Kate's Voice

Dressing up in a costume on Halloween is great fun!  Sometimes, a costume requires a vocal disguise as well.  There are three basic ways that most people try to disguise their voice.  They lower their voice or raise the pitch of their voice, or try an accent.

I recommend another method which is far more effective.  For this technique, you have to change your mind.  Here’s what I recommend:

1. Know your intention…what you want to sound like, a particular attitude you want to convey, or an emotion. Study your character and imagine what it feels like to be them.

2. Align that with your content, which is what you want to say.  Perhaps your character has some signature phrases that he/she uses.  Learn them.  You actually don’t need to say much.  You can give an impression of your character with only a word or two.

4.  Speak, keeping these two things in mind. It’s even better when you can hear your character speak in your mind as you speak out loud. This approach is an oversimplification of the Stanislavsky method of acting.

Finally, make sure that you keep your vocal health in mind when you disguise your voice.  Never speak too low or too high.  Rest your voice if you feel it getting tired.  And remember that too much candy just isn’t good for you!

For some great ideas on Halloween costumes that may also give you some fodder for vocal disguises, please click here.

When I memorize a piece of music or a talk, it doesn’t take long before I see the pages in my head.  I flip through them mentally as I go along.  I know this happens after repeated exposure to a written document.  In fact, I seem to remember all of my notes and scribbling, too.  I understand this as pattern memorization of a sort, which is why I was so excited to discover a pattern memorization tool that I can teach others.

About ten years ago, I came upon the “memory palace.”  This is an ancient technique for memorization used by orators in ancient Greece, and rediscovered by Mateo Ricci in the late 17^th century.  Ricci used the technique to make Catholicism memorable to the Chinese.  While you could argue that it didn’t work out so well for Ricci, still it’s a great tool and one that I find very helpful.  The basic approach is to create a mental picture of a familiar setting.  You “place” reminders of what you are trying to remember throughout the mental picture.  To recall your piece, you simply “walk” through your setting and what you need to remember is all there.

It’s a great technique, and its usefulness is probably related to why it seems to be easier to remember what you have to say if you create movements to go along with a talk, or blocking as in a dramatic piece. Do that, by the way, if you have trouble memorizing your talks.  Block your part so that you move on specific words or ideas.  That will help your memorization significantly.

Recently, I found a wonderful description of the Memory Palace technique and instructions for its use on the blog, Litemind, written by Luciano Passuello.  This blog, by the way, is  one of my new favs and I highly recommend it..  I used the technique and memorized the grocery list of 9 items that he gives as a practice piece in one attempt.  Check it out.

What do you do to memorize?  Please share your tips.

Here are some other articles for learning memorization techniques:

How to memorize anything, on the blog JohnPlace Online

Brain Imaging Identifies Best Memorization Strategies, on Science Daily

Using Memory Effectively, on the website Study Guides and Strategies