A Day in the Life

Here are some insights into a day in the life of Gordon Faith. Each student or client requires an individual approach…

(The stories are real, though the names have been changed.)

 

Ali wants to be an actor. I hear him doing imitations of Pacino and De Niro from his favourite films which aren’t that bad, actually. He stands well, I notice, very much rooted to the ground. It’s a beginning at least, but I need to discover his own voice. He tells me about an injustice he’s experiencing at work, and how he deals with this anger. He’s on to his feelings and emotions, connected to them…..which is good for the acting process. Vocally, I’m beginning to see how I can work with Ali……

 

Robert is a good 6ft tall, yet there seems to be a mismatch between his physical presence and his voice. I expect a much bigger sound than I currently get. You need to to connect with your centre of gravity which is somewhere behind your belly button… you’re cutting off your sound, and thereby your effectiveness. I ask him to talk about something he feels passionate about, or at least, interested in. We go into breathing, experiment in deeper sounds that he doesn’t use for some reason. Already he is starting to sound better….

 

“My name’s Slavic, I’m Russian”, he tells me. “I’m very self-conscious when I speak English.” I ask him to speak to me in Russian. His sounds are much less restricted in his mother tongue. I ask him to try and experience his English in a similar placement to his Russian voice, even though the vowel placements are different. There is an improvement in his speech. It’s a beginning. We do some floor relaxation work and his voice is already beginning to sound different. He shuffles around a lot, so I encourage stillness. Slowly, after a few lessons, a natural delivery of English begins to materialise.

 

“I need a deeper voice for my work…. I have to address audiences in business matters and my voice lacks authority”, Hazel tells me. Your voice has its own natural pitch. It might be a naturally deep voice which you’re not using it, or it could be that you're just not using your whole vocal spectrum. We explore high, low and medium parts of Hazel’s voice. She experiences some good deep sounds which, apparently, she normally doesn’t use. “You need to utilise these notes more”. We experiment. Already changes are beginning to happen.

 

You’ve got a good voice Stella, but for some reason I’m not listening to you, I say. “Maybe I don’t expect to be listened to”, she replies. So we talk about this. Believing in yourself, inner conviction, parental legacies. Then I ask her to to talk slowly… to be behind her words, to have courage. Already something positive is beginning to happen. Technique will follow later.