Warming Up for the Stage (Voice Edition)

For those of you who are new to our Homeschool Shakespeare Camp, we generally begin each day with a set of exercises that get us warmed up for the day. We all circle up, and we loose up our bodies, faces, and voices. Here's just a couple of the exercises we'll we walking through. Maybe you should try some of them out yourself when you're preparing for Shakespeare Camp!!

"Big black bugs bleed blue blood!! Wait.. What?"

If nothing else, reciting Tongue Twisters can help warm up your mouth and tongue, which is particularly nice when you consider how difficult some of those Elizabethan words are to pronounce!! Try saying them in a steady cadence or beat, and slowly speed it up.

• "To sit in solemn silence in a dull dark dock, in a pestilential prison with a life long lock, awaiting the sensation of a short sharp shock from a cheap and chippy chopper on a big black block."
• "Unique New York!! Unique New York!! You know you need Unique New York!!"
• "She stood on a balcony inexplicably mimicking him hiccuping and amicably welcoming him in."
• "Through the darkest mists with stoutest boasts he thrusts his fists against the posts and still insists he sees the ghosts."
• "You can take a scrub and a rub-and-a-dub in a two foot tank of tin. You can stand and look at the swirling brook and think about jumping in. You can chatter and shake by the cold black lake, but the kind of bath for me is to take a dip from the side of a ship in the trough of the rolling sea."
• "She sells seas shells by the sea shore."

At the same time, there is a significant difference between shouting and projecting your lines. When your practicing with your script, speak your lines slowly and loudly. Do it outside if your parents don't want you being loud inside. Just as in the time of Shakespeare, we don't have any microphones to carry our voice. Speak out from the stomach and not from the nose.

And even more than that, you may want to just begin humming. A gentle modulating hum is a nice way to ease in your facial muscles. It gets your voice resonating which in turn will help restore your tone after the next couple of hours. Slowly raise in note and pitch to get a better range for the day. Some also recommend making a buzz, which gives the same effect.

Our voices are what allow us to talk with our audience, so we must be sure to exercise it and keep it loud and clear. Join us later on this week for another posting of "Warming up for the Stage," where we stretch our bodies and warm up faces!!