PSYchology
The film «Sergey Bezrukov»

Black man performed by Sergei Bezrukov. Read the same?

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A voice that sounds monotonous lacks emotion and intonation variety. Expand the range of your vocal abilities, otherwise listeners will involuntarily fall asleep at your performances.

What methods can be used to reproduce the desired intonation? For example, you need to say the phrase «Good morning, dear friends» in different ways: angry, bored, tired, joyful. What can you do inside yourself, after which the desired intonation will easily sound in your voice?

Techniques to evoke the desired emotion

Recall. Recall a situation in the past when you experienced a similar emotion. Mentally immerse yourself in this situation, feed on the necessary emotion from it and then start talking.

Run through the body. Clench your teeth, frown your brows, squint your eyes, and your body is ready to launch hard, hard, angry intonations into conversation. Lower your head, hunch your shoulders, exhale heavily several times — now your body is ready to launch other, tired, exhausted intonations. Good actors know dozens of such molds for their bodies, through which they gain access to the desired state. We can do that too.

Repeat intonation pattern. Our memory stores intonation patterns that are characteristic of a particular emotion: where the intonation should rise and where it should fall. By simply repeating the appropriate intonation pattern, we can convey the emotion we need with our voice.

Run via internal phrase. Choose a phrase that is characteristic of a particular emotion, and pronounce it mentally, not forgetting the intonations characteristic of this phrase. Thus, by repeating the key phrase, you kind of internally pump up and launch the emotion, and it will be easy for you to release it outside during the speech.

Imagine a situation. Imagine that you are in a situation where you need to speak with certain intonations. For example, you are an entertainer at a New Year’s ball, urging everyone to meet Santa Claus, and your intonations are enthusiastic and joyful. Having created the necessary emotional mood within yourself, return to reality and use these joyful and enthusiastic intonations in your speech.

We offer you several exercises to train the ability to express the right emotions with the help of intonation.

EXERCISE: Intonation Exam

You and your «examiners» (another 2-3 people) have a list of 10-15 emotional states. For example, the following:

  1. surprised;
  2. impudent;
  3. admiring;
  4. angry;
  5. sexual;
  6. shy;
  7. sure;
  8. bored;
  9. playful;
  10. sad;
  11. flirty.

You think of some emotion and say a neutral phrase with this emotion.

The examiners try not to look at you at the moment you say the phrase in order to guess the emotion you have chosen only by your voice, and not by your facial expressions.

They take turns giving their verdict: “I think it was most likely emotion #2”, or “I think it was most likely emotion #7”, etc.

If the opinions of the examiners coincide and they name the emotion you have guessed — great, then you have completed the task and you can start working on another emotion. If they don’t match, try again and again until you succeed.

Useful links

Where can I go to do voice acting? Recommended:

  • School of natural voice — Kirill Pleshakov

We recommend Dmitry Ustinov’s trainings:

  • THE ART OF SPEECH: rhetoric and public speaking
  • WINNERS: The Psychology of Influence and Charisma
  • BATTLE RHETORIC: The Word as a Weapon
  • Storytelling in Russian. How to create and tell stories

Details by phone:

+7 (499) 705-5695

+7 (925) 602-4430

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