VOICE PRODUCTION AND OTHER STAGE CRAFTS

INTRODUCTION

Voice and speech are quintessential elements of oral communication. Like oil and salt, they go together in human expression especially in interpersonal, inter-group and international communication. In this unit, attempt will be made to explain the role of voice and speech production in theatre practice. We will equally attempt to examine problems associated with voice and speech production and how they can be ameliorated.

3.1 The Concept of Voice and Speech Production

An internet source describes voice as the “sound produced by humans and other vertebrates using the lungs and the vocal folds in the larynx, or voice box”. This organ called the larynx is located inside the neck. The visible projection in the neck which is usually very prominent in males called the Adam’s apple is the front part of the larynx.

Voice is produced when air generated by the lungs during respiration is pushed through the vocal cords within the larynx. During respiration, if the air possesses sufficient force, it will vibrate the vocal cords or folds and then voice is generated. Voice is not always produced as speech. “Infants babble and coo; animals bark, moo, whinny and meow, and adult human laugh, sing and cry”.

Attributes of voice include pitch, amplitude and quality. Pitch deals with the highness and lowless of sound based on the frequency of sound waves. Amplitude is the perceived volume of sound, while quality is the distinguishing character of sound. It has to do with voice being either good or bad. A good voice must have these attributes in a promising degree.

Voice is impaired if the pressure of air in the larynx is not strong enough. Voice impairment can be caused by so many things. They include poor breathing habit, excessive smoking, infection of the respiratory system, cancer, accident, poor surgery within the neck, paralysis of the vocal cords, cold, etc. Voice impairment can also be congenital.

SPEECH PRODUCTION

Miriam Okagbue defines speech as the “audible expression of the human voice when talking” (2). An internet source sees speech as the process through which “humans express thoughts, feelings, and ideas orally to one another through a series of complex movement that alter and mould the basic tone created by voice into specific, decodable sounds” . As we have noted, voice is not always produced as speech. Two factors are needed in order to translate the basic vocal tone into speech. They are articulation and resonance.

Articulation, according to Bowskill, is the process of “shaping voice into different sounds that constitute speech”, and this is “achieved in the main by the lips, tongue and teeth” (78). Health scientists say that words are formed when the air emanating from the vocal folds is altered by the palate, tongue, teeth and jaw.

Proper articulation creates rhythm, which is “the flow and movement” that gives a sense of vitality to speech. Rhythm is controlled essentially by the beating of the heart. Improper beating of the heart produces irregular rhythm. Bowskill notes that “total lack of rhythm suggests complete weakness or death”, whereas “over-active rhythm suggests lack of control – even panic” (78). This implies that the heart must beat appropriately in order to generate proper rhythm necessary for good speech production. Proper heart beating can be cultivated through proper breathing habit and sufficient exercises. “The ability to improve the sense of rhythm lies within us all and is not, as many pundits claim, one of those things you happen to have, or have not” (81).

An essential aspect of rhythm is pause, which is the delay between letters, words, phrases or sentences that enables the spectators to assimilate and digest what is said. As an effective aid in speech communication, a pause guide rate of delivery, guarantees audibility and intelligibility, as well as enhances emotional impact of words, phrases or sentences. Bowskill expresses this succinctly when he states that, “the use of a carefully considered pause before a word, draws attention to that word, and brings it into sharper focus”, as well as “adds weight to the meaning and charge to the feeling behind it” (83).

Articulation problem exists when the speaker produces words, syllables or sound incorrectly and incoherently so that the listeners do not understand the meaning of what is said. An internet material says that “an articulation problem sometimes sounds like baby talk because very many young children do mispronounce sounds, syllables, and words” . It further states that “words that sound cute when mispronounced by young children interfere with communication of older children or adults” .

Sound errors fall into three major groups namely omission, substitution and addition. Examples of error of omission include “ouse” for “house”, “at” for “hat”, “and” for “hand”, etc. Examples of error of addition include “hopen” for “open”, “hanswer” for “answer”, etc.

Articulation problem can be caused by many factors, including physical handicaps such as cleft palate, loss of hearing, dental problem, cerebral palsy and so on. However, it is important to note that “most articulation problems occur in the absence of any obvious physical disability”, and “the cause of these so called functional articulation problems may be faulty learning of speech sounds”. It is this aspect of articulation problem that will elicit our attention in this work.

Resonance has to do with the quality of depth and richness of sound. “The human resonators are mainly the cavities in the mouth, nose and throat” . It is said that “the more these cavities are made available, the more the voice can be resonated” (Bowskill, 77).

SELF ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 1

How is speech different from voice?

3.2 Significance of Voice and Speech Production in Theatre

Good voice, as well as speech production is an invaluable asset in theatre practice. To underscore the eminent position of voice in theatrical practice, Salvini, the great Italian actor, is cited by John Fernald to posits that “Acting is voice, voice and more voice, and again, move voice” (69). What Salvini is saying is that in a speech dominated theatre, the actor is useless “without effective vocal instrument” (69). Stage voice and speech are efficient means of communicating meanings and messages. Beckerman posits that dramatic speech can be used to “encounter thought and to force confrontation” (235). He further maintains that poetic speech makes it perfectly “plausible for characters to articulate grief or joy, outrage or dismay” (235). This implies that voice and speech are the most potent instruments for making passionate appeal. The pragmatic status of speech which Beckerman alludes to in the above statement is clarified by John Austin, an Oxford philosopher. Keir Elam cites him to say that in ‘issuing utterances, we are not only or always producing a certain propositional content, but are above all doing such things as asking, commanding, attempting to influence or convince our interlocutors” (157).

According to Bernard Beckerman, “every audience brings an expectant ear to a performance” (235). And this “auditory expectation defines not only the boundaries of writing but the characteristics of delivery” (236). For example, the audience frequently expects in a performance, a melodic pattern in speech, which is capable of instilling “an aural memory in the listener” (238). The audience goes to the theatre expecting to be confronted with riveting speeches capable of arousing sufficient theatrical excitement, not dull, monotonous babbles that conjure up sleep.

QUALITIES OF GOOD STAGE VOICE AND SPEECH

Albright et al state that “the first requirement of stage dialogue is a simple and obvious one: audibility” (111). They further argue that “with speech, as with movement, the actor seeks to communicate meaning; but the auditory ‘meanings’ that cannot be heard are merely annoying to the audience in the theatre” (111). In Nigeria, because of the poor training of actors in voice and speech production, the problem of poor projection remains intractable. The constant shouting of voice, projection or volume during productions is an indication of poor voice and speech productions in our theatre. In place of projection, most of the actors and actresses merely shout. It is said elsewhere that “whenever you hear an actor shout, you know that you are in the presence of an amateur”. With reference to the Nigerian theatrical environment, Miriam Okagbue observes that “Nigerian student – actors and actresses mumble their lines in fast, droning, monotonous voices --- shouting in piercing, whining, shrill and colourless voice qualities, with wrong stress on words” (23).

Audibility alone is not the only quality of a good stage voice. John Fernald expresses the opinion that “a good theatrical voice must be coloured by feeling: it must be capable, in fact, of conveying a great many kinds of feeling” (70). He further notes that “the voice which can convey the necessary variety and subtlety must, in fact, be a musical instrument, which, if it were a man-made product, would be described as sophisticated and complex” (70). This implies that a good stage voice must be as malleable as soft clay in the hand of a ceramist. It must be fluid, not rigid. Indeed, it must be capable of being used in a good number of ways. Deploring rigid, and inappropriate voice in theatre, Clifford Turner remarks that “there is a place in the theatre for voices of many types, but no room whatsoever for any voice that is incorrectly managed or for the voice and speech by reason of their differences or their rigidity, are not appropriate to the play in the services of which they are being used” (1).

Another major quality of good stage voice and speech is clarity. Clarity means that stage voice and speech must be very clear. Sometimes, as actor can achieve volume without being clear. Many, factors are responsible for this. They include poor elocution, enunciation or pronunciation of words, swallowing up of endings of words, wrong stress on words and syllables, production of echoes while speaking, speaking through the nose, mumbling the lines, as well as poor delivering rate, among many others.

Clarity makes for audibility and intelligibility. Albright et al observe that “when a member of a theatre audience claims that he cannot hear, it may be that what he really means is that he cannot understand” (15). So, when clarity is on trial, no amount of shouting can help out.

SELF ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 2

List and discuss two qualities of voice and speech production.

3.3 The Need for Quality Voice and Speech Production in Nigerian Theatre

In his article, “African and the Tragic Form”, Onuora Ossie Enekwe explains convincingly why Africans sometimes laugh at tragedy. He argues that “Africans laugh when some tragic scenes are enacted on stage”, not because of “major psycho-cultural differences” as K.A.B. Jones-Quartey would want us to believe, nor because as Joseph Okpaku would say, “the concept of killing what one loves out of love is to the African, absurd and ridiculous” (31). In dismissing the cultural approach to the problem, Enekwe rightly argues that:

Appreciation of drama or literature has little to do with culture, for a work of art can possess its own culture. The genius of the artist can create an environment which while contradicting tradition, is, nevertheless, powerful and capable of suspending our sense of disbelief. This is why great works of art are appreciated beyond the cultural areas of their creators (33).

Enekwe argues that two factors can make people, including African to laugh at certain enactment of tragic scenes. According to him, “I think Africans laugh not at Tragedy as a form, but at poorly constructed plays”. He further argues that “the fault might well be with the workmanship, not with the medium or form” (34).

Our interest is in the last point. Poor workmanship denotes poor acting, and therefore, poor voice and speech production. William Shakespeare recognized that poor voice and speech production can mar a performance. He therefore, uses the character, Hamlet in his play of the same title, to highlight this in the play within the play thus:

Speak the speech I pray you, as I pronounced it to you, tripling on the tongue: but if you mouth it as may of your players do-O, it offends to my soul to hear a robustious periwig –pated fellow tear a passion to tatters, to very rags, to split the ear of the groudlings, who, for the most part, are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb-shows and noise. I will have such a fellow whipt --- (Act III ScI).

Like the “robustious periwig – pated fellow” of Hamlet’s speech, most Nigerian actors and actresses do not speak their lines appropriately.

They masticate them, produce sounds akin to a coiling cassette. Whenever this is the case, the emotive power of even a well written tragedy is often grossly affected, and this gives the audience an impetus to laugh. What is laughed at is not the tragic form, but the poor aesthetic quality of the performance.

Again, accident of history makes the use of English language in Nigeria as an official language inevitable. According to Cordelia U. Ogbuehi, “the situation where the users have their own indigenous languages, but use English mandatorily in official and public life” is “because of the existence of a multi-lingual culture” (15). She further states that, “a major obstacle in the use of English as a second language is that of interference of mother tongue” (19). An aspect of the mother tongue interference problem that will elicit our attention here is the phonological issue. Most Nigerian actors and actresses find it extremely difficult, if not impossible to keep their vernacular tone apart from that of English. Frequently, one finds it extremely hard to distinguish when some actors are speaking their indigenous language and when they are speaking English on stage.

At the heart of this phonological problem is faulty teaching and learning of English speech sounds. According to Miriam Okagbue, “speech production is one of the disciplines which requires the teacher to serve as a model” (66). She further rightly submits that “a good speech teacher does not only teach by precept alone; he teaches by example. Unfortunately, there is an acute lack of model speech teachers in Nigeria. Most of our teachers of spoken English are charlatans. Okagbue said that at best such teachers merely teach students theories and show them diagrams of the speech organs. According to Pauline O. Ilechukwu,“effective oral language learning presupposes the continual presence of a tested model” (13). Tested model speech teachers can help the actors to drop phonological inhibitions and learn correct speech sounds. Speech is a human habit. Feyi Ekundare is quoted by Ilechukwu to have said that “the adept speaker can keep two or more languages or varieties of the same language apart and in place” (13). In his inaugural lecture, Dapo Adelugba discusses how an American, Charles Mike Jr., who played the role of Baba Fawomi in Femi Osofisan’s Who is Afraid of Solarin? through constant practice, “gradually habituated himself to new modes of vowels and consonants usage, syllabic stress and overall pronunciation” (6) of Yoruba speech sounds.

Besides, due to the nature of the lungs, most people “breath shallowly, using nothing more than the top of each lung” (Fernald, 74). Consequently most of us can never breathe fully and, therefore, fail to obtain “the capacity and reserve of breath we would need to take a long speech in our stride” (74). An actor’s job is an onerous one. He needs a lot of energy to execute long speeches and unnatural movements and gestures. He, therefore, “has to learn to develop his full, and not merely a sixth of his lung capacity” (74). He should be able to contract and expand all the segments of his lungs at will. Albright et al state that “the relatively shallow breathing needed for ordinary conversation in living room classroom, or office will simply not give adequate support for a tone that must project beyond the footlight” (111). They posit that the “shallow breathing with the inadequate breath reserves that inevitably accompany it, results in a voice that lacks firmness and body, as well as variety and stay power” (111). Most problems of articulation, which Nigerian actors and actresses suffer on stage can be attributed to poor breathing habit.

SELF ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 3

Give one reason why the Nigerian actor needs training.

3.4 Voice and Speech Training

Voice and speech training helps to reduce tensions and energizes lazy muscles of the organs of voice and speech, with what John Fernald calls “a positively acrobatic agility” (73). Breathing exercises are mainly the training required to release the organs of speech from rigidity.

Speech training can take many forms. We have touched on one which is the model approach. Adequate model teachers, guarantee effective and efficient learning of correct speech sounds through imitative teaching- learning technique.

Text-tape exposure is another technique of voice and speech training open to people who make use of English as a second language. This is a combined approach to correct pronunciation of English speech sounds that makes use of the written text of English sounds, and the verbal production of these sounds recorded in a tape. The tape enables the actor to listen and imitate how the different speech sounds are produced. The actors are expected to repeat the speech sounds after the tape. It is expected that through constant practice, actors can familiarize themselves with the correct pronunciation of English speech sounds.

Different ethnic groups have peculiar problems with English speech sounds. A few examples will suffice from specific linguistic groups. Common speech sound problems among the Igbo linguistic group include the following:

“nwen” for ‘when’

“load” for “road”

“rove” for “love”

“raidy” for “lady”, etc.

For the Yoruba, we have the following sounds errors:

“ouse” for “house”

“and “ for “hand”

“at” for “hat”

“chow” for “show”, etc.

For the Hausa, we have the following problems:

“bery” for “very”

“fifle” for “people”

“quantrol” for “control”, etc.

The list is quite inexhaustible. Special attention must be paid to these multi-lingual peculiarities in training Nigerian actors and actresses in voice and speech production.

SELF ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 4

List any four speech sound problems peculiar to Efik ,Ijaw, Kanuri, Edo and Itshekiri lingual groups.

4.0 CONCLUSION

We have explained that voice and speech constitute a major instrument for the actor. We said that they are the most effective means of communicating messages, encountering thoughts and forcing confrontation in theatre. We maintained that a good voice must be capable of being used for many purposes other than projection.

5.0 SUMMARY

In this unit, we examined specifically, the concept of voice and speech production. We maintained that voice is produced as a result of the passage of air through the larynx. We said that voice is not always produced as speech because infants babble, animal whinny, adults laugh, cry, etc. We equally explained the significance of voice and speech production in theatre, qualities of good stage voice and speech, as well as outlined the reasons which make quality voice and speech inevitable for the Nigerian actors and actresses. Finally, we examined approaches to voice and speech training. We insisted that in a country where English is a second language such as Nigeria, the place of model teachers can never be overestimated.