This study investigates the perceptual and acoustic changes in student actors’ voices after 16 months of Linklater Voice training, which is a holistic method to train actors’ voices.
Eleven (n = 11) ...actor students’ text and Voice Range Profile (VRP) recordings were analyzed pretraining and 16 months posttraining. From text readings at comfortable performance loudness, both perceptual and acoustic analyses were made. Acoustic measures included sound pressure level (SPL), fundamental frequency (fo), and sound level differences between different frequency ranges derived from long-term-average spectrum. Sustained vowels i:, o, and e abstracted from the text sample were analyzed for formant frequencies F1–F4 and the frequency difference between F4 and F3. The VRP was registered to investigate SPL of the softest and loudest phonations throughout the voice range.
The perceived pitch range during text reading increased significantly. The acoustic result showed a strong trend toward decreasing in minimum fo, and increasing in maximum fo and fo range. The VRP showed a significant increase in the fo range and dynamics (SPL range). Perceived voice production showed a trend toward phonation balance (neither pressed–nor breathy) and darker voice color posttraining.
The perceptual and acoustic analysis of text reading and acoustic measures of VRP suggest that LV training has a positive impact on voice.
BOOK REVIEW; Rains was never a minor character; Claude Rains An Actor's Voice David J. Skal with Jessica Rains Univ. Today, people seem unaware of the astonishing range of response that he brought to ...an extraordinarily diverse group of pictures: the prosecutor whose political ambitions lead to a lynching in "They Won't Forget"; Napoleon III as Hitler stand-in in "Juarez"; the mysteriously damaged humanist-doctor of "Kings Row"; the openly Jewish (a rarity in movies of that time) investment banker in love with Bette Davis in "Mr. Skeffington."
The purpose of this study was to measure and compare the voice characteristics and vocal complaints and habits of musical theater actors and musical theater students.
Thirty participants were ...included in the study, 18 musical theater students and 12 professional musical theater actors. Vocal quality was measured by the multiparameter indices Dysphonia Severity Index (DSI) and Acoustic Voice Quality Index (AVQI). A perceptual evaluation of the speaking voice was performed using the GRBASI scale. All participants completed the Voice Handicap Index (VHI), the VHI adapted to the singing voice, the Vocal Tract Discomfort (VTD) Scale and the Corporal Pain Scale.
Excellent scores for DSI (resp. 7.3, 7.1) and AVQI (resp. 2.6, 2.5) were found in the musical theater actors and students. All participants reported at least two symptoms of VTD and the mean scores for the VHI adapted to the singing voice were located in the clinical zone. Musical theater students reported significantly more VTD and pain symptoms compared to the professionals. No significant differences in perceptual and objective voice characteristics were found between musical theater actors and students. A higher presence of vocal misuse and stress in the students was observed.
Musical theater students and actors are elite vocal performers with comparable excellent objective vocal measures (DSI, AVQI). In both groups, an increased number of VTD and complaints of the singing voice were reported. Especially students were vulnerable for stress, vocal misuse, VTD, and pain symptoms. The findings suggest that musical theater actors are a risk group for developing voice disorders requiring multidimensional voice assessment and voice care.
Abstract
In this paper, we propose treating alignment shift as a process of functional markedness reversal in the domain of semantically transitive constructions. We illustrate how this approach ...allows us to capture similarities between the alignment shifts in Eskimo-Aleut and Western Austronesian languages, despite morphosyntactic differences in their voice systems. Using three diagnostics of functional markedness (semantic transitivity, topic continuity of P, and discourse frequency), we compare antipassive and ergative constructions in Eskimo-Aleut varieties and actor voice (
av
) and undergoer voice (
uv
) constructions in Western Austronesian varieties. We argue that ergative alignment is equivalent to a functionally unmarked P-prominent construction (e.g., ergative,
uv
), whilst accusative alignment is equivalent to a functionally unmarked A-prominent construction (e.g., antipassive,
av
). On this basis, we claim that both language groups are undergoing a parallel shift from ergative to accusative, since A-prominent constructions are functionally marked in more conservative varieties, but lose their functionally marked character and begin to function as unmarked transitive constructions in more innovative varieties.
Summary This study was to evaluate acoustic changes in student actors' voices after 12 months of actor training. The design used was a longitudinal study. Eighteen students enrolled in an Australian ...tertiary 3-year acting program (nine male and nine female) were assessed at the beginning of their acting course and again 12 months later using a questionnaire, interview, maximum phonation time (MPT), reading, spontaneous speaking, sustained phonation tasks, and a pitch range task. Samples were analyzed for MPT, fundamental frequency across tasks, pitch range for speaking and reading, singing pitch range, noise-to-harmonic ratio, shimmer, and jitter. After training, measures of shimmer significantly increased for both male and female participants. Female participants' pitch range significantly increased after training, with a significantly lower mean frequency for their lowest pitch. The finding of limited or negative changes for some measures indicate that further investigation is required into the long-term effects of actor voice training and which parameters of voicing are most targeted and valued in training. Particular investigation into the relationship between training targets and outcomes could more reliably inform acting programs about changes in teaching methodologies. Further research into the relationship between specific training techniques, physiological changes, and vocal changes may also provide information on implementing more evidence-based training methods.
MATTER OF SOUND CATEREVA IRINA
Studiul Artelor şi Culturologie: istorie, teorie, practică (Online),
09/2015
3(26)
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
The sound as the basis for all forms of live voice on the theatrical stage is a material phenomenon. The basis for the natural expressiveness of the living Word is energy. It is the sound matter and ...semantic source of an actor’s voice: a word or a tune. That is, everything that is related to its verbal expression. Any word, being born from a field of energy is in fact, its particle. It is a result, and at the same time, the expression of energies that destroy the social, national, cultural boundaries of perception.
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