Make Your Voice Heard: An Actor's Guide to Increased Dramatic Range Through Vocal Training

by Chuck Jones

Book Overview

In this newly revised classic, Chuck Jones, the leading expert on using the voice to convey character, clearly and concisely explains his groundbreaking techniques. First, Jones examines acting basics... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0823083705
• ISBN13: 9780823083701
• Release Date: September 2005
• Publisher: Backstage Books
• Length: 159 Pages
• Weight: 0.56 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 6.1" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

An essential book for serious actors

A very interesting book!The Chuck Jones' method is efficient, very effective, and clear. An expressive voice can be developed doing the exercises just 10 minutes a day.He has coached many actors including Edie Falco, Keanu Reeves, Jennifer Jason Leigh, William Hurt, Stanley Tucci, Jeff Daniels, Wesley Snipes, and Parker Posey.

A "must have" for every serious actor!

This small book, only 141 pages in length, offers a most refreshing, lively and accessible guide to practical voice training written for actors and voice students who strive for honest performances using a voice that responds naturally to their inner selves. Chuck Jones, a remarkable teacher, has pioneered his voice training practices through many years of acting and teaching experience, guiding innumerable voice students and performing arts professionals to integrate fully expressive voices into their work. Jones' approach to vocal training is unique since he clearly and very convincingly focuses on the relationship between vocal training and acting, thereby supporting American actor training in which actors are encouraged to draw on their own emotional lives and resources. Jones explains that "....voice training does more than solve vocal problems: Voice training allows actors to extend their range, develop power, and create that mysterious quality known as presence....helps put actors in touch with their deepest emotional states and allows them to connect to their roles in a profound way....helps actors to develop the capacity to reveal the full range of their inner lives." (page 23) In the first half of the book Jones examines fundamental acting issues that relate specifically to the vocal instrument such as, being heard, character choices, and vocal power. In the second half of the book, Jones introduces a very specific, logical sequence of exercises as part of a daily vocal workout that release, stretch, strengthen, increase the expressive range, resonance and flexibility of the vocal anatomy and physical instrument leading to a heightened physical and emotional awareness. Jones brings the book to a close by defining how to connect the voice to the emotional life, breathing as part of acting, and finally, how to get used to the new sound that results from his vocal training practices; thus Jones addresses practically the full integration of the expressive voice into acting work based on an honest connection that includes the physiological, the physical and the emotional aspects of the actor's instrument eliminating the "mystery" from voice training. I first met Chuck Jones about 15 years ago when I attended his voice class as a student and his work and who he is as a teacher changed my life and my work as an actress! He took the "mystery" out of voice production for me as an actress and he is my inspiration for becoming the voice teacher I am today.

Knew the book was for me after reading this.

FORWORD by Caymichael Patten, Director, the Caymichael Patten Studio.I first met Chuck Jones when I was a young director coaching an actress for an audition for The Actor's Studio. The scene was from "The Country Girl." Her partner was Chuck. Both of them were more experienced than I was, so I was nervous, but I blossomed working with Chuck. He may not have known it, but he was teaching even then. That was when I was first exposed to the way he could put his whole concentration on someone, with open attention, without judgment, listening for the essential. Guess what? My notes to these actors got better, because I could pick out what was germane in what I was trying to say-because that's what Chuck was responding to.I've seen that kind of attention when he was talking to a new student, who had come to class complaining, "I've never been able to breathe right and act at the same time." Chuck zeroed in on this fellow and said, "What is breathing right? There's no special voice-class breathing or proper acting breathing. One of the ways we know what's happening with people is how they take a breath."I could see the actor's face soften as it dawned on him that Chuck's work wasn't going to be the typical voice-class hokum, that it emphasized connecting the actor's voice to his or her emotional life. That's what we all recognize as truthfulness.So I've sent him many students over the years, saying to them, "If you think this work has nothing to do with your acting, you're wrong. Do the exercises, and your acting will get better." And it does. They come away from his work more in touch with themselves, more relaxed, more deeply connected emotionally, more responsive to their core acting selves.I hope I'm communicating what a terrific teacher he is and what a boon his work is to the actor. If you can't study with him directly, or if you have worked with him and need a reminder, this book is for you.

Great Book

Make Your Voice Heard is a useful book for actors interested in increasing their vocal power and range. The exercises are simple, concise and easy to follow. And they really work! Actors who use these exercises notice improvement almost immediately. We use this book as the text for the beginning voice classes at the Atlantic Theater.