VOICE AND ACCENT TRAINING 
Dates:
 
Times:





April 29th & 30th.

Saturday:
10h - 14h
16h - 20h 
Sunday:
10h - 14h
16h - 20h
Price:
280 €
The Course

  • The course is highly practical throughout  and is designed for the actor to have enough practice so that real change begins to occur.
  • To maximize practice time, there will be a mixture of small group, pair and solo exercises, closely monitored by Stevie Rickard. 
  • There will be an absence of technical language and jargon. Phonetic symbols will only be used to give students the basic tools to use dictionaries for self-study.
  • The work will be applied extensively to appropriate pieces of script.
  • Guidance will be given for ongoing self-study and development outside the workshop.
  • An initial, practical exercise to assess skill levels will enable Stevie Rickard to establish priorities for the group.
  • Full use will be made of the camera operator. The course will include work on awareness of face and mouth placement for certain consonant and vowel sounds.

The Method

This course will focus on specific ways to improve your pronunciation in English for film and television work. 

  • Consonants – Target sounds will include vest/best; yes/chess/Jess; teeth/teethe, sip/ship among others. The group will also work towards achieving a less dominant R. More advanced students may work on creating crisper Ts and Ds. Spelling-to-sound study will also be explored.
  • Vowels – We will work on the most problematic vowel sounds for Spanish/Catalan actors, though all 24 vowel sounds will be tackled if necessary. 
  • Stress – Word stress and phrasal stress are very different in English in comparison with Spanish/Catalan. In particular, word stress is far less predictable. Compound noun and phrasal verb stress can be particularly problematic, as are the variable pronunciations of common function words.
  • Rhythm – This leads on from stress. Finding the specific ‘bounce’ of English, with its many contractions and irregular alternation of strong and weak syllables is crucial for non-native speakers whose first language rhythm works very differently.
  • Intonation – English vocal musicality is specific and very difficult to that of most Romance languages. Intonation exploration will look at where pitch change happens in phrases and what type of changes signal different speaker intentions.
  • Elision, assimilation, liaison, linking – How sounds connect in everyday speech is often overlooked in pronunciation training, yet this can make an enormous difference for non-native speakers who want their accent to be less dominant when working in English.
  • Resonant placement – Directing the voice forward to the lips, front teeth and chin helps overall vocal flexibility but, specifically, gives the Spanish/Catalan actor the warmer, richer oral sound of English as opposed to their home nasal/throaty sound.

Results

At the end of the course, the actors will be better equipped to:
  • Recognise their unhelpful pronunciation habits in English.
  • Demonstrate corrections of those habits.
  • Continue to correct those habits consciously for auditions and performance.
  • Work towards unconscious adoption of new, nearer-native pronunciation habits through new muscle memory.
  • Develop their own study process for working on scripts.
Stevie Rickard

Stevie Rickard is a highly-qualified dialogue coach and voice teacher who has been providing support for performers and non-performers for over 20 years.  He has an MA in Voice Studies from Central School of Speech and Drama (the world’s leading qualification in voice). He has taught voice at a number of England's top drama schools – RADA, Central School of Speech and Drama, Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance and at the Young Vic Theatre. He is currently a member of the voice staff at LAMDA and City Lit, and also coaches BBC Radio 4 presenters. Having lived in Spain, he understands the complexities faced by Catalan and Spanish actors when they speak English.  We are thrilled that he has agreed to give a course at Frank Stein Studio.