Wiki Page, Oklahoma High School- Drama/Theatre Course (OK Art Tech): 12.4 Elements of Voice

Wiki Page
2025-03-06T08:26:15-06:00

Elements of Voice

Introduction

Acting uses many aspects to communicate the story, setting, and characters. One of the most effective techniques in communicating character motivation is experimenting with the elements of voice. Explore these elements below to see how each one affects the character's mood and the audience's perception of a character.

We can manipulate five elements of our voice, and when we intentionally manipulate all of them, we practice vocal variety.

Elements of Voice

Volume: loud or quiet

Tempo: fast or slow

Pitch: high or low

Emphasis: heavy or light

Tone: emotional meaning

Definitions & Examples

We will break down each element of the voice, look at some examples, and do some practice. Read through the definitions and examples below by clicking on each tab with a word.

Volume

Tempo

Pitch

Emphasis

Tone

Volume is how loud or quiet the voice is. Actors control their volume using the muscles in their diaphragm, which is like a balloon that sits at the base of our chest.

Practice:

1. Place your hands on your stomach.

2. Take a deep breath, but instead of filling your lungs with air (which will cause your shoulders to rise), visualize the air filling your stomach. This is how we know our diaphragm is inflated.

3. Now, imagine you are slowly letting the air out of a balloon. Release the air in your stomach while humming. See how long you can draw out the hum.

4. Experiment with increasing and decreasing your volume.

Using our diaphragm allows us to increase our volume without shouting, which can damage the muscles in our throats.

Now, let us discuss tempo. Some situations cause us to speak at different rates. Think about when you are surprised, scared, or excited. Does the speed of your voice get faster? Likewise, the voice rate may increase if our characters are feeling or experiencing these things. If our characters are feeling sad or bored, the rate may decrease. Tempo is the speed or how slow or fast you can use your voice to talk.

Pitch is the highness and lowness of your voice. Intonation is a word related to pitch, which is how a speaker's voice goes up or down as they speak. Have you ever had a teacher who spoke at the same pitch (monotone) all the time? Were you interested in what the teacher was saying? Varying our pitch creates interest for a listener or an audience. It is even more important that we have pitch increases when asking questions.

All speech and language use a pitch pattern. Changing the intonation and stress in your voice conveys different meanings to the same phrase.

Watch the video below and follow along to practice using a pitch pattern.

Video: Vocal Exercise- Speaking #5: What's your Pitch Pattern?

Wellcome Collection. (2016, Jun 8). Vocal exercise - Speaking #5: What's your pitch pattern?. [Video] YouTube. https://youtu.be/3ZrUJ0BkBy0?si=bQPM2asSIhbuh4UK

Click on the button at the bottom of the video to access the closed captions.

Emphasis is when we use our voice to assign importance to certain words. To stress a word, an actor may increase their volume or use intonation to draw attention to it. Consider the sentence, "What are you doing here?" Depending on which word we emphasize, the meaning changes entirely.

Practice: Say each sentence and emphasize the bold word each time.

1. What are you doing here?

2. What are you doing here?

3. What are you doing here?

4. What are you doing here?

5. What are you doing here?

Tone refers to the emotion with which you speak. Has anyone ever said to you, "It is not what you said but how you said it?" They were referring to your tone. How would you say the following sentence with two different tones:

Grateful tone: "Thanks a lot, Mom!"

Sarcastic tone: "Thanks a lot, Mom!"

Guiding Questions

By yourself, or with a partner, answer the following questions before moving on to the next page.

1. What vocal elements do you use daily?

2. What elements of voice do you use when you're upset about something?