PAZ, Miqaella T.

2013-72030

Theatre 111 WVW

Prof. Banaue Miclat Janssen

What new lesson did you learn about your voice this semester? How do you intend to use your voice now
towards the future?
At this point, I have learned that to successfully deliver my message to an audience, I must learn how to
play with my voice well. Attire, face make-up, and lighting are still important things that greatly affect my
performance as a communicator. But what would make the people really feel, decipher, and connect to the
message that I am trying to get across is my voice. So it would be wise to focus on how I use my voice for a
particular message I am delivering.
One of the ways by which I have learned to play with my voice is being aware of the resonators I use.
For a long time, I used my voice to its medium capacity. The only direction where I can see my voice going is
forward. I have always come to believe that a great performer is the one who has a loud and audible voice such
that she can be heard by a person 10 meters away from where she is standing. Now, it refreshes me to know that
I can successfully deliver different kinds of messages just by using the different resonators I am aware I have. I
can tell a story of a vixen seductress who gets what she wants but does not let anyone get anything from her by
combining my upper and chest resonators. On the opposite, I can portray a strong willed virgin woman fighting
for what she believes is right by focusing more on my chest resonators. At the extreme, I can be a cute fairy who
always believes in happy and glittery moments by using a mix of my head tone and mass. Through these I have
learned that my mouth is not alone. It is not the only instrument involved in being an effective performer. I have
my whole body. I could have gotten even further from my medium capacity back then if only I learned how to
use the other parts of my body to strengthen the capacity of my voice.
Breathing is another technique that I always knew would help me as a performer but never knew how to
properly do. I knew that the act of inhaling air and exhaling it would help alleviate nervousness but I never fully
knew that there is an art to it. This time, I make it a point to not merely breathe through my nose and out
through my mouth as if I can only feel air strictly to those places, but to also to breathe all the way down
enough for me to feel my feet on the ground. In that way, I am aware of my body. I am aware that I can use each
of my parts to their maximum potential for me to be able to improve the quality of my voice in a performance.
Most of my experiences in performing would always involve breathing only before and after performances.
During the performance itself, I am not anymore aware whether I am still continuously breathing. This is

probably one of the reasons I have the occasional habit of relying on ad libs whenever I forget lines and piyok
oratorically and musically.
With all of my newly-found techniques, I know that I can better aspire to become an effective radio
person. When it comes to radio, doing radio dramas is one of my favorite production fields. And to be able to
produce a successful drama that impacts the audience, the voice actors must be fully aware of the tools they
have in their bodies to adapt the quality of their voice according to the demands of the script. But more than the
actors being aware of this information, the director and the producer as well should be equipped with the same
kind of knowledge themselves so that she can direct the actors well. As a director, I would always have a
difficult time directing because when I deliver instructions to actors, it would be vague most of the time, leaving
the deciphering up to the actors. I am offering no techniques and instructions that really help them. And this
decreases my confidence in directing which would result to me getting a bit anxious when it is my time to
direct. I know that the problem with me is that whenever I direct, I merely reinforce what the actors are really
supposed to do in the first place which is to internalize. My job as the director is to give the intention that I want
and to give concrete techniques to the actors that would immediately help them improve voice quality and thus
there performance. This is the job I should be doing. I know that with the knowledge I gained in this class, I
can be significantly more confident to use my voice not just as a talent this time, but also as a director and a
producer.
As a person whose passion is to perform and to perform well and relevantly, I am thankful for classes
like this. Specifically to Theatre 111, I saw many things that I never saw or must have overlooked at some point.
I learned how to breathe and use my body wisely. I learned the full potential of my voice. I love it when I learn
things in a straightforward manner especially when professors lay down to me concrete tools on how I can
improve myself and then let me hand pick the tools myself afterwards. But most importantly, I became even
more confident that there is a best to my best and that my improvements can go even further to that by
accepting that the full potential of my voice has not been achieved yet but it can be possible. Thank you, Maam
Banaue, for letting me see that everything is a process and that I should never give up on improving myself to
the best of my capabilities. I am a Broadcast Communication major and I want to be a writer of different
productions. But aside from that, I still want to pursue a career on theatre and film as a performer. And as I have
said in my previous paper, I know I still have a long way to go. But nonetheless, at least I know in myself that I
can go as far as I want.