Head of voice, Natasha McNamara, incorporates a very instinctive
and structural approach to freeing and understanding your own voice. Our
very affordable classes and private tutorials allow actors to train at
a high standard and progress from a beginners level to a very advanced
level.
A course designed to work with the actor’s innate sense of play to develop and explore a rich and resonant voice within the rigours and framework of The Actors Pulse. This course is about opening up: releasing the body, voice and imagination to develop an effective creative habit for the actor.
The Course Outline
Beginners
Training for beginners is based on Foundation Skills. The student will develop an awareness of habitual patterns which interfere with communication.
This work will allow them to create new habits that are about vocal confidence and ease. New habits are to be practised every day. The student will be responsible for creating and practicing a vocal warm up. So in the end technique is invisible. The progression of work will be technical then leading to expressive work and text analysis.
Course Elements
The Body Speaks
The student will develop an awareness of physical habits and tensions, then create new habits which connect the actor to the whole of themselves.
Open The Channel
The student will become aware of where the voice gets stuck or blocked. The student will learn exercises to free these areas and free the voice.
Areas of concentration
- Jaw
- Soft Palate
- Tongue
- Lips
- Throat
Every Breath You Take
A focus on the whole body breath and vocal connection.
Awareness of the primary breathing muscles.
- Diaphragm
- Intercostals Muscle
- Abdominal Muscles
Good Vibrations
The importance of Resonance to good voice production.
Once habitual tension is released more vibration is found. A pleasurable experience of good vibration. Discovering the vibration chambers in the chest, throat, face and head.
Vocal Colours
Discover your pitch range. Find your true colours in your voice. Find flexibility and freedom.
Articulation
Focus on greater clarity. The Vowels and consonants, develop a dextrous tongue.
Express Yourself
Make the thoughts and words your own. Learn how to do this by scoring the text like a musical score. A sonnet will be worked upon and performed at the end of term.
A study of rhetoric. Going back to the punctuation. Pitch, Pace and Volume.
IPA
The international phonetic alphabet will be studied to help further work on accents and developing a well spoken Australian accent.
Advance Students
This course will build upon skills learnt in first year. All foundation work will be touched upon to ensure the student is ready to progress into more intensive vocal work.
- Regional dialects will be studied in this course
- Voice for stage and film
- Sight reading
- Transformation and the character voice
- Industry development
- Voice over work: Preparing for the studio, cold reads, the hard and soft sell
- Monologue work
- Devising with the voice
Cost
Classes are sold in 8 week terms [fixed] and conditions apply.
$320 - 1 class a week
Natasha McNamara
Natasha is a Performing Arts graduate of the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts (WAAPA) and a graduate of NIDA Voice Studies. She has worked extensively as a voice coach on theatre productions and on various NIDA graduate shows where she worked with dirctors such as Richard Cotteril and Darren Gilshenan. She believes theatre is a live creature and strives to stay current with her art form and make the text authentic and relevant for a modern actor or presenter.
Natasha has worked with vocal gurus Cicely Berry and Barbara Houseman and forum theare legend, Augusto Boal whose techniques she utilises in a lot of her teachings. Regularly sought after as a vocal coach for theatre and film, most recently for the feature film Tomorrow When The War Began. Natasha teaches masterclasses for Actors Equity specialising in accent coaching. Her clients range from celebrities to zoo keepers to politicians, business men and women and up and coming young soap stars... Natasha is a regular NIDA Open Program tutor and NIDA corporate trainer. Natasha is also currently Voice tutor for the fulltimte NIDA acting course.
Seating is limited so be sure to enroll early to reserve your place. If you would like more information and/or to arrange an interview, please contact us.