Wednesday, November 18

VOICE
RP (British dialect) is getting easier as we go. I was reciting old monologues of mine on break attempting to apply the dialect to it, and I thought I was doing pretty well, actually. Of course, I thought I was doing pretty well yesterday when people said I sounded Southern, so I might be way off base... But I think I'm getting the hang of it.

We went through the rest of the "Signature Sounds" sentences from our book, trying to nail down the rules for the dialect that we've been learning...

1. A lot of better writers print a lot of little words.
(Focuses on keeping the "t" sound unvoiced, aspirated, released, and plosive... so basically, keeping it as a light, crisp "t" instead of letting it become muddled or like a "d")

2. The tumultuous news assumed the duke fought a duel in the nude.
(This is for the "liquid u". After the consonants t/d/n/l/s and before the [u] vowel, there is USUALLY a [j] sound -- so it's like a "yuh". A good way to hear the difference between a normal u and a liquid-u is to compare the words "beauty" and "booty".)

3. He laughed as he danced to the bath past his aunt in pajamas.
(This is the "ask list", where the vowel shifts from the first vowel of "apple" to something closer to the first vowel in "father". There should be a lot of space at the back of the mouth than we have, and the jaw isn't fully released. You have to consult a dictionary or an RP speaker in order to know what words have this shift.)

4. Paul's daughter Laura is awfully awkward when she talks and walks.
(This vowel is long, round, and open. Voice Professor calls it "plummy".)

5. The first early bird murdered thirty turning worms.
(In the "stir" lexical set, Brits don't pronounce the "r" unless it's intervocalic, aka between two vowels. I refer to this as being "R-less", although the technical term is "non-rhotic".)

6. An enormous tornado tore up the store this morning.
(The "north" set is R-less, making it sound a lot like the vowel in Example #4. Note that in this sentence, the "r" IS pronounced in the word "tore", as the word after it begins with a vowel. More on that in #14.)

7. A star called Marx stole our hearts with his harp.
(The "start" set is R-less, making it sound kind of like in Example #3)

8. Our brother and sister met a lawyer from Denver.
(The "mother" set is R-less, so everything ends on the vowel.)

9. Oak Road is zoned for mobile homes only.
(In the "goat" set, there's a diphthong that glides from a schwa to a U. If you go too far with this one, it sounds really fake and stage-y. This particular sentence also contains the word "mobile" which rhymes with "isle", whereas in most American accents it would rhyme with "dull". This is true of all "-ile" words.)

10. They stopped a lot of nonsense at a college in Watford.
(This is a short vowel. It's the vowel that we're SUPPOSED to use in "God's honest hotdog", but that many American dialects actually use too bright of a vowel on... So it's hard to explain on a blog. For me, the shift is making it a little rounder, and a lot quicker. This sentence also contains "nonsense", which is a "one-off", meaning that it's just one word that you have to memorize the pronunciation of as it doesn't fall under a rule. The pronunciation is like "NON-suhns", as opposed to my home dialect of "NAHN-sehns".)

11. A crowd was shouting loudly down in the town by the fountain.
(This isn't actually a shift for most Americans. We skip over it in class.)

12. Courage is needed for curry in the borough of Durham.
(Instead of r-coloring on the vowels, the "r" becomes a consonant, separate from the vowel. The easiest way for me to think about this is that these words are separated into syllables differently than in General American. Instead of "KUR-idge", it's "KUH-ridge". "KUR-ee" becomes "KUH-ree", "BUR-oh" becomes "BUH-ruh", and "DUR-um" becomes "DUH-rum".)

13. In Paris, Harry shot a sparrow from his carriage with an arrow.
(This vowel is more like "apple" than "air", and it has the same sort of separation of syllables as in Example #12. "PAIR-ihs" becomes "PAH-rihs", "HAIR-ee" becomes "HAH-ree", "SPAIR-oh" becomes "SPAH-roh", "KAIR-idge" becomes "KAH-ridge", and "AIR-oh" becomes "AH-roh".)

14. The Shah of Persia insists that Maria is to never abandon her uncle.
(This example deals with two different shifts. The first is the "linking r" that I mentioned earlier; "never-abandon" and "her-uncle" both need the "r" to be pronounced because it falls between two vowels, so that the words are still understandable. The second is called an "intrusive r"; when a word that ends with a vowel comes right before a word that begins with a vowel, sometimes people put a random "r" in there where there isn't one. You don't HAVE to do it, and just because a character does it sometimes, doesn't mean that they do it EVERY time. In this example, it can be used at "ShahRof", "PersiaRinsists", and "MariaRis". It's a LIGHT r sound; don't sound like a pirate.)

15. We had a lovely, silly party when Billy turned fifty.
(When an "ee" pops up in the final position, RP speakers use either a, "ih" sound like in "sit", or a softer "ee" than we have so that it's almost blended with the "sit" vowel.)


TAP WORKSHOP
Here's what we've gotten through so far:
- slap
- flap
- shuffle
- ball-change
- hop
- heel
- single Irish (shu-ffle hop step; shu-ffle hop step)
- double Irish (shu-ffle hop step; shu-ffle ball-change)
- single Times Step (shu-ffle hop step; f-lap step)
- double Times Step (shu-ffle hop; f-lap f-lap step)
- triple Times Step (shu-ffle hop shu-ffle step; f-lap step)

I've actually learned Times Steps a few different times in the past, and it's slightly different every time, which Dance Instructor acknowledged to be the case. But I like his way best.

Dance Instructor said I did a lot better at being grounded and more relaxed today. I'm glad. :) It was fun.


ACTING
We are now up to the middle of Act IV, Scene ii in Cymbeline.

In every section of the text, Acting Professoressa assigned one person to do a little dramaturgy and be prepared to answer questions about what things mean. She has been calling this person alternately the Maven, the Master, the Scholar, etc. I am the Maven for Act IV, Scene i-ii. In the Folger edition of the text, Act IV, Scene ii spans FORTY PAGES. It's like, the longest scene ever. In some ways, it sucks to be Maven for it (I spent a long time trying to make sense of everything I could so that I'd be prepared to answer questions)... but mostly, it's fun. I have a great love of being the person with the answers. :) (Is that obvious about me from this blog? Probably.)