I should preface this by saying I am by no means an expert in accents, but I do know a thing or two about developing them. With that being said, let’s get started.

NOTE: Before you begin any accent work, we always recommend doing a vocal warm-up first up, to really get those articulators working and that breath nice and grounded.

A Tale of Two Brains

Something that I think it’s important to note, is that everyone learns accents differently. Some have a much easier time seeing the sounds on a page through the use of phonetics and others pick up accents by ear. I personally fall into the latter category. There’s nothing better or worse about either but I think it’s important to find out which works better for you. You might even be a combination of the two! I know when I’m really struggling to identify a particular sound I’ll turn to phonetics. Whatever way you get there doesn’t matter, only that you do what’s best for you. So have a play, try it by ear, try reading some phonetics, it will all help in the long run.

Mud Map

When you first start your accent journey, you should take a page out of your acting book and do some mental reconnaissance, or, investigating. Begin to think about everything that this person goes through in their daily life and how they live. Does your character live in a hot or a cold climate? Is the air clean? What is the culture like? Is it easy and laid back or more conservative and regimented? All of these things can affect the general default placement of an accent or a dialect. If developing an accent is like building a house then this is you surveying the land where you’ll build it.

Default Placement

So if we’re building a house then this is your foundation. Every accent or dialect has its own unique placement of the jaw, tongue, lips and mouth. This is such an important part of developing any accent because if you get this right the rest will feel and flow naturally as it will all make sense. The placement of an accent has a lot to with what we discussed before in regards to how it is affected by its surroundings. This is how that placement comes to being.

So figure out just how the jaw, tongue, lips and mouth naturally sit in the accent of your choice and you will be well on your way.

As an example let’s take a note from our very own Patrick Cullens playbook and have a crack at RP. So as an exercise, let’s try it on for size. 

Take your tongue and put it behind your top teeth, feel the hard palate. Good. Now move it back and feel the soft palate, nice – now lift the back of your tongue and feel the roof of your mouth at the very back there. Now take that back part of the tongue that you have lifted, and drop it down in your mouth as far down as it can go.

Imagine, that you have an egg in the back of your mouth, sitting on top of the very back of your tongue, you should feel a lot of space in the back of your mouth. Good – now – think about your upper lip, make it tight and set in stone. Know in your heart that all of the sounds that you make from here on out will use a lot of lip rounding. We want to keep the sound coming forward, with a stiff upper lip and absolutely no width in the mouth. This is not an accent that you smile with, it is an accent that you stoically, bear the universe with.

Finally, take a breath in, and really contact your chest resonance, try and work for a nice baritone sound encapsulating all of that chest power you have. Keep it supported and try and say the following sentence with Pat:

Try it a couple of times, and really make sure you’re holding on to that placement. If you ever get lost, just realign your placement! Practice, practice practice!

Pitch, Rhythm, and Pitch Rhythm

I know I know, that’s a little confusing but never fear! Hopefully, I can clear things up for you a little bit. Let me explain:

Pitch = The notes someone makes when they speak
Rhythm = The speed, and melody someone speaks those notes with
Pitch Rhythm =  The combination of the two as it applies to the voice

So basically what this means is: Pitch Rhythm is the musicality of someone’s accent. A great example of this is Southern Irish. There’s a beautiful melody to the way they speak as it varies in pitch and speed. Not that much as we’ll hear below but more so than say a General American, which doesn’t really utilise the full range of notes that the voice has in a single sentence, and doesn’t tend to speed up or slow down too rapidly from sentence to sentence.

Saoirse Ronan shows us a pretty good example of the differences here.

Vowel and Consonant Sounds 

Without getting too deep into the bowels of the phonetic alphabet we’ll take a little look at vowel and consonant sounds. Let’s start with vowels:

A,E,I,O, and U

These are our vowel sounds. In acting, vowel sounds are how we show emotion. Find out exactly how the accent you’re working on makes these sounds and try them out.

Now a consonant is any sound, that is not a vowel sound. That’s pretty straight forward right? In acting consonants are how we convey information so they are equally as important, but especially when it comes to accents. Find out how these sound too.

Bits and Bobs

Now, like all things in life, nothing is set in stone. There will be bits and bobs to an accent which are inconsistent, and this is where the real mastery work starts. Try and look (or should I say listen) out for these little idiosyncrasies in accents and dialects that make it what it is. 

For example in a General Australian accent, you’re generally not going to hear a rhotic ‘r’ or a hard ‘r’. 

Whatever, clever, misdemeanour, door, floor, where

None of those has an ‘r’ at the end of the word in the way that a General American accent has. But what you might get wrong if you were studying an Australian accent is rhotic ‘r’s used to connect words. Mostly words that both end with vowels. For example:

“I have an idea and I think it’s gonna work”

Did you hear it? If you have an Australian accent try saying this sentence without a rhotic ‘r’ between ‘idea’ and ‘and’.

“I have an idea(r)and I think it’s gonna work”

It sounds weird, right? That’s because in most Aussie accents this is how people connect words that end in vowels.

There are all sorts of these little gems just waiting to be found in any accent or dialect. Go find them!

Relax

Let me ask you this: when you speak, in whatever accent you may have, is it hard? Or does it just flow naturally? This is ideally where we wanna get to with any accent we’re working on. It should feel and sound natural, and this means not labouring every sound we make. Have a listen to native speakers of that accent and you’ll see what I mean.

Practice, Practice, Practice

When all is said and done and you’ve come this far it’s time to practice practice practice. In any way, you can! Learn a monologue (Ideally by a writer from that particular place).

Practice on your mates. Practice answering the phone (Unless it’s professional, I can’t endorse that). Anyway, you can just practice, and remember to check in to make sure you’re practising it correctly.

Hmm, Yes, Interesting… But How?

How do I gather all of this information? All of these sounds and phonetics and ah! Don’t worry, here are just a few ways for you to gather the resources you need to start your journey to accent mastery.

Google

I know I know, a bit of a cop-out answer but I mean it! Google should have a lot of the information you need to start learning about everything we spoke about in Mud Maps, and maybe if you’re lucky a lot of the other stuff too.

If you don’t have any luck with google, give analog google a try… The Library!

Reach Out

This can be a tough one but can be ideal for learning any accent. If you or someone you know are friends with or knows someone who is a native speaker of that accent, see if you can get in touch! Listen to the way they speak. Ask as many questions as you think is fair to ask them. Maybe even ask if it’s okay with them if you record them for later use. JUST DEFINITELY MAKE SURE YOU ASK, OKAY?

My favourite part of this one is you might even make a new friend! And you’ll definitely learn something about the world around you.

P.S It’s always nice to offer your new friend a coffee or some lunch in exchange for their help.

Video and Audio Files

Okay so sometimes you can’t always find exactly who you’re looking for. That’s okay! Remember that thing I brought up before? Starts with a g and kind of rhymes with noodle. That’s right. Google.

Take a look at youtube, or movies or TV, for inspiration, there’s plenty to be found.

A fantastic resource for actors is The Accent and Dialect Archives of the Western Australian Academy of the Performing Arts. They’re free and open to anyone with a passion for accents. There is a treasure trove of accent gold in here. Give it a squiz.

Another fantastic online resource is the IDEA website run by Paul Meier. This another collection of recordings and resources of different accents and dialects from around the world!

A note on this: It’s always best to pick someone who’s actually a native speaker of that accent and always to pick just one person, or it can get a bit muddled. Basically what I’m saying is if you’re doing Boston and you’re watching The Departed: Go with Mark Whalberg over Leo.

Books

If you do find that you’re more akin to learning from the page, there are a number of incredible books out there that, for one, will have a lot of information on particular accents and dialects and two will go into a deep deep dive of what I was only able to cover a fraction of. 

An amazing book to get you started is Paul Meiers: Accents and Dialects for Stage and Screen. I’m not endorsed or sponsored by Paul Meier and neither is Stagemilk, this book has some of the best resources for learning accents and dialects out there, and we’re big fans.

Accent Coaches

Now I know this won’t be accessible to everyone, be it financially, geographically or otherwise but I would be out of my mind not to mention the importance and value of a good accent coach. What an accent coach provides you that you can’t necessarily provide yourself, is another set of highly trained professional accent tuning ears. An accent coach can listen to all of your little minuscule bits and bobs in your accent that you might be missing or overworking or whatever, and help you fix them! Never underestimate the power of a good accent coach!

Conclusion

Now, I know that’s a lot to tackle, but I hope that this guide will serve as a resource you revisit time and time again any time you need a quick refresher. Dive deep, keep practising and have fun doing it. Happy accenting.

The post How to Master Any Accent appeared first on StageMilk.

It is important to know that one does not simply do a perfect accent on the first go. This takes years of work, practice and coaching from experts in your chosen field! Consider this a starting point for how you can make some British accent sounds if you need to work quickly. And remember that if you want to get this really spot on, it’s going to take a lot more work than this!

NOTE: Before you begin any accent work, we always recommend doing a vocal warm-up to really get those articulators working and that breath nice and grounded.

Default Placement

Every accent or dialect has its own unique placement of the jaw, tongue, lips and mouth. This is sometimes referred to as “vocal posture”, and every accent has one. Yes, even yours! If you are able to alter your own default placement and acquire that of another dialect, you should at least be in a similar position where things won’t stand out too badly. It also puts you in the best position to make the sounds of that accent correctly as you learn and practice them.

Now, I should mention at this juncture that I am not a voice coach or a dialect coach, I am merely an Aussie actor with fairly good proficiency in accent work. So I would also say if your voice or dialect coach tells you to do this in a different way, you should listen to them! Again, this is a fast and nasty way of getting to an RP sound.

EXERCISE:

Take your tongue and put it behind your top teeth, feel the hard palate. Good. Now move it back and feel the soft palate, nice – now lift the back of your tongue and feel the roof of your mouth at the very back there. Now take that back part of the tongue that you have lifted, and drop it down in your mouth as far down as it can go.

Imagine that you have an egg in the back of your mouth—sitting on top of the very back of your tongue, you should feel a lot of space in the back of your mouth. Next, think about your upper lip: make it tight and set in stone. Know in your heart that all of the sounds that you make from here on out will use a lot of lip rounding. We want to keep the sound coming forward, with a stiff upper lip and absolutely no width in the mouth. This is not an accent that you smile with, it is an accent that you stoically, bear the universe with.

Finally, take a breath in and really contact your chest resonance. Try and work for a nice baritone sound encapsulating all of that chest power you have. Keep it supported and try and say the following sentence.

‘Absolutely Sir Peter, that is a capital idea.’

You should hopefully sound a little something like this:

How did you go? It may not have been perfect, but like any new skill, it takes time and practice. So keep at it!

Signature Sounds

Every accent or dialect comes with its own dialectal features which make it unique. This article should be the start of your journey of discovery with RP. This is not an exhaustive list, more of a jumping-off point to put you on the right track! Here are some of the signature sounds for RP that you should keep an eye out for. I give more detail on my source, Paul Meier’s Accents and Dialects for Stage and Screen, below.

The aspirated, released, plosive ‘t’.

Did that sound like gibberish? It’s less complex than you might think. Aspirated means there is a lot of air moving through it, released means we aren’t holding it in and plosive means it is at the front of the mouth exploding outwards as you say it (think the burst of air when you make a sound like “p” or “b”). English RP speakers treat this sound more sharply than almost any other group of English speakers. Some words to think about: Better, Lot of, shatter, motive, etc. Keep those “t” sounds sharp and clear.

Can’t or cahn’t? Dance or Dahnce? Plant or Plahnt?

Yes, the inexorable question of the short or long ‘a’ sound. The overarching rule here is that if your ‘a’ sound sounds weird … it probably is weird. “Cart”, for example, isn’t going to be right for “cat”, So have a play around with it. “Dance”, for example, needs a longer and more open ‘a’ sound as opposed to the short ‘a’ you would get in General American for the same word.

My general advice would be to experiment with elongating rather than shortening sounds. However, if you are ever confused, check with a pronunciation dictionary or ask a real-life RP speaker. Google Stephen Fry: hear him speak, perform or listen to one of his audiobooks.

Watch the “lot” and “cloth”.

If you’re an American, this is going to feel super weird. You want to make the vowel sound in words like “lot” and “cloth” in the back of your mouth, rather than the front—and with lots of lip rounding. You may feel very silly, but give it a go! “Knowledge”, “collar”, “want”, “fox” are all good practice words.

The linking ‘r’.

This is very tricky, especially for Americans. What if I told you that RP speakers may not say every ‘r’ in a word as written, but will also occasionally add an ‘r’ sound where there is not one written? Wild, right? For example, an RP speaker would say “library” as “li-bry”, as opposed to a General American speaker who would say “li-bra-ry”.

At the same time, an RP speaker would say the phrase “here is” as: “here-r-is” using an ‘r’ sound to link the flow of one word into another. The American speaker would pronounce these words as two separate sounds. The reason for this difference goes deep into the weeds linguistics-wise—which is a fascinating deep-dive if that’s your thing. But all you need to know as a starting point is there is a small linking ‘r’ sound in these words and phrases: “there are”, “her eyes”, “fear of”, etc. (This is one you might want to work on with a voice coach, it can get a little tricky! )

Common Mistakes

#1 Don’t get too fancy! Listen: it’s not 1932 and you are not Katherine Hepburn. I know, I know, I wish I was too… But at the end of the day we are going for a more modern approach, here, so record yourself on your phone and listen to yourself! If you sound like Kate McKinnon in the video below, keep practising!

#2 Those nasty ‘r’s. If you have a rhotic dialect, yourself (such as an American accent), you are going to find it very tricky to drop it. ‘R’s and ‘L’s are arguably the toughest sounds to deal with as an English speaker. I would highly recommend you seek out a voice coach to give you a hand on this front if you’re struggling.

#3 Emphasis: Remember that the RP speaker tends to emphasise fewer words in a sentence than an American. Also, usually, they use a higher pitch to show the significance of certain words, rather than more volume like you would see an American do.

Check out Steven Fry here:

You can hear how he emphasises the word “Princeton” not with volume, but with a slightly higher pitch. Going the other way will give you away as a non-RP speaker!

Further Reading

In my humble opinion, there is one person who stands head and shoulders above the rest when it comes to teaching dialects in book form. His name is Paul Meier and his book Accents and Dialects for Stage and Screen is absolutely fantastic. I will mention at this stage I am not endorsed by Paul and neither is StageMilk. His book is simply the best resource for learning dialects that I have come across. He goes through each signature sound of an accent, builds it into words and from words into full monologues. He also runs the this website which stores audio recordings of real-life dialect speakers and allows you to practice saying what they do. It is a really wonderful resource and you should check it out.

Practice Sentences

All of these come from Paul Meier’s excellent book. Try the following sentences in your new RP accent!

1. A lot of better writers print a lot of little words.
2. An enormous tornado tore up the store this morning.
3. In Paris, Harry shot a sparrow from his carriage with an arrow.
4. The Shah of Persia insists that Maria is never to abandon her uncle.
5. Snow flurries fall fast and always when the ground is frosty.
6. I assume we all concur on the importance of the matter.

You can listen to me have a go at them here:

As you can hear, I am not quite perfect, but I am working on this accent all the time and I hope this inspires you to do the same!

Conclusion

There you have it, folks: a rapid rundown of the RP accent! As you can see, it isn’t as simple as just barging in! Any accent takes a lot of work, practice, repetition and is best done under the supervision of a great dialect coach. Google great dialect teachers in your area. In my humble opinion, Linda Nichols-Gidley at Voco Vox is one of the best in Australia, as well as Amanda Mitchell, Paige Walker and Felicity Jurd. But there are many others around the world who can help you achieve your dialect dreams!

If you want to practice working in accents with StageMilk, check out our online scene club where you can work on scenes and monologues every month with great actors and coaches from around the globe!

The post How to do a British Accent – Fast! appeared first on StageMilk.

What is it?

General American, also known as Standard American, GenAm, American English, or US English, or also Detailed American English is the most commonly required, and the most commonly observed accent in US film and television today. It is also somewhat of a constructed concept. What I mean by that is that nobody grew up in Standard America. The sound we’re talking about is what is called a prestige dialect. Most countries (and most languages) have a prestige dialect which is exactly what it sounds like: the speech sounds most commonly identified with status within a given society.

Linguistically it’s not simply status but also clarity, intelligence, socioeconomic influence and general power. As listeners we absorb our unconscious biases about people based on the sounds they speak with as much as we do about the way they look or behave. Received Pronunciation (RP) is the equivalent in the UK. The French established by the Académie française is the French equivalent. In essence, it is the sound most commonly associated with clarity, eloquence and authenticity. It is also free of anything which may give a clue to the speaker’s geographical origin, ethnic background, or their socio-economic status. It is what is assumed to be “good speech.” But as I always tell my students, no sound is in and of itself “good” or “bad” – those associations come from social constructs, be they good or bad. Humans make judgements, but sounds are independent of that.

All that said, let’s talk about what makes GenAm what it is, and what it’s not. In this article I’ll be going over some basic elements and exercises. For more detailed and individual information and work you should always consult a professional coach as we all bring our own idolect (our individual voice) to the work.

How to Start

FOCUS OF THE SOUND or PLACEMENT.

This aspect of accents is sometimes called the “point of placement” or “point of tension.” Another nice term I’m hearing a lot recently is “oral posture.” This is a vital part of accents for performance, but it is also a source of a lot of confusion for people because it is the most subjective element of accents. Why? Because we all don’t think we have one. So how I would describe my accent as opposed to your accent (if it is different to mine) will be informed by my accent’s placement. How you would describe my accent as opposed to your accent would be informed by your own accent’s placement. So, we need to come to an understanding of what this concept is. How it works, and how it can benefit us.

Try this: make a sound, any sound. It could be an AHH, an OOH, an EEE. Then speak a piece of text. Read these words aloud if you like. Imagine that your voice, while you are making these sounds and speaking these words, is a ball of red, vibrating warmth. Where in or around your mouth is that ball sitting, or focused? There are no right or wrong answers – this is subjective remember? Where do you feel that ball is concentrated?

The next layer of that could be asking yourself – is the shape a ball? Or is it a cone? A cylinder? Is it a tube which curves upwards or downwards or outwards? In other words, the way we speak feels natural to us, hence we’re more likely to think of its features as “neutral” or “central” or “free.” That’s why I refer to it as the focus of the sound, because while we all think we don’t have an accent, what this practice is intended to do is bring your voice into another place, to help you find your voice in the accent. So while it is the most nebulous and subjective thing in accents for performance, it is the most useful tool to help us to discover our voice in a different way. And while it is subjective, we can make some generalisations, which may or may not apply depending on your home base.

So, as an Australian speaker, my accent is focused in the middle of my mouth. But if it was a ball, that ball would be halfway between the dome of my hard palate and my nasal cavity – this is because in my accent the jaw tends to be quite closed. I might also, upon examination feel that the space is not so much like a ball, but like a wide flat disc, and thus that the “direction” of my accent is outwards to the sides rather than directly forward.

Now that is my experience of my accent. It’s crucial to develop a sense of this for yourself because this is your “home base” or your comfort zone. To effectively realise an accent, you need to be able to move outside of your comfort zone!

The Standard American accent is conceived of by most non-speakers as being focused in the back of the throat – the pharynx. This is the “engine” I mention below with the K-breath. The sound is focused here but arrives on the lips and teeth and tongue-tip, which are quite active (in my accent the lips are quite inactive). The jaw is also free and open (compared to many other dialects).

The image I often use for my students is to imagine you are talking around a baseball in the back of your mouth. Alternatively, picture two silver quarters between your back molars.

LOOSEN THE JAW

As humans, we tend to hold a lot of our anxiety and worry in our jaw. Some dialects also employ a close or tight jaw to realise their sound. For the Standard American accent we need to loosen the jaw so that we are free to experience a new space, and the sounds we make have space in which to resonate.

Start by massaging the jaw joint and muscles. There are a few primary muscles involved but the most important to start with are the masseter and the temporalis.

Masseter: Using the thumbs, massage this strong muscle on a point down and forward from your ears. These directions are approximate as we are all shaped slightly differently, but you are looking for the points at which when you press you feel the muscle i.e. not the cheekbones and not the soft tissue of the cheeks (see diagram). Press gently on those muscles and then (also gently) massage them in small circular movements. At the same time, let the jaw open and loosen, and breathe. Keep breathing and focus on freedom, release, and ease.

Temporalis: This muscle is like a fan that extends upwards across the sides of your skull from the jaw. When we clench our jaw, our temples tend to bulge a little – this is part of the action of the temporalis. Using the palms of your hands, massage this area that bulges – or just a little back from it, usually past the hairline. Gently press and gently massage this point – you will know when you’ve found it. Again, make sure the lips are unsealed and you are breathing, while experiencing freedom, release, and ease.

There are lots of other exercises to loosen the jaw like yawning, or stretching the jaw slowly down and up with your hands. Any of these or similar exercises will help open up the space you need.

OPEN PHARYNGEAL SPACE

The pharynx is the back of our throat. The space between the back of our tongue and the soft palate or velum is the gateway to our pharynx. The first thing to do is breath in but place a soft K sound at the beginning of your inbreath – it may sound a bit like a whispered “KAAA” – but should be open and free of tension. Think about a free open in-breath, a bit like when your are pleasantly surprised by something, just with a K at the beginning of it.

Next, breathe out with a soft K at the start. Again, it should sound like a whispered “KAAA” but open and free – imagine you are fogging up a mirror or your glasses if you wear them.

Do this a few more times – breathing in and out on that K, feeling the back of the tongue and the soft palate coming together, and then springing apart. The more you can freely spring them apart, feeling the breath on the back of the throat (but free and open not cold and dry or tense), the more space you will be creating for what I call the “engine” of the Standard American accent.

Next on an outbreath add sound: YOOOOOO. Breath in on that K again, then out on: YAAAHHH. Breathe in on the K, then: YEEEEEE.

Then immediately and in your own natural accent (preferably a broad or exaggerated form thereof) say YOOO, YAAH, YEEE… Now try contrasting each sound individually – a YOO with the open space, then a YOO with your natural space, then the same for the YAH and the YEE.

What you should hopefully feel in your mouth is the sensation a bit like a rubber band having been stretched in one direction for the open YOO YAH YEE, and then of that rubber band releasing or slackening for your natural YOO YAH YEE. The sensation of the open, stretched place is the “placement” of this accent. It is a key to the oral posture.

GET TO KNOW YOUR R’s.

There are more types of R than you might think. Approximant, tapped, trilled, fricative, uvular, and that’s ignoring voiced and voiceless variations! I’ll be writing a whole article on rhoticity and discovering your R and other R’s, but for the Standard American accent we just need to focus on one type – the approximant.

I like to describe the feeling of this R by imagining that your tongue is a turtle’s head. To make the R we’re after, the turtle pulls its head back into its shell (the tongue root retracts), then it looks up slightly (the tongue tip gently lifts). A lot of time is spent by other accent coaches on the nature and quality of the American R. My focus (at least initially) is on making sure you can feel that R position and know it intimately, so that you can know when it is not happening in the right places, or is happening in the wrong places.

The Standard American accent is what is called RHOTIC. This means that they pronounce the letter “r” every single time it is in the spelling, and never when it’s not in the spelling. If your natural accent is rhotic already this will present fewer problems for you – aside from making sure you are using the correct variety of R! However if your natural accent is non- rhotic, which means you only pronounce the letter “r” in specific circumstances, then you will need to pay particular attention to this sound. Some examples of Rhotic dialects include Standard American, Canadian, Irish, Scottish, Cornish, and even specific parts of South Island New Zealand. Some examples of Non-Rhotic dialects include Received Pronunciation, most Northern English dialects, New York, classic Southern American, Australian, South African.

Note that for many people for whom English is their second language, rhoticity is a common feature (often in learning languages we are guided by the spelling or orthography), but the type of R used will often be very different, and it depends very much on whether you have learned American English, or British English. If English is your second language you should definitely seek the guidance of a dialect coach who specialises in what is usually called foreign accent reduction or FAR.

CHOOSE YOUR WORDS.

The rhythm of accents is another “musical” feature which is key to their authenticity. The Standard American accent uses pitch and volume to shape sense and make thoughts clear. For a contrast, Received Pronunciation largely relies on pitch to convey this layer of meaning.

Word emphasis is a big topic (see below on Little R’s) but basically English as a language emphasises the most important words in a sentence, and it’s on those words that the pitch and the emphasis changes. Other languages don’t always do this: many Chinese or African dialects use pitch to change the meaning of words, while in French syllabic emphasis is largely irrelevant to meaning.

In English the pitch and stress changes on the most important words in the sentence or thought. When it comes to dialect, it’s a matter of how far the pitch changes and where it goes when it does. In Received Pronunciation as mentioned before, the pitch moves a lot, and usually doesn’t depend too much on emphasis or stress.

In Standard American the pitch generally moves very slightly – in tones or semi-tones – and is always accompanied by a decisive emphasis on the word or syllable. Thoughts also tend to end on a downward inflection (not always, but it is a tendency).

What not to do

Don’t go for the “twang.”

Many people attempting the American accent think of “the American twang” but really, what does this mean? “Twang” is an undefined, non-specific mood. My first-year acting teacher taught me that “mood” was DOOM spelled backwards. So don’t go for something vague and undefined. “Twang” tends to lead to nasality, which while it isn’t necessarily a bad thing for American accents, is not something you should reach for or aspire to. Finding your voice in the accent as I have already said is key. My go to for this is always warmth. Focus on warmth in your voice as an attitude and as an approach. This invariably brings you to a more authentic place and back into yourself.

Focus on the R too much.

Don’t get me wrong, the R, or the rhoticity, is vitally important to achieving an authentic American accent. I describe it as one of the key architectural features – it’s like the foundations and the supporting beams – if it’s not there the whole accent falls down. However, the R is a sound which most of us will find easy to achieve and realise. It does not need to be OVER-pronounced. This is why I usually focus less on how the R is made than on where it is used. The most common mistake I observe with the R is over-pronouncing it, that is using too much tension. Say that R again – feel the turtle pulls its head back and slightly looking up. How far up is the turtle looking? Keep the R going as you curl the tongue-tip further up, then further, then all the way back so it’s what we call retroflex. Do you feel how the “quality” of the R changes depending on how far the tongue-tip curls up or back? It also depends on how much the tongue root is pulling back as well, but hopefully this shows you how the approximant R can vary.

So long as you know what the basic approximant R feels like, you will be able to notice where you are doing it and where you are not. The R is no different to the M or the T or the SH. They are all phonemes (sounds) which we are all capable of making as human beings. It is simply a case of the order in which we place them, the oral posture that communicates them, and how we understand them together. That is language and that is dialect. Discover the sound, even if it is new to you, and then trust it.

Common mistakes and how to overcome them

Little R’s

Syllables in English are either stressed or unstressed – emphasised or not, weighted or not. In other languages syllabic emphasis is irrelevant, and in others there are strict rules for syllabic emphasis. What syllable to stress is important to be aware of in English because syllabic emphasis can change the meaning of the word you are using. For example:

recount – to count again
recount – to relate or tell a story
resource – a noun, a source of supply
resource – a verb, to allocate resources
produce – a noun, what has been produced
produce – a verb, to bring forth
attribute – a noun, a quality of something
attribute – a verb, to ascribe a quality to something

Furthermore the word that you stress can change the meaning of the sentence. For example:

She is happy – as opposed to some other emotional state
She is happy. – confirmation or affirmation, as opposed to some other emotional state, she is not sad.
She is happy. – as opposed to someone else.

How does this relate to rhoticity? Well if you are a non-rhotic speaker then one of your main tasks is to ADD a sound in to your speech in places you are not used to adding it. So when it comes to the R, the rule, as we have said, is simple – R is pronounced every time it is in the spelling, and never when it’s not – but because of the way English syllables and word-stress works we have two types of R: stressed and unstressed, which I sometimes call Big R’s and Little R’s.

A word like “smarter” contains a big R then a little R because the first syllable is stressed and the second is unstressed. It’s those unstressed, Little R’s that are so easy for we non-rhotic speakers to forget. In other words we are more likely to make the mistake of saying:

“SMAR-duh” than the mistake of saying “SMAH-der.”

Long story short, every R is important, hence becoming familiar with what R feels like because it always needs to be there, even if it is unstressed. Your R should feel relaxed and natural as opposed to hard and stressed. It is the syllable that is stressed, not the R.

“Been”

For Americans this word is always pronounced with a short vowel rather than a long vowel. In other words:

“bin” not “been”

How’ve you been?
I’ve been good.
It’s been hot lately.
How long have you been here?

If, to your ear, it occasionally sounds like “ben” that’s because the short vowel involved in “bin” is more open for that person.

“Our” “Your” We’re” “For” and “Or”

These words can vary in their realisations across dialects of English. They are also usually unstressed words in most sentences. But whether stressed or unstressed, when attempting the General American accent the following guidelines should make things easier, at least until you’re more confident.

“our” : Think of this word as “ARR” (i.e. not “ow-r”); “OW-er” is usually “hour”: Our journey took hours.
“your”/” you’re” : Think of these like “yrr” or “yer” (i.e. not “YAWR”) You’re thinking of the days of yore.
“we’re” : Think of this word as “wrr” or “wur” (i.e. not “WEE-uhr”) We’re going to the weir.
“for” : Think of this work like “frr” or “fur” (i.e. not “FORR” or “FAWr”) Four for me, and five for you. Foresight for forethought.
“or” : Think of this word like “er” or just “r” by itself (i.e. not “ORR” or “AWr”) This or that? Mine or yours?

A great trick is to join the little or unstressed word on to the previous word to create a nonsense word that when you run the thought together it becomes clear.

They liked our house (they laiktar house)
We heard your speech (we heardyer speech)
Cold or hot? (colder hot)
Get some for me (get sumfer me)

Time to talk

I hope this introductory article has given you some more specific things to think about for when you speak in an American accent, but also when you listen to an American accent. Take everything I’ve just talked about and use it the next time you watch an American film or television show. What do you notice about that actor’s R’s? How about that actor’s oral posture? What about that actor’s pitch and word emphasis? How are they different to you? Repeat these things as you hear them, feel them in your mouth and your body. Feel their unfamiliarity, and find a place where they can feel familiar (building your voice in the accent)

Now be bold, pick up a random piece of text and start to read it in your best American accent. Do not be afraid to fail. Discover words you’re unsure of. Start to try to discover what it is about those words which are tripping you up. Is it the spelling? The syllabic emphasis? Is there an R involved? Could it be to do with the words on either side of it?

BE CURIOUS.

I’ll end with something I also often tell my students: the safest place to practice your accent is in public.

Yes, truly. No one is going to question what you present yourself as – unless of course they’ve met you before or know you well!

Be brave and bold, and experience. And if you need to, contact a professional coach. We’re here to help!

The post American Accent Guide appeared first on StageMilk.

Let’s start by talking about the foundations. Accent work is to voice as a type of gait is to movement. It’s all the same bread with a different brand of butter. So before you start freaking out on perfectly rolling your R’s, make sure you have a solid base to work from. Without good vocal technique to support your accent work, you have zero chance of impressing anyone.

Impressing someone in an audition is a tough thing to do, which is why many audition guides suggest you throw in something that’s left-of-field, and unexpected. A fully mastered accent is never going to catch anyone by surprise. Best case scenario, they think you grew up there. It’s more like a tidbit of pleasantry. By no means does this encourage you to do a bad accent just to get some attention. There’s a reason Tommy Wiseau was never cast by anyone other than himself.

So in the ‘Yes, you have to master the accent’ camp, we have the coveted American accent. If you are a native English speaker, especially if you have no other languages under your belt, then you really have no excuse but to have this one mastered. There are too many resources online, free, premium, courses, etc. for you to have any excuse. The majority of plays you will perform using an accent will be either American or British, and the General American accent is so widely accepted that you must be fluent in it. British is a little more lenient, because outside of the classics to be performed in Received Pronounciation, you really should be using a regional accent. But General American? Get onto it. For Americans, you will expand your opportunities when you tone down a specific accent, and for anyone hailing from outside the US, it’s a prerequisite for an international film and television career. Unless you are staunchly opposed to ever acting in anything outside of your state, General American mastery is a priority.

And now for the ‘Don’t worry about it’ argument. This is focussed on the important stuff, which is that acting comes first. Casting directors have a few non-negotiable when they head into a project, and if you tick those boxes for them, they will happily forgo a polished accent. If you give them an amazing performance, filled with passion, listening, vulnerability, and nuance, then you’re iffy vowels are hardly going to lose you the role. This only works if you are the perfect fit in every other sense as well, but if you aren’t, well, you wouldn’t land the job no matter how well you may have mastered the accent.

To wrap up this fence-sitting response, the accent alone is never going to win you the role, nor will it necessarily lose you the role. Depending on the time frame between auditioning and shooting, the budget of the production, the importance of the accent in the thematic content, and on the strength of your foundations as an actor, (in all these cases, shorter/smaller/less means your accent needs to be more refined) make your own decisions as to how much time you dedicate to accent work, and how much time you dedicate to the rest of your preparation.

The post Do you have to master an accent for the first audition? appeared first on StageMilk.

With reckless disregard for peripheral derision, I am a huge Matthew McConaughey fan. His charm switch seemingly has no “off” position and his films provide little diminishing returns for me. Any motions to re-watch How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, The Lincoln Lawyer and Dallas Buyer’s Club will receive my vote of approval. His screen presence conjures a man able to calibrate the front-end alignment of his Lincoln Navigator while extolling the virtues of Thoreau in French to a beautiful Parisian debutante. When I watch him, I wonder, is there anything this embodiment of all that is Man can’t do? Could the McConnaisance include him playing even the most iconic roles? Even, dare I say it… James Bond?

On second thought, maybe not.

Hollywood movie studios are more than willing, to the point of preference, to hire foreign actors to portray American cultural icons. Batman, Superman, and Spiderman have recently been played by British actors. Rare are the films that feature Americans in prominent roles with foreign accents. It’s hard to imagine Downton Abbey played exclusively by Americans, but the film Selma featuring British actors portraying Martin Luther King, Jr, President Johnson, Coretta Scott King and George Wallace is hardly questioned. Are studios, producers and directors so unwilling to trust Americans with anything outside of an American role? The answer presumes to be a resounding yes. Have you seen Matthew McConaughey in anything that didn’t, if not explicitly require, grant him license to speak as a good ole country boy? Why is it fine for Christian Bale to be Batman but not Alright Alright Alright for McConaughey to be Bond?

I would posit that the deluge of Brits, the Irish and Aussies to the American acting market doesn’t suggest a shortage of great American actors, but is an indicator that actors abroad are far more comfortable with accents than Americans. Accent work, perhaps a small tool in the proverbial actor’s toolbox, demonstrates a larger schism in acting paradigms. I think the comparative lack of emphasis in accent work in the United States is a byproduct of an endemic approach to acting that, like phylloxera to grape vines, has pervaded American acting theory in the past few decades and needs reexamination.

I’ll reflect on my own experiences with both approaches. I studied for a summer at Guildhall School of Music and Drama for a course that required no audition for admission, simply sign up and come out. It was one of the most glorious, enriching ventures of my life. To say I was a novice would have been a gross understatement. Each new concept was novel and fresh; I breathed everything in. Our classes spread the gamut, from Voice lessons to stage combat to mask to improv. We devised theatre and did ensemble work and monologue workshops. Simon Russell Beale came and spoke. I had never heard of him prior and he became my new acting hero.

I returned to Los Angeles inspired. I began taking classes weekly and reading every reputed acting book in the canon – names such as Stella Adler, Uta Hagen, Stanislavski. I studied Meisner and took scene study classes. Los Angeles doesn’t lack acting teachers or classes and I made use of all I could find and afford. What did I discover? Actors and acting teachers had cultivated an atmosphere of personal reflection and personal truth. Classes were emotional and probed the psyche and anyone who had an teary-eyed breakdown in a scene was lauded for their “breakthrough.” In the spirit of Marlon Brando and Monty Clift and James Dean we wanted the Truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help us God. I adopted that mantra and subsequently applied to a British conservatory in the hopes of discovering the elixir that married emotional truth and conservatory technique that made the Brits so damn good (ie successful). I was greatly disappointed after being accepted into the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School to find that emotional truth was considered a personal journey and was not taught or hardly even examined throughout my tenure of study there. But I want to cry!!

While I may never had been prodded or provoked to teary-eyed emotional catharsis, I was required to investigate and play numerous accents, including Scottish, Received Pronunciation and English West Country. Which brings us to lynchpin of my theory: accent work is pivotal to the development of an actor’s technique and imagination. Like playing an instrument affects parts of the brain for a child that stimulates learning in other subjects, accent work requires exploration and elevates the quality of the actor. The culture of American acting teaches that emotional truth to the individual is paramount. Never mind the story or the actor’s role in it, but the emotional truth is the only way to be fully present on a screen or a stage. This must influence the collective American reluctance to work in accents, “truths” we are all, by nature, foreign to. Whereas the actors of British, Irish, Australian and even Canadian descent esteem both breadth and depth, Americans generally esteem the latter exclusively and dare I say to our detriment. Irishman Michael Fassbender has played a sex-crazed New Yorker, vitriolic Southern slave owner, and now graces the screen as the iconic Californian Steve Jobs, all performances we accept and praise and never was his accent in question. Could we expect any American to play such disparate voices? Which young American actor could fulfil not only the acting duties of such high-profile films but do it in, let’s say, Cockney, Liverpudlian, South African and then Northern Irish accents? Is there a film that Daniel Day-Lewis ever does that doesn’t require him to learn a new accent?

There are always exceptions and American women seem to be much more adept than their male counterparts at applying accent work. Meryl Streep, usually mentioned as the exception, won an Academy Award for her portrayal of former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Renee Zellweger was praised for her turn as Bridget Jones. Anne Hathaway deserves credit for insisting on a British accent, to varying degrees of success. However the exceptions highlight and emphasize the rule – Americans prefer to keep their acting choices homebound.

American acting theory beats actors into the submission of “emotional truth,” stripping without prejudice both unhealthy acting habits and healthy imaginative appetites. Americans are cautioned in the acting game, not encouraged. The actor’s raison d’être should be the collective promotion of the story, not expressing the caprice of an actor in the exact moment they just so happen to be on a stage/on a screen. If we as actors are constantly being told that every foot forward is false, then we will hesitate to make the journey at all. The much lauded Marlon Brando is an icon of the film world for his truthful portrayals, and rightly so. But perhaps it’s better for actors to idolize Bond rather than Brando… at least you have the chance of being cast as 007.

Outside the American acting world, the onus is on the word “play.” Commitment to accent work is a indicator of what an actor values. We should dare to be exceptional, which requires risk. If it is incumbent on casting directors to cast you in what you most closely represent, than why not play along the way? Dare to do a different accent. Dare to play a character older/younger than you. The King Lears of yesteryear were played by 40 year olds. Dare to dig deep, but also dare to stretch wide. When Americans start attempting roles that require learning accents, then maybe we’ll start getting roles at home that don’t.

The post Why Accents are Important for Actors appeared first on StageMilk.

Having a strong general american accent is non-negotiable as an actor. It is the most important accent to master. Even if you’re based outside of America, in this interconnected world, you will frequently be auditioning for american TV Shows, Films and Pilots throughout your career. Aside from the rare audition that requires a Southern, or New York accent, General American is the go to accent for all US auditions.

Learning an Accent

Listen and practice. I have outlined some basic principles and ideas below to help you master the General American accent, but an intellectual understanding of an accent isn’t enough; You have to use your ears. Listen to the accent as much as possible, and practice the accent as wherever you can. You need to feel comfortable and relaxed when using an accent for it to be believable.

General American Accent Rules

Consonants

Consonants are all sounds other than vowel sounds (a/e/i/o/u).  Consonants shape your words and give them meaning.

The general American accent is rhotic, which means within the accent you pronounce the ‘R’ sound. The rule with General American is to only say the ‘R’ only when it’s written in the spelling. So when you get a new script, the first thing I recommend doing is getting a pencil and marking every single ‘r’ that is in the script. If you are coming form a non-rhotic accent, it will seem unusual at first, but you will get used to it.

Dark L sound. General American also has a more pronounced ‘L’ sound known as a dark L. It sounds like an (UL) sound, but it’s easiest to think of it as just being a more pronounced sound. would also mark the L’s in your script, as you can easily forget this rule.

Vowels/Placement

Americans love to speak. They are active and passionate people and this comes across in their accent. The lips are very active and really shape the words, and the jaw is open and loose. If your natural accent is Australian you will find this to be a big shift as the Australian accent has little expression in the lips and uses a wide mouth.

West coast Americans use pitch, not stress, to emphasis a point. They have a lot of color in their accent and don’t just shout important words.

Learning the mouth feel of the general american accent will help you generate authentic vowel sounds without having to learn the phonetic table.

Tip: Feel a small yawn in the back of your mouth when talking.

Common Mistakes

Th sound. Some people turn this into a ’T’ sound, but ‘ Th’ remains normal.

Adding unnecessary ‘R’ sounds. Remember you only voice the R’s that are in the spelling. It’s not AmericaR.

Don’t go mad searching for youtube videos as accent examples. Look at the resources section at the bottom for some good resources. There is a lot of bad stuff out there.

Tips

The general american accent is probably very different to your natural accent, so make sure you warm up before an audition or performance. Lip exercises and jaw release exercises are the most important. Check this page out for a whole array of vocal warm ups

Create a one line accent key. Find a line of text with all of the general american sounds in it. Before you say any new text, repeat your accent key a couple of times to get you into the accent. I use “With you, I’m like a rock in a river. You move around me, easy and slow.”

Getting the attitude of an accent can often be more important than getting the sounds right. Watch how the Americans speak and use their bodies, as well as their voices.

Resources.

IDEA: International Dialects of English Archive. (General American Accent) 

This is a brilliant site that has tonnes of voice recordings of accents. All the voice recordings include an interview and a recording of Comma Gets a Cure, which is a piece of text that uses all vowel sounds and consonants.

People to listen to.

Warren Buffet has a good General American Accent.

Kevin Spacey also has a fantastic voice. It is very individual, but the rough sound is a good general American example.

Got any General American Accent tips. Please share your tips, tricks and suggestions in the comments below:

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