I’ve moved house – come visit me!

Just to remind you, I’ve now moved myself over to my own domain which is www.being-in-voice.com/webblog.  That’s where the up-to-date blog is happening. See you there!

2011 in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 1,300 times in 2011. If it were a cable car, it would take about 22 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

Flloyd Kennedy has uploaded new photos

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Case of the Missing Blogs

Some of you may have noticed that I had moved over to a new address for the blog, under my own domain name, as a sub-domain of www.being-in-voice.com.

It allows me to attach the blog to the website, and it has the potential for more elegant design and fancier widgets.

Sadly (for me) WordPress’s latest upgrade has resulted in the site totally crashing, along with my other two blogs, one for Thunder’s Mouth Theatre, and the other my personal blog.

I’d only put up one new post, some thoughts on breath training, and it was getting some pretty interesting responses in the comments section. Hopefully it will be up again within a day, and we can all get back to normal.

In the meantime, feel free to leave your comments here!

A Conundrum

Now here’s the thing.  I am a freelance voice and acting coach (among other things). That means I work for myself, making up my timetable to fit around my students’ busy timetables, fitting in rehearsals for whatever play I happen to be working on, or film shoot, or meetings with colleagues, and trying to find time to finish writing my thesis.

When I first started teaching privately, I discovered this interesting phenomenon: sometimes, people will contact me to book a lesson, and then fail to turn up, or to let me know that they have changed their minds.  I understand. Especially when it is voice training, people are nervous, not sure that they really need it, afraid of sounding silly, and so they dip out at the last moment. There is absolutely nothing I can do about it. I am not prepared to ask people to pay in advance for something when they don’t know if they really want it, until they have at least tried it once.

Eventually, I took the advice of more experienced colleagues, and began to insist upon payment in advance, after the first session.  This has served me very well ever since.  If there is always at least one session paid for in advance, and the agreement that we give each other a minimum of 24 hours notice of cancellation or postponement, then I am never left sitting, waiting, having prepared the lesson, without any recompense for my time and energy. And believe me, it takes an awful lot of energy to wait. I don’t take easily to doing nothing.  If the student foregoes that session, at least it was paid for.  Likewise, if I have to cancel with less than 24 hours notice, I owe the student that session.

This has the effect of totally eradicating those occasions when a student might wake up in the morning feeling a bit sniffley, and think they can just not bother turning up for a lesson. It also seems to sort out those who are serious about their training, and therefore value it – not just in financial terms, but also in terms of time and energy expended.

Sadly, it still doesn’t solve the problem of the occasional no show for the first session. Any suggestions?

Feedback from the workshop

A couple of the participants at the workshop have kindly written to me with some feedback on the workshop. What is really lovely about these two letters, is that they come from the least experienced, and the most experienced members of the group:

“All I really want to say is thank you! Your enthusiasm and passion for the area was infectious and inspiring. I had no idea what to expect for the workshop when I walked in. I was so impressed with the amount of info covered – the biology, theory, research, a huge range of vocal exercises, and then to integrate this so well with performance, authenticity, playfulness and mindfulness on stage. So much to cover yet it flowed really well and was interesting and useful throughout. Thank you so much for your time.”

“I would just like to say thank you for your two days work with The Hills Players. I can see that some people are really using the skills that you taught at the Workshops while we are rehearsing. We have been having warm up sessions before rehearsal each night and will try to keep this going. I have previously done various types of workshops, having been involved in theatre for 30 years, but I found it very helpful and informative. Of course it’s very hard to break the habits of a lifetime, but I will endeavour to do so and work on my voice as much as possible. Thank you once again for sharing your skills with us.”

I still can’t get over how generous and brave this group was, to invite me to work with them for two full days on their voices. They have been performing in the One-Act Play Festivals around the State for some years, as well as producing their own local productions in their community.

I am so looking forward to seeing them in action when I get back from the States.

I’ve just remembered!  I recorded the Mini-Mini-vocal warm up on my Blackberry, must see if it worked and post it up here! Don’t go away…

Duh!  I’ve put it up already – see the previous post!  The sooner I get away for a holiday, the better!

Noises off – Voices on

I’ve just had the most wonderful two days working with the Hills Players, a group of amateur actors from a community north of Brisbane who applied for, and were awarded a grant from the Regional Arts Fund to engage my services.  They wanted to work on their voices to develop more power and clarity of expression, and to support their voices in a healthy and sustainable way.

I introduced them to my mini mini vocal warmup (based on Eric Armstrong’s morning warm up), then to the Vocal Function exercises (handouts on the Handouts page). We explored the vibrations in our bodies and the fabulous sounds that occur when a group of generous souls commit themselves to a ‘group hum’.  The first day concluded with a series of improvised soundscapes. We experienced a motorcycle race (with crash), a visit to the beach (with near drowning), a hike through the forest (with a storm), a spooky chase through streets and houses (with mayhem on the freeway) – what a dramatic time we had, and all with nothing but the human voice and the occasional tapping fingers.

Today we revised the warm-ups, and I took them through the 15 minute warm-up that I had put together for Ira Seidenstein’s Quantum Mime Intensive (also now up on the Handouts page).  For this one, I gave them two alternatives for working on their resonance: The Hungry Giant and friends, and Cello/Viola/Violin. The former is based on Linklater’s approach, the latter is from the work of Roy Hart.

After lunch, I decided to challenge the group to investigate for themselves what happens when you try to speak as simply as possible, stating the fact, with no agenda, that you are where you say you are. It’s pretty straightforward, you just position yourself somewhere in the room, and say “I am here”. Sounds easy, eh?  Try it!  See if you can catch yourself 1) pretending 2) defending 3) protesting 4) insisting – oh, the possibilities are endless. Then try to say it without any of those added sub- or super-texts, or objectives. Your only objective is to speak the truth of the moment, that you – yes, YOU! really you  - are – that means right now, as you are speaking – here – not there, not sort of here, but actually and only specifically here.  I love this exercise.

Then we leapt into the land of the Laughing/Sobbing game, which I learnt from Marya Lowry at the 2004 VASTA conference in New York. I LOVE this game.  We laugh, and we discover that for some it comes easily, and for some it seems incredibly difficult. Why? Because it is deeply embarrassing to find youself doing fake laughing. It’s embarrassingto listen to, so you don’t want to be the one doing it. Learning how to let go of the fear, and discovering that you are actually in control of your own attitude, so that you can choose to be amused and to REALLY laugh is quite an experience.  Then, to discover that all you have to do is change your own attitude from being happy to being sad, and suddenly you are sobbing, and it is not FAKE, and what’s more, you can switch it off whenever you choose – now that is control. But it is such a light, hands-off control, there is nothing forced or tense about it. Joy.

One of the participants asked me to record the Mini Mini vocal warm-up, so I did, with my Blackberry. Here it is. Apologies for the poor quality of the recording, but I think it’s pretty clear.

Grantham raffle

The Grantham raffle has now closed,  but you can – and I hope will – donate directly to the Appeal.

Meantime, it’s interesting to see that the MailChimp system that I’ve started using for sending out newsletters is working really well, and I’d like to thank everybody who has responded so far. Your concern, and your generousity is most heartening.

Grantham Flood Support

Email not displaying correctly? View it in your browser. Grantham Flood Support (Qld) I have received so many kind enquiries about my well-being after the recent floods here in Queensland. Fortunately, I was quite a distance from the worst affected areas, and only mildly inconvenienced by all the rain and a few roads being closed. We have all been helping out in any way we can, and because I am unable to contribute hard physical labour for the actual clean up, I am doing whatever I can to raise funds to help people get back on their feet again. Grantham is a small town in the Lockyer Valley, just west of Brisbane, which was particularly hard hit, with a huge flash flood that swept away everything in its path with no warning at all. Those who survived are rallying to help each other, and have set up an appeal for donations and a raffle. I have contributed two sets of my handmade jewellery to the raffle. "Grantham Blue": handmade sterling silver charm bracelet, with blue, red and green glass beads, and wire-wrapped sterling silver charms. Two pairs of matching earrings. RRP $70 "Grantham Gold": charm bracelet with red and black Swarovski crystal beads. The chain is made by linking tiny gold plated lobster clasps together. Matching earrings. RRP AU$85 I know there have been many calls upon your generousity. If you would like to contribute to this appeal, please visit the website http://www.granthamfloodsupport.com.au/ where you will find all the details. It would be wonderful if you would forward this on to your own networks of friends and colleagues around the world. Thank you so much for your kind thoughts, and here is wishing us all a safe, and healthy life in the foreseeable future. with love, and best wishes Flloyd (Kennedy) www.handmadebyflloyd.com You are receiving this email because you are a friend or colleague of Flloyd Kennedy. Unsubscribe from this list. Our mailing address is: Handmade by FlloydPO Box 6403 St Lucia Brisbane, Queensland 4067 Add us to your address book Copyright (C) 2011 Handmade by Flloyd All rights reserved. Forward this email to a friend Update your profile

Do Mime Artists have voices?

Boy – do they ever!

I’ve just had a wonderful time creating a voice warmup program especially for a mime class – Ira Seidenstein’s Quantum Mime Intensive class – and of course Mime does not have to be silent.

The course was interrupted by the Brisbane flood, but Ira found a new venue and the work continues.

In the meantime, I have decided, reluctantly and sadly, to cancel this year’s Acting Class. I am heading overseas in March to visit my family, and also to perform in my show The Fall of June Bloom (more details at www.blog.thundersmouththeatre.com)

I’ve been pretty busy the past few days baking scones and cupcakes for the clean-up workers, and making jewellery to sell to raise funds for the Flood Relief Appeal. If you want to purchase some, in aid of a good cause, check out the website here.

I’ll be back soon with more information about that vocal warmup for mimes.