Projecting your voice is extremely important when you are performing on stage. Actually, if you do not know properly project your voice, you may actually damage your vocal chords. These steps will show you easily project your voice when acting on the stage so you can easily be heard by the entire audience and still protect your voice.
Instructions
Projecting Your Voice for Stage Acting
1. Practice using the two different ways you can project your voice. Like singing, you can either speak with your chest (or throat) or with your diaphragm. Pay attention to how you create your voice when talking with your friends at dinner. You will be drawing the sound from your chest/throat area, which is the normal way of talking. However, when you are on stage, if you speak like this, the audience will have a difficult time understanding you.
2. Exercise your voice on a daily basis by using this following technique, which will show you use your diaphragm. Place your hands on your stomach, right where the center of your ribs meets your stomach. When you breathe in through your diaphragm, your chest should never move, but rather this area in your stomach should be doing all the work.
3. Take a deep, low breath and with a “Ha” sound use your diaphragm to release the air and sound. An example of this exercise is to breathe in through your diaphragm and then release each sound as follows, “Ha, Ha, Ha, Ha, Ha.” The sound should be short and powerful, but with no strain.
4. Rehearse talking from your diaphragm while going over your lines, which will help train you to use your diaphragm without having to think about it. Just like if you were singing, every breath should be supported by your diaphragm and thus when you speak loudly, you will be able to carry your voice across the entire auditorium.
5. Place your hands on your stomach, and while you are talking, you should feel your stomach moving inwards to support your voice. If not, then you need to continue practicing diaphragm breathing and speaking.
