Voice and Speech Trainers Association, Inc.
Winter 1999 Volume 13, Number 1
Teaching Voice
TEACHING VOICE AT THE SECONDARY LEVEL -
IS IT POSSIBLE?
By Darrelyn Marx
New Trier High School, Winneka, Illinois
It all started in the summer of 1987 when five members of the drama department at New Trier High School in Winnetka, Illinois decided to make a commitment to the study of voice and add it to our four-year acting curriculum. We enlisted the aid of VASTA member, Nan Withers-Wilson, and she prepared a one-week intensive for us that heightened our awareness and supported our demands for a pragmatic approach to teaching voice at the high school level. We were energized by Nan's passion for her subject matter and for the interest that she took in our mission, supplying us with a vast array of reference materials and answering our endless quires. At the end of one week we felt empowered to do battle with our curriculum and go into our classrooms, rehearsals, and speech team practices fully prepared to teach our students the basics of good vocal production. The following summer I accepted a fellowship and had the opportunity to study with Nan Withers-Wilson for eight full weeks. Needless to say, I credit our present vocal curriculum to Nan's great teaching, wonderful inspiration, and endearing patience. As a true statement to the work that began in 1987, we still have a committed faculty and four-year acting curriculum that begins with the study of voice in the freshman year.
My focus for this article is on the senior Advanced Acting class which spends an entire semester engaged in scene study, with an emphasis on voice in the second quarter. Throughout the first quarter, the students are given articles from magazines and newspapers to read that will pique their interest in voice. One useful article that commands their attention is on vocal image versus external image. This creates a great deal of discussion about observing the world around them and usually ends with the students identifying vocal problems that they hear every day. They are usually able to come up with about twenty vocal problems, that they then pledge to be acutely aware of as they observe others and record notes in their journals on a daily basis. From this exercise they move on to creating their own vocal autobiographies, thereby exploring the many factors that influence their voices. The students tape-record their autobiographies and listen to them, ultimately getting feedback from the class and teacher. As they are keenly aware, this is not meant to be a professional diagnosis. It is simply a tool for awareness that often elicits great conversation at home and acts as a springboard to further study.
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