Why is it important for an actor to take speech lessons, aside from the obvious reasons – to get rid of an accent and be understood more easily? The other main reason for an actor to learn speech is to facilitate learning accents, when they are required for different roles. It is difficult to acquire an accent if one doesn’t know how to activate the jaw, tongue and soft palate, and how they work together.
‘Speech’ cannot be improved by itself, and I always include breath work – which automatically involves the element of ‘Voice.’ In major acting programs, voice and speech may be taught in different classes, with the respective teachers conferring about the students’ problems and progress.
My first speech classes were at RADA (The Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London), where my teacher, Mrs. Pursey, made perfect sense of the work. She was a marvelous teacher, I was so lucky! I spoke ‘American’ of course, and the other students had many varieties of Cockney, Midlands, North Country, Scottish, Welsh – we even had someone from Turkey. By the time we completed the two and a half year course, everyone could not only pronounce their Shakespeare in what passed then for Standard English – now it would seem a little affected, as the rules have relaxed –but they could also speak in each others’ accents!
There’s a big problem with the way speech is taught most of the time. It’s overcomplicated by strict phonetic spellings, which doesn’t work very well for most actors, who often learn better from listening than by studying from a piece of paper. And there’s another problem, something which should be taught and frequently is not, that seriously stands in the way of progress; it’s what we call placement.
What do I mean by placement? This is a rough explanation, not very scientific, but it’s easy to understand and it works. Each language has a central vowel. Standard American has a central vowel. Whether the student is a foreign language speaker or a native English speaker, they must find a way to place this basic vowel. From this anchoring point – which can be both physically felt and heard accurately – they can begin to acquire standard American speech.
I tailor my speech teaching to the individual. In a class situation, I give the same basic exercises, which relate to basic instruction, but focus on whatever needs the most attention. For example, French and Spanish native speakers need to adjust the way they pronounce t’s and d’s. In their native languages, these consonants are pronounced more lightly than in English, so they have to work especially hard to hear the difference and connect them properly to the vowels that occur next to them. Japanese is a radically different placement from English, and a great deal of effort is required to move the focus of sound to a different spot.
As I mentioned before, breath support – and also pitch – which are related to voice training are of paramount importance in speech training. Because one is changing lifetime habits, there is a lot of effort required both in production of the sound and in listening to make sure it is correct, which, in turn, demands more diaphragm support. Knowledge of voice production is necessary for providing this added energy - therefore I always refer to my voice/speech classes, never to speech by itself.
Another confusion that is important to clear up: the use of voice/speech in singing is different because in the latter one sustains the sounds. Speaking requires the breath to start and stop constantly and yet to produce an apparently effortless, unaccented flow of speech. Of course, singing lessons help very much with understanding how the breath supports sound in general.
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