids, #warmup, #actor, #acting, #actortraining, #actorslife, #breathing, #presence, #voicecoach, #voicetraining

Want to know what directors want from actors vocally? ⁠ ⁠ In Episode 4 of Season 2 of our 'BeSpoke Speaks' podcast, Christine talks to her friend and colleague, Janette Smith. ⁠ Janette is a freelance director and actor trainer, and has a lot of interesting thoughts about what she's looking for from actors vocally. Here she is photoboothing it with Christine & other ArtsEd colleagues at last year's Grad Ball. You know when someone wears a stylish hat like that, you should listen to them. ⁠ ⁠ This episode is especially relevant for actors who are in training or who are thinking about training, but is also useful for all professionals! Themes that come up are: ⁠ ⁠ - actors need to know their instruments: how to use them and what their limits are. ⁠ ⁠ - There is nothing worse for the audience than hearing actors hurting themselves. Audiences don’t like watching someone hurt themselves-- it takes them out of the story. ⁠ ⁠ - The difference between ease and relaxation. ⁠ ⁠ - Actors need to be more aware of how much an audience listens-- that they absorb sounds of words as well as meaning, and that listening to live actors means audiences can feel, as well as hear their voices. ⁠ ⁠ - Actors have to be multi-skilled. This job takes a lot of craft. ⁠ ⁠ - Directors have to work in a very different way with unskilled actors than trained actors who understand their body and voice. ⁠ ⁠ You can find this episode on iTunes by searching for 'BeSpoke Speaks', on our website (link in bio), or on BuzzSprout at this link: ⁠ ⁠ www.buzzsprout.com/271932⁠ ⁠ Share this episode with anyone you think might be interested and, if you enjoyed it, please leave us a rating and review on iTunes! ⁠ ⁠ #voice #acting #actor #actorslife #londonactor #actortraining #voicetraining #director #londondirector #breathing #presence #listening #directing #londondirector #craft #voicecoach ⁠

BeSpoke celebrates Thanksgiving!

In Episode 3 of Season 2 of our 'BeSpoke Speaks' podcast, Christine talks to her friend and teaching colleague at @artsedlondon, Dan Bird. Here he is with one of his BFFs, the ArtsEd skeleton. Dan is an acting teacher and director, and has some really useful thoughts for actors about what he's looking for vocally from performers when he's directing. ⁠ ⁠ The big theme that emerges is the importance of vocal color and a sense of play with pitch range variety, so that the voice is responsive from moment to moment to what's happening in the text. Here are other themes that come up: ⁠ ⁠ 1. The connection between differentiation of thought and the voice organically changing ⁠ 2. The usefulness of Gibberish⁠ 3. The importance of listening ⁠ 4. Learning your lines around the events that happen in the scene ⁠ 5. The usefulness of playing around with pitch for the sake of it ⁠ 6. How not useful it is to focus on how you're feeling as the character, which sometimes creates a vocal "tone", and some alternative issues to focus on instead ⁠ 7. Voice work is not about the voice sounding beautiful, but about it being connected to the performer's experience⁠ ⁠ You can find this episode on iTunes by searching for 'BeSpoke Speaks' or on BuzzSprout at this link: ⁠ ⁠ http://www.buzzsprout.com/271932⁠ ⁠ Share this episode with anyone you think might be interested and, if you enjoyed it, please leave us a rating and review on iTunes! ⁠ ⁠ #voice #acting #actor #actorslife #londonactor #actortraining #voicetraining #pitch #gibberish #listening #breathing #presence #director #directing #londondirector

Episode 2 of Season 2 of our BeSpoke Speaks podcast, 'Alternatives to Throat Clearing' has dropped! ⁠ ⁠ In this episode, we discuss some helpful alternatives to throat clearing, which, in this cold and flu season, can really get in the way of your presentation or performance. ⁠ ⁠ Whether it be mucous or a dry throat, the need to throat-clear can create anxiety in public speaking situations. The good news is, there are some things you can do to prevent the situation and also things you can do in the moment to help ease the mucous/dryness. ⁠ ⁠ Themes that come up are: ⁠ ⁠ -Drinking Water ahead of time ⁠ -Avoiding coffee/tea/dairy right before you're going to speak ⁠ -Breathing and Grounding yourself to help manage any nerves ⁠ that are causing your need to clear your throat ⁠ -Shifting the focus to the outside environment (to avoid ⁠ hyper-focusing on the croak) ⁠ -Voice Warm-ups before the communication context to help ⁠ you clear any phlegm ⁠ ⁠ You can find this episode on our website (link in bio), or download it on iTunes by searching for 'BeSpoke Speaks' or on BuzzSprout at this link: ⁠ ⁠ http://www.buzzsprout.com/271932⁠ ⁠ We'd be curious to hear your thoughts on this question and our answers to it. you can comment below or email us at bespoke.comcontact@gmail.com. Please share with anyone you think might be interested, and if you enjoy what you're hearing, consider leaving us a rating and review on iTunes! ⁠ ⁠ #throatclearing #cold #flu #voice #breathing #presence #managingnerves, #publicspeaking #actor #actorslife #londonactor #voicetraining #gravitas #authority #grounding #voicewarmups #voicetraining #phlegm #water⁠ ⁠

We are dropping Season 2, episode 1 of our BeSpoke Speaks podcast! Episode 1 is called 'Voice Work for Social Situations.' This is our first podcast episode in our new format, where we discuss a question from YOU, our listeners. The question we talked about in this episode is: It’s strange- when performing I find speech easier and more controlled but in social settings I often find myself stumbling over my words or find it difficult to make my words clear. However if I try and use the techniques I use to speak clearly on stage in social settings I find it comes across as wrong for the situation. How can I combat this without over-effort? This is such a great question and definitely resonated with us. Communicating in social situations can be tricky-- it can be hard to be ourselves sometimes! We talk through where this issue has come up for us, and some ideas for what to do when you're finding it hard to articulate yourself in social situations. Themes that come up are: 1. Rather than focusing your attention so much inward on how you're talking as you're talking, bring your attention back out into your environment. How can you get more curious about your environment and who you're talking to? How can that shift of attention help re-ground you into the present moment? 2. The usefulness of thinking about breathing to people as you speak. 3. When you feel you're over-efforting, ask yourself, how can I do less? As you start to do less, you may begin to see more, feel more relaxed, and breathe more easily. 4. The difference between technique and working really hard. You can download this episode on iTunes by searching for BeSpoke Speaks or on BuzzSprout at this link: http://www.buzzsprout.com/271932 We'd be curious to hear what you think about our responses, and if you have some thoughts on your own on this question! If you enjoy the episode, feel free to share it and leave us a rating and review on iTunes. #voice #communication #managingnerves #conversations #presence #socialsituations #voicetechnique #voicetraining #actortraining #actor #londonactor #voicecoach #breathing #orienting #actorslife #performer #breathing #bodylanguage #publicspeaking

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Voice Warm Up for Kids
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Voice from a Director’s Perspective: Conversation with Dan Bird
Alternatives to Throat Clearing
Voice Work for Social Situations

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	bespokecommunication on Voice from a Director’s…
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Managing Nerves
Mindful Voice
Mindful Voice Work
Mindfulness
Online Presence
Uncategorized
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Voice Warm-ups
Voice work for Beginners

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