Constructing a Vocal Development Diary

Pagination: Page per week
Page Set-Up: Portrait would give me more room to work on
Structure: Free flowing word document

Name: On every page (Chris Backway)
Pending performances: Sense and Sensibility (22nd-24th October), The Wizard of Oz (December)
Date and time
Planned length of practice: 30 mins - 1 hour
A list of SMART goals: (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound)
An account of how actual practice ran: FACTUAL list, not REFLECTIVE. List what I did and how long for.
Reflection: Look at what I plan to do and compare it to what I did. WWW, EBI. Use information about amendments and why??
'For Next Time': Make a list of plans for next practice. May be things I didn't have time for. Constructing SMART goals.

UPCOMING PERFORMANCES

Sense and Sensibility (22nd-24th October)

The Wizard of Oz (December 2015)

Shakespeare Evening (Wednesday 2nd and Thursday 3rd December 2015)

WEEK 1 - 25/09/2015 - 02/10/2015

Monday: Downloaded app, SingTune. Concentrates on keeping a certain note and maintaining breath control and capacity. Practiced for 45 mins. Before doing these type of exercises, I will increase my breath control by doing a 5 minute warm-up not using my voice but moving my facial features around and focusing on breathing. I will increase my use of resonance by, before going into lessons which involve using my singing voice, I will hum the note that I am comfortable with first, which is C major and then try to hum higher to test how high my voice can go to. I will do this practice for 5 minutes as a warm up to get my voice going.

Sunday - Outside of college: Sense of Sensibility rehearsal: no speech needed yet but had to individually exercise controlling my breathing and maintaining control. This was done by using many tongue twisters, examples were:

I saw Susie sitting in a shoe shine shop.
Where she sits she shines, and where she shines she sits.

Red Lorry, Yellow Lorry, Red Lorry, Yellow Lorry........continue to get faster until you can't say Red Lorry, Yellow Lorry

Practiced for 10 mins.

To help focusing on my voice, I will do a 5 minute warm-up focusing on my breath control and breath capacity. To also help my voice and breath control, I will continue to do these type of tongue twisters and breath control exercises each day. One exercise that I want to practice more is whilst breathing, I will hold my diaphragm (under my rib cage), and make sure I breath without raising my shoulders to help my breath control more. I will do this for a maximum of 5 minutes each day.

WEEK 2 - 02/10/2015 - 09/10/2015

Since doing Week 1's breath and voice control exercises, I decided to focus on my use of pitch. 

Monday: Sense and Sensibility rehearsal. Went on the SingTune app on my phone. The app offered a wide variety of pitch exercises. The first exercise involved keeping the mouth closed and humming from a lower tone of pitch to a higher tone of pitch consistently every 8 seconds, (4 seconds going down and 4 going up). At the first attempt of this exercise, my body started to lose air very quickly rather than it normally should. To improve this, before conducting in my pitch exercise, I will do a 5 minute breathing exercise to control my breathing pattern and then take part in the pitch exercise. 

The second attempt at the siren exercise was very good. I felt my vocal chords vibrating as soon as the pitch went higher which would normally happen happen when you reach a higher pitch.

Practiced for 10 minutes  

Thursday: Sense and Sensibility rehearsal. Carried on doing tongue twisters. Tried different tongue twisters to try and annunciate my words:

Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers.
A peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked.
If Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers,
Where's the peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked?

I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice-cream!

Practiced this exercise for another 5 minutes.

This week involved a very productive routine of vocal exercises I did outside of the college. Next week, I will maintain a very good breath control and I will carry on with this particular pitch exercise in a vocal workout for rehearsals. To improve, I will practice this pitch exercise, not only at rehearsals but also at home, preferably in the morning before going to college. This will be a 2-5 minute exercise per day.

Over the past 3 weeks, I have been able to control my breath control by doing various breathing exercises, such as breathing in through my diaphragm for 8 seconds and breathing all of the air out through my lungs for 8 seconds. I will be able to perform Shylock's 'To bait fish withal' speech for the Shakespeare Evening if I continue to regulate my breath control. My targets for the next couple of weeks are: performing 5 minute projection exercises and to take pauses at each comma in my monologue to symbol a breath. Since the first week, my rate of breath control has increased and I will be able to use this for my monologue.   

WEEK 4 – 16/10/2015 – 23/10/2015	WEEK 5 – 23/10/2015 – 06/11/2015	WEEK 6 – 06/11/2015 – 13/11/2015	WEEK 7 – 13/11/2015 – 20/11/2015	WEEK 8 – 20/11/2015 – 27/11/2015
UPCOMING PERFORMANCES: SENSE AND SENSIBILITY (22nd - 24th)				UPCOMING PERFORMANCES: THE WIZARD OF OZ (December) SHAKESPEARE EVENING (2nd and 3rd DECEMBER)
SMART TARGETS: I will increase my rate of Phonation I will increase my use of Pace	SMART TARGETS: I will increase my rate of Phonation I will alternate my use of Pitch and Tone of my voice	SMART TARGETS: I will alternate my Use of Dynamics I will increase my Intonation	SMART TARGETS: I will alternate my use of Tone in my voice I will maintain an Effective Vocal Technique	SMART TARGETS: I will maintain an Effective Vocal Technique
EXERCISES Tongue Twisters and gradually gathering speed to increase pace 'Peter Piper...' 'Red Lorry, Yellow Lorry...' Practiced for 10-15 mins Rolling letters using words and letters 'rrrrr....' 'bbbb....' 'zzzzz....' Practiced for 5 - 10 mins	EXERCISES Tongue Twisters and clearly using mouth to emphasise words 'I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream' 'I saw Susie...' Practiced for 10 mins Sirens - rolling voice to emphasise pitch Practiced for 5-10 mins	EXERCISES Reading a short paragraph of a book and clearly emphasising words 'Punk Rock' by Simon Stephens Practiced for 10-15 mins Breathing in and out at a comfortable pace Breathed in for 4 seconds...and out for 4 seconds Breathed in for 8 seconds...and out for 8 seconds Breathed in for 12 seconds...and out for 12 seconds Practiced for 5-10 mins	EXERCISES Tongue Twisters and clearly annunciating words 'Peter Piper...' 'I saw Susie sitting in a shoe shine shop...' Practiced for 5-10 mins Sirens - rolling voice from a lower pitch and tone to a higher pitch and tone Also used different letters 'z' 'b' 'r' Practiced for 5-10 mins	EXERCISES Breath Control: Breathing in for 4 seconds...and out for 4 seconds Making sure breathing through diaphragm and out through vocal chords Practiced for 10 mins Clarity of speech: Tongue Twisters -  'Red Lorry, Yellow Lorry' 'Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers' Practiced for 5-10 mins
NEXT TIME I will increase my rate of Phonation I will alternate my use of Pitch and Tone	NEXT TIME I will increase my rate of Intonation I will increase my Use of Dynamics	NEXT TIME I will alternate my use of Tone I will increase my rate of Intonation	NEXT TIME I will maintain an Healthy and Effective Vocal technique

Over the past 5 weeks (Week 3-8), I have been able to control my rate of pace when talking out in a performance. This has helped doing various vocal exercises e.g. tongue twisters which increase my rate of pace and help develop the way I communicate things if I need to speak at a fast way. I will be able to say my lines for The Mitre Players' 'Sense and Sensibility' at an effective way. For next time, I need to maintain an effective warm-up including different exercises aiming at Phonation and Intonation. I have been able to maintain an effective vocal technique by using various different vocal exercises, the main exercises I used were mainly tongue twisters. I used these tongue twisters in different contexts, e.g. slowing the words down to emphasise clarity of speech, so used my facial muscles to emphasise the words in a particular tongue twister.