Product Description

This is a self-help manual for actors who want to train and develop their voice. Opening with advice on how to use the book and how to prepare our bodies, the author then takes us step-by-step through the constituent elements that make up the voice and the sounds we make with it. Each chapter starts with a brief introduction, then sets out the sequence of relevant exercises, accompanied by simple diagrams, and ends with a summary of what has been learned.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #8822 in Books
• Published on: 2002-07-25
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 270 pages

About the Author
Barbara Houseman has worked with the Royal Court, the RSC (where she was Resident Voice and Text Coach), and the Young Vic (where she was Associate Director). She has worked one-to-one with several well-known actors and alongside many well-known directors.

Customer Reviews

find your own voice
This is an excellent and rare book - a practical voice book that is anatomically correct and well-researched but written in a wholly approachable manner by a sensitive and highly experienced practitioner. It can be difficult to work on your own voice via a book but Barbara Houseman offers a step-by-step guide accompanied by helpful little illustrations. The book contains a trouble-shooting section and warmups and warmdowns for different situations. These are timed and cross-referenced back to the main
text. The lay-out is unusual - clear and fun with little boxes adding information or exercises. I am finding it immensely helpful and interesting.
I teach too and it is helping with my own voice use and understanding of thevoice. I imagine it would be useful to anyone who uses their voice in pursuit of their work - teachers, politicians, interviewers, business people etc as well as being invaluable to actors and performers.
I highly recommend it.

Learning to breathe again
This excellent book is full of great, easy to understand information and exercises to help you to find your voice. Although it's categorised as a book for actors, I think it would be of great help to anyone involved in public speaking or presentations, where using a greater range and depth to the voice is important. I came to it expecting to skip over the sections on the physiology of breathing, but found the whole thing fascinating. There's a good section at the end on troubleshooting voice problems - Voice too quiet, voice too loud, voice too shrill etc - maybe Margaret Thatcher had an advance copy? A practical book and a very entertaining read.

Simply wonderful.
This is a simply wonderful book - well written, straight forward, sensible and wise. The world is not exactly short of books on voice but this is like no other - as valuable theoretically as it is practically - and I urge you to buy it. In a nutshell this book makes sense and leaves the reader more knowledgeable, more confident and more secure. For those fortunate enough to have had the chance to work with Barbara Houseman this book reaffirms her position as the greatest voice coach in the country, for those who haven't it affords an invaluable opportunity to share in her wisdom and experience.