Voice Actor's Tip: Principles of Word Stress

[patrickrandall]

I thought I'd share the following, which I saw posted on Twitter by the actor Samuel West (Siegfried on PBS's All Creatures Great and Small). His mother is the actress Prunella Scales, well known as Sybil Fawlty from Fawlty Towers. She offers the following tips to students regarding word stress in voice work:


SOME PRINCIPLES OF STRESS IN SPOKEN ENGLISH

Observe these principles for the sake of (a) clarity, (b) variety and (c) speed. Ignore them, sometimes, for the sake of (a) sense and (b) character.


-- Assume that there is only one main stress in every grammatical sentence.
-- Stress nouns before adjectives, and verbs before adverbs. When in doubt, go for the noun.
-- Don't color 'color words': e.g. 'vibrant, 'brilliant, 'rolling, 'pomp', 'terror' etc. -- they have been deliberately chosen to work for themselves.
-- Don't stress negatives -- they should also work for themselves.

As someone who is inclined to over-stress words, I found these suggestions very practical, and helpful! I re-read them now, before each recording session as a reminder that less can often be more when it comes to word stress. (And as Basil Fawlty knows, Sybil is always right!)

Cheers!
Patrick

[lightcrystal]

I tend to be a bit more intuitive rather than looking at grammatically based word stress choices.

[daisycampion]

I think it's valid to be intuitive or to act with rules, but the rules needn't define your style, they can just improve the quality of your work. Thank you for the advice & for a reminder that grammatical rules don't help for everyone.

[sjmarky]

I think Ms. Scales gives excellent advice. It mirrors what I’ve heard from professional book narrators and coaches. And how can I possibly contradict Sybil Fawlty?