You know there are only three nasal sounds in the English
language - m, n, and ng.
| Some tend to nasalise the vowel sounds
before and after the nasal sounds. For example, in the word fine, the breath stream is forced through the nose while uttering the vowel i, instead of being projected through the mouth. |
With your mouth wide open, and a small mirror in hand,
ntudy the end of the soft palate (the uvula). If it is tensed
and raised, it shuts off the nasal resonators. (It is important
to keep the nasal resonators working). Notice, as you
breathe, how it is raised when you inhale, and lowered
when you exhale. With observation and practice, you can
learn to control the movement of the uvula. Voice is
produced when exhaled breath passes over the vocal chords.
At this time the uvula should be relaxed and lowered. A
nasal twang is caused by sending too much voice through
the nose.
Exercise for Gaining Nasal Resonance
Hum lightly, and notice the resonance in your cheeks
and nose. In the hum the soft palate is relaxed. The
mouth is closed, and the fullest nasal resonance is
obtained. Try to keep a steady sound.
Start with a hum, then continue with me, ma, mu, mo,
moo.
On a single tone prolong the ng sounds in the
following:
| ringing | singing | sing | song |
| sang | sung | ding | dong |
| ting-a-ling | slinging | dong | jing-bang |
Say in a sing-song way:
ing-ah, ing-a, ing-i ing-o, ing-oo
Exercises to Get an Easy Start on Your Tones
You may test yourself to see if your throat is being strained
(tightened up) while speaking. Put your finger in the notch
of the thyroid cartilage (just above your Adam's apple).
Keep it there while you pronounce a sharp command, as if
calling to someone quite a distance away - "You there! Stop
that man." If the thyroid rises quite a bit during the
vocalisation and especially if it disappears under the thyroid
bone at the base of the tongue, as it does when you swallow,
there is too much strain in your throat; you are not using
Your voice properly.
Exercises
Starting with a yawn position, repeat the following
vowel tones lightly, holding each tone for two or three
seconds: ho-ho-ho-ho-ho, etc. hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo, hah-
hah-hah-hah. Then starting with ho, go to hoo and end
with hah.
Take the various vowel sounds. Start so quietly that
only you can hear them: very slowly begin to vocalise
the sound but without disturbing the relaxed state of
the vocal (mouth and throat) muscles. Continue
increasing the volume till you have a strong tone. As
you increase the volume be sure that the increase does
not cause any strain in the throat.
Repeat number 2. Start softly, get louder and then
softer, letting the sound fade away in the end.
Exercises to Improve Articulation
Pronounce consonants like d, k, b more forcefully,
especially when they appear at the end of words.
Sustain consonants you can hold, such as I, m, n, v, z
as a way of shifting focus to the forward part of your
mouth and away from the larynx. This also will allow
you to slow down.
Use a mirror to work on tongue and lip movement,
using the following exercises:
Tongue
Bring the tip of yaur tongue to a point.
Bring your tongue out of your
. mouth without touching your lipsor teeth. ,
Move your tongue up and down rapidly. ,
Draw circles with your tongue
clockwise and anticlockwise,
Raise the tip Of your tongue and dot the roof of your
mouth, the edges of your upper front teeth and your
lower teeth.
Turn your tongue sideways, with one edge touching
your upper teeth and one touching your lower teeth.
Press your tongue against each cheek.
Curl your tongue behind your upper and lower teeth.
Lips
Round your lips, tensing and relaxing them.
Purse your lips and smile - repeat rapidly.
Build pressure behind your lips, and then explode the
air.
Raise your lower lip toward your nose, and lower your
upper lip toward your chin.
Smile with the right side of your lips, then the left
side.
In the following exercise, apply the principles of
articulation when you read the sonnet.
I met a traveler from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunk less legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings;
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing besides remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
by the noise of some huntsmen and a pack of hounds that
had been put upon the scent. He bounded nimbly over the
plain and left the dogs and men far behind.
Soon he came upon a very thick copse. Here he had the
ill fortune to be entangled by his horns in a thicket, where
he was held fast until the hounds came in and pulled him
out.
There in the pangs of death he uttered these words,
"Unhappy creature that I am! I am too late convinced that
that on which I had prided myself has been the cause of
my undoing, and what I so much disliked was the only
thing that could have saved me."
AESOP'S Fables, Adapted By
BoRIS ARTZYaMI-(EFF
5.
~
The following passage will help to improve variation in pitch
and speed. Bring out the agony of the tragedy through your
voice - at times low, and at times high; also your speed
should be at times slow and at times fast.
The full horror of what happened, you cannot know,
For you did not see it; but I, who did, will tell you
As clearly as I can how she met her death.
When she had left us,
In passionate silence, passing through the court,
She ran to her apartment in the house,
Her hair clutched by the fingers of both hands.
She closed the doors behind her:
Then, by that bed where long ago,
The fatal son was conceived -
The son who should bring about his father's death,
We heard her wail for the double fruit of her marriage,
A husband by her husband, children by her child.
For Oedipus burst in moaning and would not let us
Keep vigil to the end. It was by him
As he stormed about the room that our eyes were caught
From one to another of us he went, begging a sword,
Cursing the wife who was not his wife, the mother
Whose womb had carried his own children and himself.
I do not know: It was none of us aided him,
But surely one of the god's was in control!
For with a dreadful cry
He hurled his weight, as though wrenched out of himself,
At the twin doors: the bolts gave, and he rushed in.
And there we saw her hanging, her body swaying
From the cruel cord she had noosed about her neck.
A great sob broke from him, heart breaking to hear,
As he loosed the rope and lowered her to the ground.
I would blot out from my mind what happened next!
For the king ripped from her gown the golden brooches
That were her ornament, and raised them, and plunged
them down
Straight into his own eyeballs, crying, "No more,
No more shall you look upon the misery upon me,
The horrors of my own doing! Too long you have known
The faces of those who I should never have seen;
Too long been blind to those for whom I was searching!
From this hour go in darkness." And, as he spoke,
The blood spattered his beard,
Bursting from his ruined sockets like red haiL
So from the unhappiness of two this evil has sprung,
A curse on the man and woman alike. The old happiness
of the
House of Labdakos was happiness enough: where is it
today?
It is all wal~g and ruin, disgrace, death - all
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