The four pillars of learning an accent

Actors, did you know there’s more to accents than just pronunciation?

These are the four areas to consider when approaching any accent.

Cultural context.

Accents are affected by so much more than just where we’re from. Otherwise, we would sound exactly like everyone else from our home city.

Who we are affects how we sound. So when you’re picking an accent for a particular
character, you need to start with cultural context.

Pronunciation.

This one is obvious. Different accents pronounce certain words differently. What you might not know is that within those pronunciation differences are specific patterns and specific physical actions that you can take to make those pronunciation shifts.

If you know what patterns to look for and all of the physical possibilities that are available to you, then you can make those pronunciation shifts with ease and confidence.

Musicality

This includes features like tempo, volume and pitch. Even articulation affects how accents sound.

And guess what? Different accents have different patterns for how these musical features are used.

Posture.

Posture is the home base of your articulators. For example if you were to hold your jaw really close as you speak, then you have a very different tone focus than if you were to really drop my jaw.

Each accent has its own posture.

And by the way, if you notice that when attempting one accent, you tend to slip into another, that’s probably a posture issue.

You want to learn more? Don’t wait any longer, sign up for our 8-week embodied accent courses with Ryan O’Shea @voiceandspeechwithryan and Helena Walsh using Knight-Thompson Speechwork today and get ready to dominate the acting scene with your new accent skills. Let’s make accents your superpower!

https://www.helenawalshempowermentstudios.com/artofaccents

P.S. Shout-out to @ktspeechwork for defining and honing the four pillars of Accents (Cultural Context, Posture, Pronunciation, and Musicality)!