GOOD VOICE PRODUCTION

Press, Volume C, Issue 29515, 17 May 1961, Page 2

GOOD VOICE PRODUCTION

Mr H. Joyce Gives Lecture

Variations of tone, intonations and pace were the three fundamentals in voice production, said the director of the Canterbury Repertory Theatre Society (Mr Heath Joyce), yesterday. He was delivering the first lecture in a coarse on able membership and confident leadership arranged by the adult education department of the University of Canterbury. Variation of tone was the most important, and meant altering the voice’s quality, not its range, he said. This was done entirely By diaphragm breathing—the only effective way to achieve correct voice production. Intonation meant varying the range of tone.

Coupled with variety in pace was the use of timing to produce effective speech. “If you try to use too many words at once, your audience will not know which ones to listen to. so pause and stress on certain syllables are used.” Mr Joyce said. One of the disadvantages of the New Zealand accent was that stress was placed on more than one syllable in any word, which tended to give monotony in sentences. An infallible rule of the English language was that stress was placed on the first syllable of nouns, and on the second syllable of verbs Equal Stress

"You fox the issue if you place equal stress over the whole word, even in a large word such as ‘contemporarily’," Mr Joyce said. In some words, however, the second consonant was not sounded at all, said Mr Joyce. This was known as “throwing the sound away.” Examples of this were to be' found in the pronunciation of "infant” and “element.” While the second consonant in each case was not missed out. it did not represent any definite sound. The same principle was used for effect in small phrases, such as "Yes, but . . .” Stress could be placed on the word “but” for emphasis, or the "but” could be "thrown away” to produce the opposite effect. Dramatic effects in voice production were entirely the result of diaphragm breathing. Strong projection of a soqnd w’as not a shout, but it was more penetrating and not so tiring. When it was done properly, the muscles of the shoulders and hands remained quite loose. Diction was also most important. Mr Joyce said. Careful sounding of consonants and the ends of words was necessary to enable listeners to distinguish one word from another, and if this was no* observed. sneech became untidv. Perfection could be achieved by paving attention to ending words when reading Vowel sounds could be flicked short for effect, or produced with an open sound.