Actor-specific vocal pedagogy and rehabilitation therapy

4 INTRODUCTION For years, medical literature, especially otorhinolaryngology, with reference to the vocal production disorders, has showed great scientific interest in the pedagogical manifestations of the larynx, particularly focusing on vocal chords, in order to develop the best therapeutic treatments. Only in the last decade however, owing to the forming of recent phoniatric and logopedic culture, researches have turned their attention to voice as a comprehensive psychosocial phenomenon. Both the behavior of the anatomical structures making up the pneumophonic system and a concept of voice as an important means of communication, with all its obvious relational and emotional implications, have accordingly gained specific and particular value. These two aspects are indeed underlined in the artistic use of voice, which is usually intensely strained in acting as in singing. Researches carried out in this field have recently revealed that, though they’re able to stand demanding works, actors are not effectively and technically trained to face artistic vocal performances properly. They’re taught about the prosodic interpretation of the various works, but not about the techniques for vocal support. In acting schools, teachers are often actors who, in turn, didn’t receive appropriate vocal training; they contribute in giving empirical suggestions based on their personal experience through which the student is guided towards artistic interpretation but not towards a proper use of vocal function. The actor training process is therefore circumscribed to the teaching of adequate phonemic articulation, known in theatre jargon as diction. Actors are moreover aware of the necessity of reaching the last rows of the theatre through high vocal intensity and feel the need to modulate volumetric, timbric and tonal variations properly, but they have no knowledge of the specific respiratory and support techniques required to reach this aim. In recent years, phoniatrics and logopedia have reached a turning point which does not only aim at a therapy for dysphonias but also at a real pedagogy for professional voices, through the use of vocal hygiene criteria and training methods to satisfy everyone’s specific phonatory needs in different (even if not any) spectacular situations.