You may be onstage giving the performance of a lifetime, but it’s all for nothing if you can’t be heard properly by the audience. This is where projection comes in.
Voice projection is using your voice loudly and clearly, which can be a challenge if you’re in a large theatre. Essentially, it’s the skill that ensures that even someone sitting at the back of a theatre auditorium can hear every word you’re saying.
Projecting safely is a skill. Vocal coach Liz Flint, who has worked with actors in the West End and at organisations including the National Theatre and Royal Shakespeare Company, says good projection does not simply mean “turning up the volume” of the voice.
“Healthy projection is about getting the voice to travel through a space without making the vocal folds work harder than they need to,” she says. The vocal folds – often called vocal cords – are bands of muscle tissue that vibrate when air from the lungs flows past them, making sound. In a practical sense, vocal projection is about “breath [or] airflow, resonance, articulation, and intention all working together.”
Flint says projection is “allowing the voice to travel” rather than simply feeling as if you are “working harder.”
“The voice should feel free, flexible, and expressive,” she says. “If you finish a scene with an achy throat, feeling as though you’ve spent the whole time shouting at the back row, that’s probably not the right kind of projection. Your vocal folds have effectively been forced to work in conditions tantamount to a wind tunnel.”
What exactly is the difference between healthy projection and simply speaking louder – or shouting?
Flint describes good projection as “surprisingly effortless to listen to,” enabling the audience to hear every word without feeling as if the actor is shouting. On the other hand, speaking or singing louder without the necessary support and use of resonance and articulation means the actor is trying to push too much air through the vocal cords or squeezing the muscles too hard in order to produce a louder sound.
Poor vocal projection can lead to vocal injury or, for singers, a condition known as singer’s throat.
“The vocal folds are strong, but they have their limits,” Flint says, adding that simply pushing to speak or sing louder “is not only exhausting for the actor, but ultimately pointless.”
“I sometimes think of it as the difference between allowing the voice to flow, rather than pushing the voice,” she says. “If the actor is doing a lot of physical work to make the sound reach the back of the theatre, something probably needs looking at.”
The breath
Firstly, remember to breathe. “That doesn’t mean taking enormous breaths and filling yourself up like a balloon,” Flint cautions. “Actors can sometimes think they need huge amounts of air in order to project, when actually what they need is good, responsive, and, most importantly, efficient breath management.”
Many singers and actors find diaphragmatic breathing exercises, which focus on training the diaphragm, useful. That, in turn, helps singers build core strength. When people discuss speaking from the diaphragm, they mean using diaphragmatic breathing to power your speech.
Posture
Good posture – or alignment – is essential for healthy vocal projection, but “that doesn’t just mean standing up straight,” Flint says. “It’s more about giving the voice a body in which it has the freedom to work at its best. For example, if an actor is working with a posture where the head is poking forward, the jaw and tongue root will almost certainly be tight.”
Flint recommends actors find a way to “feel grounded and balanced, with enough space for the ribs, abdomen, tongue, and jaw to move freely.”
Try adopting a confident stance with your head tall, your shoulders back, your chest open, and your pelvis engaged.
Articulation
Articulation is the skill of making clear sounds with your speech, using your tongue, lips, jaw, and the hard and soft palate, which make up the roof of the mouth.
“Projection isn’t just about how much sound you produce; it’s about how much information actually reaches the audience,” Flint says. “If the consonants disappear, you can have a very powerful voice and still lose the audience.”
Some good exercises for articulation include working through some tongue-twisters, focusing on saying vowels and consonants, and warming up your mouth with exercises such as tongue trills.
Warming up
“Don’t wait until you’re in trouble to warm up,” warns Flint, who stresses that it is important to warm up before every show and warm down after in order to “give your voice the chance to reset before going to sleep.” Good vocal warm-ups “prepare the voice for the demands of the performance rather than tiring it out before you’ve even started.”
Performance space
Are you performing in a 50-seat fringe theatre or an auditorium with hundreds of people? Does your voice sound muffled when you speak or sing, or does it bounce back at you in a more echoey space?
It’s worth thinking about the space you’re performing in and adjusting your voice to the intricacies of that venue. A vocal coach can help you work on those details.
Amplification
It’s common for actors not to be amplified, but singers often use a mic to be heard above the accompanying music.
That adds a whole new dimension. If you’re going to be amplified, it’s worth working on your mic technique – such as considering the distance from the microphone to your mouth when singing – to ensure that you’re comfortable using the equipment.
One important thing to remember throughout all of this, Flint says, is that “projection shouldn’t come at the expense of intimacy.”
“An actor can have a voice that reaches the back of a theatre and still sounds as though they’re talking to another human being,” she says. “Gone are the days of just blasting the sound out to reach all corners of the rafters.”
