THE PRO-FILE

THE ANATOMY OF THE VOICE (Part Two)

	In the second part of this interview Linda Cartwright explores the concepts of audibility and clarity. She also discusses the value of the Estill process for actors who sometimes have to sing and the time frame involved for students in learning the Estill concepts...
Linda Cartwright

Linda: There is often, with voice teachers I think, a kind of blurriness as to what is nasality and what has been called nasal resonance. I don't use that term any more, I talk about 'twang quality'. Because in fact, most of the time when we speak the sound doesn't go through the nose at all … only three particular sounds… the nasal consonants 'n', 'm' and 'ng' pass through the nose.

When you say those sounds the soft palate is lowered so sound coming up from the throat can actually go through the nose - but all other sounds travel out via the mouth. If you had your soft palate in that position, which they call a half open velar port … (velar is short for velar-pharyngeal and it just means the part of the throat near the soft palate) ... so it's that little trapdoor opening to the nose and normally that trapdoor is closed so the sound can't travel that way.

British English requires that the palate be lifted, whereas nasality is part of many dialects (some Australian and New Zealand ones amongst them) and you'd lower your soft palate to create a half-open velar port to achieve these. The French language, for example, requires the use of a lot of nasal sounds, so control over the soft palate is part of what helps you achieve certain accents and dialects.

Try this for example. If you hold your nose and say, "Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled pepper" you can do so with out difficulty and that proves … that the sound is coming out of the mouth. The only time that would go funny and you couldn't speak, is if there is an 'n', 'm' or 'ng' sound because those are the three consonants that, in British English anyway, are resonated through the nose and not the mouth. So if you hummed and then held your nose the sound would stop. It wouldn't work.

So nasal resonance is really 'twang' quality and I think they called it nasal resonance in the past because you get a feeling sometimes that right to the end of your nose is alive when in fact it is the ary-epiglottic sphincter muscle tightening which creates the sound. So I refer to that now as 'twang' and I would say to somebody, "You need a bit more twang." Whereas I would I talk about nasality in terms of the soft palate being lifted or not lifted.

Richard: So you would talk to an actor specifically about the physiological control they need to achieve to produce the sound.

Linda: Yes. That's it. And this is basic. This is nothing to do with the artistry of voice. This is just the basics of how you produce sound.

Richard: So it is about the timbre of the voice? Is that a word you would use?

Linda: Yes, it is.

Richard: So that relates specifically to audibility?

Linda: Yes.

Richard: Tonal quality?

Linda: Yes.

Richard: And what else?

Linda: Well, Jo does talk a lot about diction and how to use consonants … so it's clarity as well as audibility for that part of it. The thing about consonants is that they are heard less loudly than vowels and what most people to do in order to try to become audible (if they have been told they are not) is to go louder and louder for the vowel sound when what they really need to do is up the ante on the consonants. So the more you use consonants on stage the more you are going to be audible.

Richard: So what part of the physiology aids the consonants?

Linda: Well really that's just tongue, lips and soft palate. (Although) a lot of the work pertains to actors when they have to sing … although you (do) use twang quality in speech, in fact it's a necessity for stage speech.

What else can I tell you? Oh, there are exercises you can do to relax the larynx.

Richard: So essentially this is about understanding the physiology of the voice and how we can use it.

Linda: Yes, yes. It's very very basic. It's helping you 'get the voice' and later on in voice classes you learn (how) to use it - and use it to communicate. But the work is scientific ... It's just how to be versatile … I would say the key word with the Estill work is versatility … how to be versatile with your voice so that you can use 'twang', you can use 'speech quality', 'falsetto quality' and you can use 'opera quality'. A lot of actors actually use opera quality when they are speaking on stage. But so many actors have to sing at some stage in their career… if you are not a singer and suddenly you have a part where you have to sing a little bit of a song as a character that can really upset an actor … especially if they don't have a lot of confidence …

Some of Linda's students warm up before a cabaret performance in 2001.

We have had young actors who certainly aren't singers but are good enough to put on a musical - we did "Charlie Brown" - and we were thrilled because one of the girls who didn't think of herself as a singer at all although she had a pretty voice, learnt to 'belt', and she was playing Lucy. She had huge success with lots of twang quality in the songs, a nice twangy quality for the spoken part and she was a wonderful Lucy … the show was very popular. Now (prior to this) she didn't know how to use her voice in that way. So the keynote of Estill work is vocal versatility. It doesn't pretend to say this is a nice sound and this isn't a nice sound. There is no aesthetic bias with the work. It's just … this is what happens to your voice when you alter conditions in the larynx.

There's a book out written by one of Jo's disciples in England … now what's her name? Gillyanne Kayes and it's called "Singing and the Actor" (A & C Black, London ISBN 0-7136-4888-0) and it totally uses this work.

Richard: So what sort of time frame does a student in this course spend on acquiring those skills? How difficult is it?

Linda: It's not difficult to learn about it and understand it … (however) often if they have entrenched vocal habits it takes a lot longer to change. I mean someone who constantly does speak through their nose isn't going to change overnight. But this work is very specific and it gives them exercises they must do that really make them feel how high or low they are lifting the soft palate. So … one class a week over the first term and they have all the background to it.

Richard: And will that have created a change in their vocal production?

Linda: Yes, it does. It means people start to actually speak in 'speech quality' if they are in the habit of not speaking in 'speech quality' … addressing using the soft palate, addressing using consonants, addressing supporting the larynx … it (in fact) takes longer than that because a lot of the work that speech teachers do is … about what to do with your voice once you've got it … if you know what I mean. But Estill (work) I like because everything has been proven scientifically. You start to learn a little bit about anatomy so that you can start using your logic about what is going on there … in the larynx.

Richard: So it puts the actor more in control of what is going on with the anatomy?

Linda: I think it does. I mean some people respond more to metaphor … I can remember once … as an actor … I had to do a bit of singing … and I went along to a singing teacher and she said, "You need to get a little piggy tail on your voice" … and she made me do a little squirl in the air like that (Linda demonstrates with her hand) and somehow it helped me. What she was actually doing was trying to get a bit of 'twang quality' into it … but Estill work wasn't (well) known in those days … and so I would try and do it by this image that had been given to me. But I didn't know what was happening or why it worked, and that was a bit scary for me. There's always the feeling that "perhaps the piggy tail magic won't work for me this time."

A lot of people do respond to images and the only thing that worries me about that is that some people don't. And they just get stymied … they may hit on what they are meant to be doing and they may not. But I think it's just like driving a car - if you know that when you put your foot on the clutch that it disengages things then somehow for me that aided my driving …. I think for a lot of people to know what is going on physiologically with (their) voice helps them … I mean, I don't think about it now every time I put my foot on the clutch…

Richard: But you drive with that understanding?

Linda: Yes. But to know it when I was learning to drive helped me no end … and it took a little bit of fear out of changing gear … I think it is the same with this … just to know what is going on gives you a kind of understanding and control. Then you can go on with what you want to do with your voice after that. It also gives us a language … I can say to the student … "Not enough twang, love. You need a bit more twang to the voice." And they know what I mean and how to achieve it.

Richard: Is this the only institution in New Zealand that is teaching this?

Linda: No. I was so taken with the work … I first came across it with Anne-Marie Speed who works at the London Academy of Music I think, and she comes here and teaches the whole 5-day course, which I act as coordinator for. We've had lots of teachers and practitioners take the course, so it's now being used quite extensively as part of the learning in various institutions.

The work has actually been taken to heart in Australia and in New Zealand and that is because Jo Estill worked some years ago with an Adelaide based Speech Language Therapist who has more or less taken over the work and copyrighted the Voice Craft name. She has done a lot of work spreading the word, so I do believe that in Australian training institutions the Estill work forms the basis of their voice training.

Linda Cartwright is Voice Tutor for the Acting Major at Unitec School of Performing and Screen Arts in Auckland.

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