Lesson video

Hello there, my name is Mr. Burt, and welcome to our drama lesson.

And this is the second of three drama lessons looking at a unit of learning called posture, gesture and voice in performance.

Now, in our first lesson, we were looking at how we can enhance our performance by using posture, stance, proxemics and use of space.

And in this lesson, we're going to see how we can develop and improve our performance by looking at our use of voice.

And in particular, the key words are pace, pause and tone.

But first, let's just check what equipment we need for the lesson before we get going.

So for this lesson, you will need the following pieces of equipment.

You will need the worksheet or a piece of paper to work from.

You'll need a pen, and you might want a highlighter to highlight some of your lines.

So make sure you've got that equipment first and then we'll carry on once you've got it.

So that's a real quick rundown of today's lesson then.

So we're going to start with looking at the key words we need for this lesson.

Then we're going to do a bit of a warmup involving those key words.

Then we're going to see how those keywords have been used in a performance, and we're going to analyse that.

And then it's over to you for a performance activity.

And then we're going to finish with a quiz.

So let's have a quick look at those keywords we're going to need to succeed in our lesson today.

We're going to need pace.

Now, pace is the speed of your voice.

Pause is a break or deliberate moment of silence in your speech.

Tone describes the emotion in your voice.

Pitch describes how high or how low your voice is and volume describes how loud your voice is.

Now, we're going to start today's lesson with quick vocal warmup.

Now our vocal cords are muscles.

And just like when we do physical education, we need to warm our muscles up so that we don't risk doing any permanent damage.

And our voices are the same.

So we're going to do a quick breathing exercise to begin with.

What we're going to do is we're going to let all the air out.

We're going to breathe in for five seconds, hold for five seconds and then breathe out for five seconds.

And all this is simply doing is just beginning to warm our vocal cords up.

So I'm going to demonstrate it first, and then I want you to do it after me.

And I'll do it with you.

So I'm going to demonstrate, let all the air out, and breathe in for.

Hold, and breathe out.

Excellent.

And if you still got any breath left after five seconds, just let it out in one quick breath.

So we're going to do it together now.

So let all the air out, and in for one, two, three, four, five, and hold.

And out for one, two, three, four, five, any more breath.

Excellent.

This time we're going to do the same thing again, but we're going to do it with a hum instead.

So, I'm going to demonstrate first and then I'll do it with you afterwards.

So, I'm going to let all the air out, and in.

Hold.

And then the last one, I just let all the rest of the air out in a bigger hum.

So we're going to do that together.

So I'll do it with you.

Let's let all the air out, and in for one, two, three, four, five, and hold.

And.

Excellent, well done.

Now this breath work is really important actually because that's where we get our volume from as actors.

Shouting is actually really dangerous for your vocal chords.

And shouting over a longer period of time will do permanent damage to your vocal chords.

And as actors, we use our voice a lot, so we need to get volume from our breath instead.

So this is what we're going to do.

We're going to carry on with that same activity but we're going to say a line.

And the line is going to be, the bravest fighters on earth.

And so we're going to let all the air out.

We're going to do the breathing in five seconds, hold five seconds, and instead of count, breathing out for five seconds, I want you to say that line out with the out-breath that you've got, all right.

So I'm going to demonstrate it first, and then we'll do it together.

So I'm going to let all the air out, and in one.

And hold.

And, "The bravest fighters on earth." You can see I've got some breath left.

So at the end of my sentence, earth, I just let the rest of the breath out.

So we're going to do that together.

So let all the air out, and in, for one, two, three.

And, "The bravest fighters on earth." Excellent.

Now that's where we get volume from, so we can get louder with this one this time.

So what I'm going to ask you to do is just kind of breathe in for five seconds.

And then we'll just say the line with the breath louder than the last time we did it.

So let all the air out, and in, one, two, three, four, five, "The bravest fighters on earth." Excellent, in fact, I think we can be louder.

So we're going to do it one more time, really loud this time.

And we're going to cut out the breathing in.

So it's just one big breath in, and then say the line on the breath as you breathe out.

So we'll do it all together.

Three, two, one, "The bravest fighters on earth." Excellent, well done.

So before we go any further, let's just have a quick check of our understanding of some of that key terminology.

So does the word pace describe the emotion in your voice? Tell me now, true or false? That's right, false.

Pace is the speed of your voice, whether you talk quickly or whether you talk slowly, or whether the situation means that you speak quickly because you're quite scared, or whether you speak slowly because you're not sure of what you're talking about, whereas tone describes the emotion in your voice.

So we're going to do an exercise that experiments with the use of pace.

But first of all, before we do that, I just want us to say the line.

So I'm going to say it, and then I want you to say it.

Who is that, over there, show yourselves.

You say the line.

Now we were talking earlier about how our pace of voice changes according to our emotion.

When we're slightly worried or scared, we might talk slower, or when we're excited, we might talk quicker.

And sometimes we change the pace whilst we're talking based on how we're feeling about something.

So I'm going to give you an emotion, and I want you to say the line in that emotion.

So I'm going to demonstrate first of all and I want us to do it in a nervous way.

So I'm going to say it first, and then I want you to copy me or say it in your own way so that you can show how nervous your character is.

So me first, who's that, over there, show yourselves.

Over to you.

Excellent, now you may notice that it's not actually just always to do with the pace of our voice.

Actually, we also add pauses naturally to when we speak according to our emotions or our pitch, or we may change volume according to how we are feeling.

And also the pace might change in the mid sentence as well.

If you noticed, when I'm like nervous character saying that line, "Who is that, "over there, show yourselves," I gave a pause at each point of punctuation and I quicken the pace towards the end with the show yourselves.

So, don't worry if you find yourself adding pauses, changing volume or changing your pitch, experiment all of that.

So let's have a new emotion.

This time I want you to say the line as if you are a really worried character.

Over to you.

Excellent, well done.

Let's try again, this time as a really excited character.

Over to you.

Excellent, let's experiment now with someone who's really sad, over to you.

Brilliant.

Finally, last one, someone is really angry, over to you.

Well done.

Now, let's just reflect on that exercise before we move on to the next one.

We think we have the same line, "Who is that, over there, show yourselves," yet we said it in five different ways, showing five different emotions.

And each time we varied the pace, the pause, we we varied our pitch and our volume.

And each time we communicated to the audience some things slightly different about our characters, personality, and emotions each time.

We're going to develop that exercise by seeing how we can match our voice to some characters.

Now we're going to start with this one and we're going to do this together.

So this is an independent, headstrong and active teenage girl who is used to getting her own way.

And the scenario is that she's forced to leave home and go and live with a woman called Mrs. Coulter, who she doesn't know, but apparently Mrs. Coulter knows all about her.

So to begin with, I'm going to ask you to write a line of dialogue that you think this character would say at this point.

Now we're going to do this together.

So my line of dialogue would be, "I want to stay here, this is my home." You can use my line or you can make up your own.

Pause the video now to write your line of dialogue and resume once you're ready.

Excellent.

Now we're going to experiment and rehearse with that line until we find a way of saying it with pace, tone of voice, pause, pitch and volume that we feel communicates our character.

So I've got my line that I'm going to demonstrate with you first.

And it is, "I want to stay here, this is my home." Now I'm going to say this line quite quick.

and I'm going to say it in a quite angry way.

But I'm going to have a pause between I want to stay here and this is my home.

And I'm going to go up in pitch at the end of those two phrases.

So stay here and my home.

I'm going to say it quite loudly 'cause I'm still quite angry.

So I'm going to put that all together, and my line would go like this.

"I want to stay here, this is my home." Excellent, over to you now.

So pause the video and experiment with different ways of saying your line until you feel it communicates the character to the audience.

And resume when you're ready, over to you.

Well done, how did that go? Were you able to experiment with pace, tone of voice, pause, pitch, and volume to communicate that independent, headstrong, active girl who's used to getting her own way.

Well, let's try this one.

So this is a powerful, calm, calculated, strong-willed woman who always gets her own way.

And the scenario here is that she's come to collect Lyra.

So she is Mrs. Coulter.

Now secretly, Lyra is her daughter, but she has to keep this secret.

She can't reveal that to her.

So first of all, I'd like you to come up with a piece of dialogue, a line of dialogue that this character would say to Lyra.

So pause the video now to write your line of dialogue.

Excellent, now what I'd like you to do is I'd like you to experiment in the same way we did in the first character with use of tone, pause, pitch, volume and pace until you feel that you are saying the line in the way that you think the character would.

So pause the video now and resume once you're ready.

Excellent, how did that go? Were you able to get across that powerful, calm, calculated strong-willed character across in what you were saying to Lyra? So let's have a look at the monologue we're going to be working with in this lesson.

Now the monologue comes from "His Dark Materials".

And it is indeed delivered by that character, Mrs. Coulter, to Lyra as a way of enticing her away from where she lives in Oxford, to come and live with her.

Now, Mrs. Coulter knows full well that Lyra is really independent and headstrong, and would want to go her own way.

So here she's using a bit of reverse psychology.

She's suggesting that actually coming with her will be too adventurous, and that she won't really want it, knowing full well that the things she's talking about are going to really interest Lyra, and she's going to want to come with Mrs. Coulter.

So the monologue goes like this.

"Well, one could make it part of your job, I suppose, "but I wonder how much you really enjoy it.

"Flying in a zeppelin, watching icebergs "floating past us miles below.

"Wouldn't it be too adventurous for you? "And once we get there, there'll be lots "of dreadfully dangerous creatures, "witches, hungry cliff ghasts, "armoured bears, the bravest fighters on earth, "but oh, so frightening.

"You wouldn't like meeting one of them, I'm sure." Before we go on, let's just check our understanding of some of these keywords that we've been looking at today.

So tell me now, what does the word pitch mean? And what about pause, what does pause mean? And finally, what does the word tone mean? Excellent, let's go through those answers.

So pitch describes how high or low your voice is.

Tone describes the emotion of your voice.

And pause is a break or a deliberate moment of silence in your speech.

So this brings us up to our next task, which is to analyse a performance.

So I'm going to perform this monologue and I want you to watch it and analyse how I'm using pace, pause, tone of voice and volume and pitch to communicate the character to the audience.

You may also want to look out for the keywords we used in our last lesson, how I'm using proxemics, use of space, posture and stance to communicate the character as well.

So in this performance, I'm trying to communicate to the audience that I really want Lyra to come with me, and I'm convincing her to come with me except that I know that she's headstrong and independent, and that she won't want to come with me.

So rather than tell her all the good things that's she'll see, I'm going to do that, but I'm going to do it in reverse psychology, and say, oh, well, you're too unadventurous, you're going to be too scared and you're not going to want to come with me.

And that then is going to make Lyra react the opposite way, and say, "Of course I'm adventurous.

"Of course I'm brave, I'll come with you "and see all these things." So let's see, here we go.

Well, one could make it part of your job, I suppose, but I wonder how much you'd really enjoy it, flying in a zeppelin, watching icebergs floating past miles below, wouldn't that'd be too adventurous for you.

And once we get there, there'll be lots of dreadfully dangerous creatures, witches, hungry cliff ghasts, armoured bears, the bravest fighters on earth, but oh, so frightening.

You wouldn't like meeting one of them I'm sure.

So let's look at this question.

How are pace, tone of voice, pauses, pitch and volume being used to communicate the character to the audience? So I'm going to ask you to write a simple list of how I've used those key words to communicate the character to the audience.

Pause the video now and resume when you've finished.

Now, how has that gone? I'm going to go through a few of the things that I've done.

I'm sure you've picked up on lots of other things as well.

So, I want to look at the use of pause first.

And I started with lots of pauses.

I started with pauses in the first line where I said, "Well, one could make it part of your job, I suppose." And I made that quite long pause so that I could entice Lyra into what I'm saying.

And then I said the next bit really slowly, "But I wonder how much you'd really enjoy it." Really emphasising that word really.

So really kind of getting Lyra's interest.

Then I quickened my pace.

I zipped through saying, "Flying in a zeppelin, watching icebergs "floating past us miles below," to really, again, highlight to Lyra the excitement that is happening here and really tried to convince her what's going to happen and how good it's going to be.

I carried on that same tone of voice in the sense of being excited.

"And once we get that, there'll be lots "of dreadfully dangerous creatures," getting louder in my volume with the, "witches, hungry cliff ghasts and armoured bears." And then went back down to being quieter, "The bravest knights on earth," but then went up in pitch, "But oh, so frightening." And then really slowly, "You wouldn't like "meeting one of them, I'm sure." And with that slower last line, I really feel that Mrs. Coulter would have totally got Lyra's interest and got her to change her mind about wanting to stay at home and coming with her instead.

Now it's over to you, your turn.

You've seen me perform the monologue, and I'd like you to have a go at it now as well.

So your next task is to perform the monologue.

I want you to experiment and rehearse with changing your pace, tone of voice, pitch, volume, and add pauses, until you feel it is communicating your interpretation of the character to the audience.

And don't forget to experiment with proxemics, use of space, posture and stance as well.

So use the monologue as you see it on the screen or the one on your worksheet, rehearse and perform the performance and then resume once you've finished.

How did that go? How was that performance for you? I think it's really good monologue.

So were you able to experiment and rehearse with different ways of saying it, different ways of using pause and pace and tone and pitch and volume to communicate your interpretation of the character? I hope you really enjoyed that.

Before we finish up, I just want to go through some of those key words that we learned at the beginning of the lesson.

So which of these statements are correct? Option one, volume describes how loud your voice is.

Option two, volume is the speed of your voice.

Option three, volume describes the emotion in your voice, or option four, volume describes how high or low your voice is.

So tell me, which of those statements is correct now.

That's right, option one is correct.

Volume describes how loud your voice is.

But let's go through the other options to make sure we know what keywords they are.

So, pace is the speed of your voice, not volume.

Tone describes the emotion in your voice, and for option four, this is of course pitch which describes how high or low your voice is.

Before we finish up today, I just want to say, well done.

Performing can be really hard, and you performed a lot in this lesson, so well done.

You've got a lot to be proud of.