HOW DO I COACH ACCENTS?Sessions are usually 60 min long and can be organised in person or on Skype. I can do a one-off audition preparation or a course of sessions to comprehensively prepare for a role.
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During our sessions we will have a look at the different components that make up an accent to help you find your character. I will talk about the 4 pillars of accent work below:
People
Accent is part of identity and accent acquisition an act of imagination. In order to speak believably in an accent we need to imagine ourselves as someone who speaks that way. Listening to people speaking in that accent will help you get accustomed to their way of speaking. I will help you find audio material that you can listen to over and over for your practice.
Posture
This is the "home base" for the speech muscles (or articulators). Oral posture is something you must feel in your vocal tract. It is however useful to break down its constituent elements such as jaw height, general lip movement or tongue placement.
Pronunciation
With the help of lexical sets we will analyse the physicality and precise movements and shapes of the articulators for main vowels and consonants. We will practice these sounds in isolated words, sentences, texts and finally spontaneous speech.
Prosody
In other words, here, we will analyse the melody, pitch, rhythm and stress of your target accent. You will get familiar with syllable-timed languages (such as French, Italian, Polish, Spanish, Finnish or Icelandic), that give the impression of taking an approximately equal amount of time to speak each syllable and stress-timed languages (like English, Russian, Swedish, Dutch or German) giving the impression of taking an approximately equal amount of time between stressed syllables.
People
Accent is part of identity and accent acquisition an act of imagination. In order to speak believably in an accent we need to imagine ourselves as someone who speaks that way. Listening to people speaking in that accent will help you get accustomed to their way of speaking. I will help you find audio material that you can listen to over and over for your practice.
Posture
This is the "home base" for the speech muscles (or articulators). Oral posture is something you must feel in your vocal tract. It is however useful to break down its constituent elements such as jaw height, general lip movement or tongue placement.
Pronunciation
With the help of lexical sets we will analyse the physicality and precise movements and shapes of the articulators for main vowels and consonants. We will practice these sounds in isolated words, sentences, texts and finally spontaneous speech.
Prosody
In other words, here, we will analyse the melody, pitch, rhythm and stress of your target accent. You will get familiar with syllable-timed languages (such as French, Italian, Polish, Spanish, Finnish or Icelandic), that give the impression of taking an approximately equal amount of time to speak each syllable and stress-timed languages (like English, Russian, Swedish, Dutch or German) giving the impression of taking an approximately equal amount of time between stressed syllables.