Student Number: 2703035 Name: Oratile Pega

Voice Essay: NRG’S,

Breathing and Body
Alignment

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The voice is an extremely powerful tool; it is the medium through which we
communicate and interpret our opinions and feelings to those in the outer world
through tone and accent. For an actor, the voice is equally as vital as the body, and
how they operate together defines your power as an actor and performer. The voice
is an instrument, and like any instrument, it must be taken care of, and if used
wrongly, it may harm and even destroy the voice. Throughout the course this year,
we have learned about how to achieve optimal breathing and how to allow more
space in the body for air, we have learned about the three tonal NRG's: structural,
tonal, and consonant NRG's, which I will explain further in the essay, and finally, we
have learned about the different ways to prepare the voice and the body to make
space for air, which is important as a performer because there is a lot of movement
going on which can use Because the more you move, the more carbon dioxide you
need to release from your body, which is why we breathe quicker when carrying out
physical exercise. Practicing these techniques will help you to breathe in more air
into your body and allow you to perform better.

Several factors contribute to having proper voice skills. The first are the three vocal
NRGs, which are structural, tonal, and consonant. NRG is an acronym that stands
for energy and neural regenerative regeneration. (Lessac:2) Each NRG is designed
to increase your vocal ability and technique. The benefits of structural NRGs include
releasing tension in the neck, face, head, throat, and shoulders, as well as focusing
the voice forward on the hard palate to allow the tongue to operate and amplify the
sound and create more vibration, which can be accomplished by yawning as it
creates optimal space and shaping of the oral cavity for vowels. The feeling of
yawning raises the soft palate and causes the jaw to loosen, allowing forward
orientation and activating the cheek muscles. Structural NRG has really altered the
way I shape my jaw and face when speaking or singing. I noticed a lot of twitching in
the cheek area when working on this, which is from using muscles that I wasn't using
before when talking or singing. When I say "hello," for example, the cheek muscles
twitch, which is both an indication of muscular usage after a lengthy period of
inactivity and a sign of structural improvement.

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Second is the Tonal NRG. Tone is a synonym for resonance, and it explains and
conveys meaning in what you say as an actor. There are two forms of resonance:
direct (forced/conductive resonance) and indirect (sympathetic/free resonance), with
the main difference being that one forces the resonator to vibrate while the other
does not. Vibrations move through the bone, muscle, and tissue of the body in direct
resonance. When vibrations travel through the air, this is referred to as indirect
resonance. When researching Tone and how to increase it, use the Y-buzz. The Y-
buzz is thought to aid in the establishment of the vibratory basis for bone-conducted
tone in singing and speaking. (Matthys:2020) By sustaining the Y-buzz for an
extended period of time, the voice was automatically put to the front of the hard
palate, right below the front teeth, where it vibrates most effectively. +Y buzz
continues to sing "yeee..." every now and then adds a little ping of "yey" for a brief
second, which you can feel in the nasal bone and spreading into the forehead.

The NRG has several advantages, but the main ones are intelligibility, clarity,
sustained tone colours, diversity, rhythm, and meaning. (Matthys:2020) This is vital
as an actor since all we see and hear on stage is an actor and the actor's body,
which are the two main tools utilized to transmit meaning in the play. Consonants
can be voiced or unvoiced. voiced consonants being those that can be sustained
and contain vibration, such as N, E, M, and unvoiced consonants being those that
cannot be sustained and just contain breath, such as B, K, T, and so on. Tasting
(playing with consonants on one pitch and sustaining it), Music Making (carries the
initial vibration and identifies the quality to the qualities) and Communicating (using
the identifying sensations and pitches to words and sentences) are the first three
steps in communicating. 2020 (G. Matthys)

From February to May we have worked on Improving the voice, body alignment and
breathing. At the beginning when breathing in I would usually lift my shoulders and
breathe with my chest which is firstly not making use of the entire body and secondly
not efficient especially as a performer and singer. When breathing you should feel it
all over the torso including the lower back which in the beginning for me very subtle
but over time, because the exercises and warmups done in class, I can feel the

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difference and really feel the air feeling that space that I never used before. Another
one that I struggled with was body alignment and having good posture. This was
particularly hard because of the habitual patterns I have adopted from slouching
when working on my laptop or doing daily activities. Having bad body alignment can
affect your breathing and restrict air from filling your whole body which was also why
this was the very first thing we did because without good body alignment everything
else becomes irrelevant. The best way to align your body is by first placing your feet
firmly on the floor then imagine that there is a string that runs all the way through the
spine and exits at the end of the tailbone when gently pulls up towards the ceiling
keeping in mind that your knees are unlocked and slightly bent to help you be more
stable. You feel and instant change in your body and breathing just from this little
adjustment.

To conclude, the three vocal NRGs are each important in improving your vocal
capabilities as a performer. These three NRGs are Tonal, Structural and Consonant.
Tone conveys meaning in the voice and what one is saying, and solely focuses on
the use of the Y-Buzz and +Y-Buzz which helps to establish vibratory foundation in
the facial bones. Structural works on creating space in your mouth like a reverse
megaphone shape which can be achieved by yawning to give you the shape that is
needed. And lastly Consonant is about giving clarity to what you are saying and
identifying the consonants which are voiced or unvoiced and ones that are cognates,
which are the consonants that are the same mechanically wise, but the only
difference is one is voiced (made with vibration) and the other is unvoiced (made
with breath/air). Also identifying the percussive consonants and the sustainable
consonants. I touched on the importance of breathing and body alignment and how it
challenged me at beginning to adjust because of all the negative habitual patterns
my body is used to as well as my improvement thus far and how it helped my
breathing my performing.

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REFERENCES:

Munro, M. (no date) The vocal nrgs, The Lessac Training and Research Institute®. Available
at: https://www.lessacinstitute.org/vocalnrgs (Accessed: 17 June 2023).

Tiwari , M. (2012) Home - PMC - NCBI, National Center for Biotechnology Information.
Available at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/ (Accessed: 17 June 2023).

Scivetti, A.R. (2019) Viva Voice: The power of the human voice, Vivavoice. Available at:
https://www.vivavoice.uk/the-power-of-the-human-voice#:~:text=It%20translates
%20feelings%2C%20emotions%2C%20through,an%20audible%20or%20musical
%20tone (Accessed: 17 June 2023).

Matthys, G. (2023) Consonant NRG, Sign in to your account. Available at:

https://ulwazi.wits.ac.za/courses/48032/files/folder/3.%20Voice/Consonant%20NRG?
preview=4937548 (Accessed: 17 June 2023).

Matthys, G. (2023) Tonal NRG pt1, Sign in to your account. Available at:
https://ulwazi.wits.ac.za/courses/48032/files/folder/3.%20Voice/Consonant%20NRG?
preview=4937548 (Accessed: 17 June 2023).

Matthys, G. (2023) Tonal NRG pt2, Sign in to your account. Available at:
https://ulwazi.wits.ac.za/courses/48032/files/folder/3.%20Voice/Consonant%20NRG?
preview=4937548 (Accessed: 17 June 2023).

Matthys, G. (2023) Structural NRG, Sign in to your account. Available at:

https://ulwazi.wits.ac.za/courses/48032/files/folder/3.%20Voice/Consonant%20NRG?
preview=4937548 (Accessed: 17 June 2023).

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